Healthcare

In 2026, the question isn’t whether to use AI, but where and how to apply it to boost clinical trust and valuable outcomes. With over half of primary care practitioners experiencing sustained burnout, smart automation and human-AI collaboration are emerging to reduce administrative load and support care teams. 

From scheduling to research, agentic AI is already easing administrative workloads and clinician burnout. Early indications suggest the decrease in physical and psychological pressures is affording clinicians more stamina and more freedom to recharge away from call time. These early results are just the beginning of a much larger transformation. The benefits of agentic AI are about to compound: 

• The global healthcare market is expected to spend $111B on AI in 2030, soaring up from $22B in 2025. 

• 57% of US-based physicians say reducing administrative burden is their top AI use case. 

• 53% of healthcare organizations have adopted agentic AI or multi-agent workflows (e.g., coordinated AI tasks). 

• 64% of those organizations have discovered new ways of working and learning through agents. 

AI clinicians can trust

Leaders are learning that sustainable AI adoption depends on designing use cases and implementation with clinicians and administrative leaders. This approach lends transparency and transforms adoption into AI fluency. The challenge is implementing “AI with guardrails,” especially now that regulation is catching up to innovation. Regulators like the Office of the National Health Coordinator of IT (ONC) and US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) are quickly shaping ethical AI use, and by extension, provider and patient trust in AI augmented care. Against this backdrop, many organizations are still building the foundations required for responsible AI.

• 52% of healthcare organizations have centralized AI risk management.

• 54% have set up governance and ethical frameworks for AI use. 

• 50% have compliance, audit, and resilience planning in place for AI. 

AI has moved beyond pilots into enterprise-scale transformation with use cases like ambient listening in exam rooms to predictive analytics, claims automation, and care-gap closure. However, more than half of organizations still run the majority of their core systems on legacy technology. Even among those with active modernization programs, only 43% say they have the data foundations they need for responsible, scalable AI.

Organizations that modernize and pair AI’s capabilities with human-first design will earn a lasting advantage. This is the foundation for building trust with clinicians, so they view AI as a trusted teammate that gives them more time, energy, and insights for driving better decisions and delivering more connected care.

In 2026 and beyond, the opportunity is to reimagine “my data” as “our data.” Breakthroughs come from sharing data across disciplines, enterprises, and networks. No single organization can tackle healthcare’s toughest challenges alone.

Innovators are adopting interoperability standards, federated learning models, and data product architectures that allow organizations to share insights without exposing raw or proprietary data. The Trusted Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) is gaining traction, and organizations like the Cancer AI Alliance (CAIA) are leading the way.

The challenge is transforming fragmented data assets into governed, secure, and shareable intelligence. Building this future means investing in robust data foundations, smart governance, and technical infrastructure designed for secure collaboration. By linking cloud-scale platforms with privacy-first analytics and cross-organizational partnerships, organizations can unleash their data as an engine for discovery, care coordination, and true healthcare value—always with trust at the core.

Patients want healthcare and wellness to meet them wherever they are, not just in traditional clinical settings. Fragmented access, long wait times, rising costs, and inflexible scheduling have fueled demand for virtual, home-based, and retail care options. Patients expect and increasingly have access to information that empowers them to take ownership of their care. 

To respond, health systems are reimagining clinical workflows, care management, and staffing for a distributed care landscape. Virtual command centers, unified scheduling, AI-powered navigation, and remote monitoring are emerging as essential infrastructure. This transformative model, from building-bound to intelligence-powered, is being proven out with providers like Mayo Clinic’s Cancer Care Beyond Walls and Perelman School of Medicine’s ASCEND project.

The challenge is weaving these channels together so patient care feels coordinated, personalized, safe, and seamless rather than fragmented. By designing adaptive, hybrid ecosystems that connect operations, data, and workforce enablement, health systems can deliver high-quality care anywhere.  

Cracks in traditional access and pricing are expanding as social media and retail playbooks reset market standards for speed, choice, and trust in healthcare and self-care delivery. Patients are as likely to turn to #medtok as they are to primary care physicians for advice, care, and referrals. Convenience, direct-to-consumer (DTC), and personalized experiences go a long way in building preference, if not trust—even in moments as simple as sharing medical history. 

Most patients now prefer a personalized, hybrid approach to healthcare, starting with intake 

By 2028, the global wellness economy is expected to surge from $6.3T to nearly $9T. The shift in spending suggests patients don’t just want sick care that extends their lifespan. People also want holistic care, including mental health and self-care, that increases their healthspan. This is an opportunity to reimagine healthcare and use data to make products and services more valuable for patients—and more sustainable for organizations.  

This concept of radical wellness is a significant growth lever for the healthcare industry. It’s also central to building trust and loyalty as patients come to think of healthcare as a lifestyle, not interventionist service.  

Employers are thinking differently about what healthcare means, now, too, with coverage shifting upstream:  

• In 2024, 44% of US employers (500+ employees) covered weight-loss drugs, up from 41% in 2023. 

• 64% of large employers (20,000+ employees) covered weight-loss drugs, up from 56% in 2023. 

• 47% of US employers (500+ employees) increased fertility coverage, up from 43% in 2023. 

• New benefits like menopause care are emerging in employer healthcare plans.  

The opportunity for reducing friction, increasing impact, and driving value creation has never been greater. Especially since preventive care is widely underused (see Trend 6) by several cultural segments, despite their interest in developing resilience through mental healthcare, wellness services, wearables, and fitness. 

In response, healthcare leaders aren’t just prioritizing cost reduction. They’re also investing in capabilities that reshape how self-care as healthcare is delivered, scaled, and monetized.  

Ecosystem design is key to this transformation: Linking care, data, and patient experience will turn wellness from a cost center into a true growth engine. 

The challenge lies in aligning payer, provider, and consumer incentives to achieve shared well-being outcomes that may or may not expand into preventative care. Either way, it’s a path to sustainable growth where the race to advantage will be won through adaptability and trust, not just speed.  

In the face of insurance complexity, clinical backlogs, and a lack of clinical wellness products from traditional healthcare providers, healthy people and recovering patients are seeking more holistic healthcare and self-care. They’re looking for proactive, personalized products and services that extend beyond traditional sick care models (e.g., opting into subscription wellness programs, functional medicine and metabolic clinics, and employer benefits like high-deductible HSAs or FSAs). 

For healthcare organizations, growth will be unlocked by making proactive investments in wellness, prevention, mental health, and long-term healthcare planning—not just treating disease or acute events as they arise.