Your doctor may have an AI assistant taking notes during your next Zoom call

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Don’t worry if you notice your doctor doesn’t seem to be writing down anything you tell them during a Zoom video call anymore. Thanks to a new deal between Zoom and medical AI assistant creator Suki, there’s an AI assistant on top of things.

The two companies have agreed to embed Suki’s AI notetaker and administrative assistant into Zoom’s telehealth service. That means your doctor can focus on what you’re telling them without needing to split their attention by writing notes and possibly missing something you’ve said.

The Suki Platform already handles similar duties for almost a million healthcare clinicians in the U.S. but usually deploys for in-person appointments. The AI (with your permission) records your conversation with the doctor and then mines the transcript for important details and follow-up visit plans. After doctor approval and annotation, the notes are added to your electronic health record. Suki’s research shows that this kind of AI-based clinical notetaking can cut down the time doctors spend on paperwork by up to 70%, giving them more time and energy for actual care.

Zoom will augment its platform with Suki for appointments to do the same for telehealth visits. The only difference is that the AI will listen in during your Zoom call instead of from a recorder in the room with you and the doctor. That could be a big deal considering Zoom’s explosive growth in the healthcare industry during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

“With over almost 140,000 healthcare institutions globally using the Zoom platform, we feel a great responsibility to leverage the power of AI to drive employee productivity and enhance patient experiences,” Zoom chief product officer Smita Hashim said. “Working together with Suki to provide critical AI-generated clinical note functionality to Zoom Workplace for Clinicians will reduce documentation overhead for clinicians, allowing them to focus on patients.”

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Zoom’s interest in clinical AI assistance is not unique, of course. For instance, Microsoft recently debuted a new set of AI tools to handle administrative tasks for healthcare providers using the technology gained when it acquired Nuance. There’s also Amazon, which has brought its Bedrock AI-fueled tools like AWS HealthScribe to subsidiary One Medical. There are also plenty of smaller companies jockeying with Suki to provide clinical AI assistants, including Abridge and Notable.

That’s mostly in the background, though. Just know that when your doctor makes a lot of eye contact with you on your Zoom call, it doesn’t mean they have Netflix open in another window and they’re ignoring you. It actually means they’re paying more attention than they could before and will have help reminding them what you said if needed.

“AI is changing the way we interact with the world. Everything from how we communicate to how we use technology to how care is delivered will evolve. Video will be a critical interface in the AI-driven world,” Suki CEO Punit Soni said. “We are thrilled to work with Zoom to develop new interaction models and AI that will advance our mission of making healthcare technology invisible and assistive so clinicians can focus on what’s most important: their patients.”