Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios
AI scribes were the star of the show at ViVE 2025, but as the market crowds, differentiation is becoming increasingly important to survive.
Why it matters: Attendees agreed the market over-saturation is likely to lead to a massive consolidation.
Driving the news: At the conference, scribe giant Abridge announced a $250 million Series D — co-led by Elad Gil and IVP — at a reported valuation of $2.75 billion.
- "There are certain things on our road map that we need to be prepared minds on,"Abridge CEO Shiv Rao told Axios last December.
- "One of those things is around clinical decision support. We don't have that ... feature live today, but we're certainly doing the R&D to be able to deploy that in the future and respond," he said.
What they're saying: "The poster child for clinical AI tools is clearly ambient AI for outpatient offices, as it likely helps efficiency a little bit, although not as much as initially expected," Keycare CEO Lyle Berkowitz told Axios at ViVE.
- "As the technology gets commoditized and prices come down, the next question will be how the big money raisers grow into their valuations," he adds — predicting "one or two big winners" will own most of the market.
The big picture: AI scribes raised $800 million in 2024 alone, compared to $390 million in 2023, per PitchBook.
Between the lines: "I see the real excitement from the health systems but I feel like they're almost drowning in possibility," says David Atashroo, CMO of care automation company Qventus, which raised a $105 million Series D led by KKR.
Case in point: When Axios spoke to four major health systems, most reported using tools from just two providers: Abridge or Microsoft.
What's next: "It seems (AI scribes) will have to really own a lot more than documentation," says Berkowitz.
- "There will be a lot of attention this year on their ability to impact coding, decision support and other parts of the workflow that will get users to pay more."
