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Silicon Valley won't replace your doctor — just the front desk.

The big picture: VCs still see admin work as the smartest health care AI play, investors said at HLTH 2025 in Las Vegas.

What they're saying: "I will make a slight argument in favor of replacing some people in the system," Northzone partner Wendy Xiao said during an Axios Pro-moderated panel.

"This is unfortunately a $4 trillion market, and a third of it goes to administration," she added.

"Fundamentally, our thesis is that AI will never replace a clinician," said NEA partner Blake Wu. "[But] there are folks who are probably comfortable with at least the first interaction ... being AI-directed or AI native."

Case in point: Capital is flowing into voice AI agents.

"If you, in theory, have AI doing the administrative work, there's not as much potential for friction. All they do is exchange data," said Emerson Collective managing director Fern Mandelbaum.

Friction point: Insurers are increasingly using AI for tasks like prior authorization, often yielding more denials while preventing access to care. As federal and state regulators heighten scrutiny, VCs are taking note.

"We will never invest in a technology that is denying care to patients," Wu said. NEA put $20 million into prior authorization startup Anterior at a $95 million post-money valuation last year.

While Anterior is "focused on medical assessment review," Wu said the firm and Anterior "refuse to focus on [denying claims] as a new space."

"We will not invest in [startups] trying to deny people [care]," Xiao echoed.

Reality check: It's unclear how investors are ensuring their portfolio companies aren't using algorithms that disproportionately deny health claims.

Plus, the efficiency argument is a compelling one, Mandelbaum said.

"Let's say two prior auth networks [are] battling it out on [eligibility]," Mandelbaum says. "It'll take them a millisecond, versus a huge group of people calling each other back and forth, fetching documentation."

What's next: Chatbots acting as a health concierge or patient advocate have emerged as a new frontier.

AI has potential to replace "the behavior of [patients] Googling their symptoms, which is a huge health care use case that's not being addressed," Mandelbaum said.

Doubling down on health AI's admin potential

Capital is flowing into voice AI agents and chatbots for administrative functions.

Illustration of a robot with a headset, its face is a screen which reads, "How may I help you?" 

Silicon Valley won&#x27;t replace your doctor — just the front desk.The big picture: VCs still see admin work as the smartest health care AI play, investors said at HLTH 2025 in Las Vegas.

Doubling down on health AI's admin potential

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