Forbes AI 50 dominated by healthcare startups
The news
For the third time, Forbes has released its annual AI 50 list, with the goal of finding startups that best leverage AI for purposes that are fundamental to their respective businesses.
Surprisingly, nearly one-fifth of the field works in healthcare:
- Atomwise (San Francisco), Genesis Therapeutics (Burlingame), Intelligencia (New York City) and Verge Genomics (San Francisco) work in the field of drug discovery.
- Ezra (New York City) wants to make cancer detection on MRI scans cheaper.
- Komodo Health (San Francisco) offers mass patient analytics.
- Nines (Palo Alto) wants to make teleradiology diagnostics more efficient.
- Viz.ai (San Francisco) uses AI to automatically detect strokes on CTA imaging, and
- Whisper (San Francisco) offers a new hearing assistance service.
Our perspective
Technological revolutions are followed by periods of adaptation: in the past, AI was considered a toy. Now it is changing workflows and professions. New and successful digital business models are a sign of the approval of established and mature technological infrastructures, and startups are a good proxy for the things to come. AI in healthcare is emerging as a remarkable capability.
The bigger picture
According to a recent report, the healthcare AI industry could be worth $21 billion by 2026. Whether startup, corporate, or government, today AI supports many decision-making processes and nearly 82% of medtech leaders have indicated AI to be integral to their business. And it is data-driven areas such as drug discovery that are benefiting massively from the increased interest.