Strong vital signs: Healthcare and life sciences ready for AI innovation

From the lab to the clinic, the pulse of AI innovation is stronger than ever in the healthcare and life sciences sector fueled by new investments, consistent returns, and the emergence of AI agents. 

In 2024, healthcare and life sciences organizations embraced generative AI, progressing from pilots to real-world applications in record time. Now, in 2025, the industry is focused on building on these initial wins to generate even more value.

As we get ready for HLTH in Las Vegas next week, we’re releasing the results from our second-annual ROI of AI in healthcare & life sciences report. In addition, we’re also sharing how several healthcare organizations have already used generative AI to improve operations, help doctors and nurses provide better care, and to directly help patients get the support and care they need to live healthier lives. 

This year the ROI of AI report, commissioned by Google Cloud and conducted by National Research Group, confirms that gen AI initiatives continue to deliver, with 73% of healthcare and life sciences leaders reporting positive returns from their investments within the first year. The survey also revealed a new disruptive force accelerating the industry’s AI journeys: AI agents — tools using large language models (LLMs) to independently plan, reason, and perform tasks. 

1. AI agents chart new paths to empowering people. 

Across the industry, our survey revealed that AI agent use cases are generating significant ROI for organizations. In healthcare, tech support and patient experience (both 34%) lead the way while life sciences executives saw the biggest returns from product innovation and design (28%), marketing (27%), and automated document processing (26%). 

However, our research indicates that the most substantial opportunities for ROI are use cases focused on core functions. For healthcare, use cases in inventory tracking and restocking (22%), medical image recognition (22%), and patient screening and on-demand personal care (22%) are already having a clear, tangible impact in helping ease the administrative burden on healthcare providers and professionals. Likewise, the use cases specific to life sciences that stand out for showing ROI include medical image recognition (19%), inventory tracking and restocking (18%), and production planning (18%). 

A prime example of how AI agents are generating new value is Color Health Inc., which is known for its comprehensive cancer programs for large employers and payers, and work in public health programs. Color Health announced it built an agent called the Color Assistant in just four weeks for Breast Cancer Awareness Month to help more women get screened for breast cancer. The agent takes women through a guided risk assessment to determine mammogram eligibility before proactively connecting them to Color’s clinical experts for scheduling.

Ultimately, AI agents are unlocking new ROI, but their greatest potential impact will come from using them to reinvent how healthcare is delivered and improve patient care. 

2. Agentic AI is bridging the gap to value. 

AI agents combine the intelligence of advanced AI models with the ability to securely connect to enterprise data and other AI agents, enabling them to independently plan, reason, and execute complex tasks. These powerful capabilities are allowing organizations to go beyond simple automation to embedding AI into core processes. 

According to our survey, 44% of healthcare and life sciences executives reported their organizations are actively using AI agents in production, with 34% saying they have launched more than 10. These agents cover a broad spectrum of complexity, ranging from single-task agents, such as gen AI-powered digital assistants, to sophisticated, multi-agent systems that can take actions on the behalf of users — under their supervision. 

For instance, IKS Health announced it is building a multi-agent system, or platform, to automate high-frequency back-office tasks. The company already has several of these agents in production, including one that accelerates prior authorizations and another that uses ambient listening and interacts with Epic and other clinical data to help clinicians with documentation.

Notably, both healthcare and life sciences organizations are integrating AI agents into key business areas. In healthcare, the top use cases are in tech support (53%), security operations and cybersecurity (49%), productivity and research (46%), and patient experience (44%). Meanwhile, in life sciences, marketing (41%), tech support (41%), productivity and research (39%), and patient experience (38%) are the leading areas for AI agents. 

These findings indicate that healthcare and life science organizations are consistently incorporating agents into their operations, highlighting their effectiveness in achieving critical business objectives. Hackensack Meridian Health announced it has made deep integrations within its clinical systems, including clinical notes summarization agents that support 12 different specialties and agents that streamline administrative tasks such as patient follow-up and automated scheduling to help reduce hospital readmissions.

Furthermore, nearly half (46%) of respondents shared their organization plans to allocate at least 50% or more of their future AI budgets towards AI agents, underscoring agentic AI as the new strategic differentiator to improve how these organizations operate, advance patient care, and accelerate the process for finding and bringing new treatments to the market. 

3. Healthcare organizations elevate AI ambitions, and tackle more complex use cases. 

Gen AI continues to deliver compounding returns across the healthcare and life sciences industry, with the large majority of executives reporting gen AI has resulted in meaningful impact to productivity (72%), patient experience (61%), and business growth (52%), as well as robust value-add toward marketing (49%) and security (46%). 

While our survey revealed slight declines in gains across these key areas compared to last year, this trend reflects a maturing landscape, rather than a retreat. Organizations are moving beyond readily available improvements to tackling more complex use cases, such as drug discovery or deeper integrations with clinical and research systems, which may take longer to show widespread impact. 

This shift is evident in the work of Castor, a life sciences health-tech company, which announced its adoption of Google Cloud’s gen AI to build “self-driving clinical trials” that automate the most labor intensive and error-prone aspects of clinical research. The aim is to drastically reduce the time and cost required to bring new drugs to market.

Next week at HLTH, multiple startups working with Google Cloud will showcase how they are transforming health with cutting-edge technology. For example, Collective Health will share how it's simplifying the member healthcare journey, and Azra AI will show how it's accelerating the identification of cancer patients. Additionally, GlucoSense will present new ways to monitor health data, Model Medicine will highlight advancements in drug discovery, and Deep Apple will show how it's using AI to accelerate small molecule drug discovery.

4. Strong privacy and data foundations are the bedrock for AI success.

For healthcare and life sciences organizations, upholding robust data security is paramount. The critical need to protect patient data, intellectual property, and proprietary research, coupled with a complex regulatory landscape, makes it top concern. 

Even as the industry pushes ahead with embracing AI, leaders are placing data privacy and security at the forefront of their decision-making processes: 37% of executives indicated it’s their top consideration when choosing an LLM provider, followed by costs (30%), and ease of use and deployment (27%). These priorities underscore the inherent challenges of innovating in highly regulated environments, emphasizing the necessity for strong governance and strong protocols from the start. 

Looking forward

The era of AI agents has arrived, redefining the way healthcare and life sciences organizations operate and serve their patients and customers. As gen AI continues to mature, the critical advantage will go to those prepared to harness these powerful capabilities and continue scaling their AI initiatives for maximum impact. 

Visit the Google booth at HLTH next week for demos of the technologies enabling these transformations, download the full report, “The ROI of AI in healthcare and life sciences” to explore all our latest insights and findings, and visit the Google Cloud Press Corner for more on the healthcare advancements shared in this blog.