Industry Watcher’s Digest

Buzzworthy developments of the past few days.

• Customer service augmentation is an every-industry AI application. It’s as relevant to, say, transportation as it is to healthcare. But it matters that travelers and shippers have very different service needs than patients. This goes without saying, but the point is important enough that a top business analyst feels it deserves spelling out. “You have to think about what is most relevant to your business context,” cautions Charlie Dai, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. He further warns against temptations to apply easy, one-size-fits-all thinking to AI adoption. Dai made the “universal vs. particulars” remarks at the Chief Digital & Data Officer Summit in Hong Kong this month. He also noted how little the challenges of enterprise AI—data siloes, sticker shock, Bring Your Own AI to Work—have changed over the past half-decade. There’s more from Dai’s talk at CDO Trends. 
   
• ‘Can’t anybody here play this game?’ The quote is from legendary baseball manager Casey Stengel, who famously spoke those words to his pitiful 1962 New York Mets. The line may as well have come from FDA Commissioner Robert Califf at the HLTH conference in Las Vegas this week. “I don’t know of a single health system in the U.S. that is capable of doing” proper AI validation, he told attendees. “If you want to know that your AI is actually doing what you thought it was doing, you actually need to validate it in the situation in which it’s being used.” MedCity News has coverage of the talk. Play ball. 
   
• Let’s not work at AI in healthcare like we’re 7-year-olds playing soccer. There’s another memorable quote coming out of the HLTH conference. This one is from Google AI senior research director Greg Corrado. With soccer kids, “everybody’s on the ball, and they’re all missing the bigger opportunity,” Corrado said to clarify the gentle scold. 
   
• Payers are still running ahead of providers in the AI arms race, but the laggers are determined to catch up. One more item from HLTH, this one via Healthcare Dive. “It’s still early innings, but I think the technology is actually going to go a long way to leveling that playing field, from a provider’s perspective,” said Amit Phull, chief physician experience officer for Doximity. Phull added that AI will soon enough give providers “a leg up” in claims disputes while also trimming the time it takes to do claims documentation. 
   
• The influence of AI on health-tech investments cannot be overstated. So say the investment experts at Bessemer Venture Partners. In a report on the state of healthcare technology released last week, the firm notes the share of health-tech dollars invested in AI-focused companies has increased by nine percentage points in just two years. “The valuations that some of these AI companies are commanding can range from two to five times higher than their non-AI counterparts,” the authors write. “These high valuation multiples showcase the private market excitement for new business models, market and technology category creation.” The report is available in full for free.
   
• At Harvard Medical School, they’re hitting medical students with AI early and often. For those on HMS’s health sciences and technology track, the training and education in healthcare AI starts with an introductory course and builds out from there, depending on the student’s chosen path. “We’re trying to teach not just knowledge but skills,” HMS dean for medical education Bernard Chang, MD, tells the Harvard Crimson. “Part of it is, yes, teaching about how AI works, how it is present in healthcare and how it might revolutionize healthcare. And part of it is, here are some problem sets. Do these coding examples. Write a paper with your group, present it, get feedback.” 
   
• Healthcare is up first as Nvidia and Microsoft start doing more to bolster global AI startups. Nvidia will supply selected companies with credits to run GPU-optimized AI models, preferred pricing on Nvidia AI Enterprise and a handful of other helps. Microsoft will give the same outfits Microsoft Azure credits, access to various AI models and entry into its Pegasus Program for go-to-market support. Details. 
   
• Foom. Prompt chaining. Stochastic parrot. Just a few terms about which I didn’t know diddly until I happened upon a new glossary with 48 bits of GenAI jargon that “everyone should know.” A big Thank You for That to the communicative techies at CNET. 
   
• Recent research in the news: 
   
  • University of Washington: Wearable cameras allow AI to detect medication errors
     
  • University of Hong Kong: Engineering team develops soft microelectronics technologies enabling wearable AI for digital health
     
  • University of Florida: People hate stories they think were written by AI. Even if people wrote them.
     
  • University of Houston: Engineers unveil AI model for predicting, controlling pandemic spread
     
  • University of North Carolina: Study: Robotic automation, AI will accelerate progress in science laboratories
     
  • University of Birmingham: AI-related maternal healthcare software improves odds of good care by 69%, research finds
     
• Funding news of note:
   
  • General Catalyst to invest $1B in healthcare companies
     
  • Infinitus Systems raises $51.5M to automate healthcare calls with AI  
     
  • Healthcare AI startup Tennr raises $37M to grow research and sales teams
     
  • Horizon Surgical raises $30M Series A for AI-enabled microsurgery robotics
     
  • Dyania Health pockets $10M to automate patient chart review with AI
     
• From AIin.Healthcare’s news partners:
   
  • Health Imaging: AI-based software improves follow-up imaging adherence by 74%
     
  • Radiology Business: RadNet subsidiary DeepHealth acquires another artificial intelligence firm