Artificial intelligence (AI) has shown immense potential in the area of health care, and its integration should be accelerated, according to a World Economic Forum (WEF) report released in January 2025, in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group.
Andy Moose, the head of Health and Wellness for the World Economic Forum, and Ben Horner, the managing director and partner for the Boston Consulting Group, authored the forward of the 30-page white paper, “The Future of AI-Enabled Health: Leading the Way.”
The WEF is an international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The Boston Consulting Group is a business management consultant group based in Miami.
“The global health landscape is on the cusp of a significant transformation, driven by the rapid integration of digital technologies and artificial intelligence. In healthcare, medtech and pharma, an inflection point has been reached: the choice now lies between transforming systems or continuing down the road of incremental improvement. As this transformation unfolds, it is crucial for addressing the urgency for real, impactful change rather than small, marginal advances,” the report said.
In a “highly risk-averse environment,” that may not be so easy. Ushering new methods through the approval phase can sometimes take more than five years.
“AI transformation goes beyond adopting new tools; it involves rethinking the fundamentals of how health is delivered and accessed. AI digital health solutions – including AI to improve operations such as notetaking or resource-scheduling but also telemedicine, remote monitoring and AI-driven diagnostics – hold the potential to enhance efficiency, reduce costs and improve health outcomes globally.”
AI has numerous benefits in health care. According to experts in the field, AI can interpret brain scans twice as accurately as professionals, can spot more bone fractures than humans can (urgent care doctors can miss broken bones in up to 10% of cases); AI can also detect early signs of more than 1,000 diseases, and clinical chatbots are great at assisting in healthcare decisions. Additionally, AI can accelerate drug discovery and design, and can automate claim processing.
“Despite its transformative potential and the various use cases and stakeholders involved in the field, the potential of AI in healthcare has yet to be fully realized,” the report states. “Adoption at scale has been below global average, compared to other industries.”
“An analysis of US job advertisements reveals the diffusion patterns of AI in different industries: healthcare shows a notably low adoption rate, with only 1 in 1,850 job listings requiring AI skills. This rate lags far behind the information sector (1 in 71), as well as professional, scientific and technical services (1 in 88), finance and insurance (1 in 175) and educational services (1 in 333). Only the construction industry ranks lower than healthcare in AI adoption.”
The benefits of AI in health are not always immediately clear, according to the report, “making it difficult to access political and financial support due to political pressure to demonstrate results quickly. Policymakers may hesitate to invest without immediate, tangible benefits. Additionally, the long-term nature of certain AI use cases in healthcare introduces financial uncertainty, which, combined with high upfront costs, can make large-scale AI initiatives less attractive to leaders focused on short-term gains.”
“Public leaders face a daunting task when it comes to AI in health: AI has the potential to radically transform the lives of citizens and carries unprecedented challenges. They should look to tap the expertise, ingenuity and resources of the private sector by engaging with companies in public– private partnerships. Private companies should engage in these PPPs to increase the social impact of AI technologies in health and enable deep and lasting healthcare transformation.”
The National Institute of Health (NIH) has been receptive to the use of AI. Through its Office of Data Science Strategy, it is conducting pilot programs to connect researchers and educators to resources needed to advance AI research.
“From electronic health record data, genomics data, imaging data, disease-specific data, and beyond, NIH is poised to create and implement large and far-reaching applications using AI and its components.”
