From Yahoo Finance: 2025-05-28 09:08:00

The U.S. healthcare system, with annual costs of around $5 trillion, faces challenges as expenses rise, the population ages, and workforce shortages persist. Investments in AI are seen as crucial, but the industry lacks resources and planning for digital advancements, lagging behind other sectors like banking and telecom.

UnitedHealth Group’s chief digital officer acknowledges the broken system and emphasizes the need for multiple players to fix it. The company, ranked fourth on the Fortune 500, is seeing productivity gains from its 1,000 AI use cases, including AI-written software code and customer interactions handled by AI chatbots.

Generative AI tools, like a consumer-facing conversational bot, are set to launch in UnitedHealthcare and Optum apps to improve customer experience. CEO Andrew Witty recently resigned, following a difficult period for UnitedHealth, including missed earnings expectations, a Justice Department probe into Medicare fraud, and a class-action lawsuit alleging AI claim denials.

UnitedHealth refutes claims of using AI to illegally deny claims, stating that AI plays a role in auto adjudicating around 90% of claims. The company is working to increase auto approval rates with new AI products while emphasizing the importance of AI safety, fairness, and legal compliance in decision-making processes.

UnitedHealth monitors its vast AI portfolio monthly, with quarterly reviews by CIOs to ensure responsible AI use across the enterprise. The company emphasizes that AI is a tool to aid rather than replace doctors and clinicians, with ongoing workforce training and cautious expansion of agentic AI technology for more complex tasks.

UnitedHealth has launched an AI learning course, United AI Studio platform, and agentic AI use cases for administrative tasks. The company plans to proceed cautiously with clinical use cases, emphasizing safety and human supervision in the development and deployment of AI technology.

Read more: UnitedHealth CTO says AI investments can help a health care system that needs to be fixed