Epic’s AI push goes far beyond ambient scribes

Modern Healthcare – Thursday, August 21, 2025
By Gabriel Perna

The introduction of patient and clinician-facing generative AI tools was only the tip of the iceberg for Epic at its annual user event this week.

During a three-hour opening presentation Tuesday featuring speeches, skits and a prolonged pat on the back from its team of executives, the electronic health record vendor made its ambitions clear — and artificial intelligence will be key to its progress.

“We’ve got somewhere between 160 and 200 AI projects going,” said Epic CEO Judy Faulkner Tuesday as she kicked off the company’s four-day user group meeting in Verona, Wisconsin. “Some of them are completed and some are in process. And some of it will be permeating every area of our software.”

The big push will put Epic in competition with an AI vendor marketplace that’s been well-funded in the last two years and has seen a lot of adoption among providers.

Here is what to know about where Epic is headed.

Epic rolls out Emmie, Art and Penny

The big news of the conference was the release of three generative AI tools — Emmie for patients, Art for clinicians and Penny for revenue cycle management.

Art, for clinicians, will use ambient generative AI to create patient summaries, share diagnostic insights and, using Epic’s Cosmos platform, help clinicians find patients with similar diseases. Epic is working with Microsoft on the charting tool, which customers will be able to license from Epic next year.

Emmie will help patients schedule visits, set their agendas and understand what they need to do after visits. The revenue cycle generative AI function, called Penny, will help with coding, denial appeals and other revenue cycle tasks.

The rollout of the tools, widely rumored for the weeks, demonstrates that Epic is all-in on AI. The company is intent on not ceding the market to the large cohort of companies that have developed their own generative AI tools for similar uses.

Faulkner said during her opening presentation providers could continue using their preferred ambient AI documentation vendors if they choose. Epic President Sumit Rana said the company will offer a price for individual AI products or all of its products together.

Epic-Microsoft collaboration creates new questions

In a statement released Tuesday, Microsoft said it was proud to bring its Dragon ambient AI technology to Epic’s new AI charting capability. The company said it would share more details later.

Microsoft bought clinical documentation vendor Nuance in March 2022 for $19.7 billion. In October, Microsoft announced it was developing AI for nurses and in March, it rolled out an AI assistant that can complete complex tasks for other clinicians.

Epic and Microsoft have a history of working together. In addition to co-developing the nursing AI product, the two companies brought OpenAI’s ChatGPT large language model to EHRs in March 2023.

By helping Epic launch its native EHR charting functionality, it’s unclear what the future holds for Microsoft’s own generative AI products. A spokesperson said the company did not have additional comments beyond the statement issued Tuesday.

Epic looks to Cosmos for additional AI

Epic’s Cosmos database was a focal point at the event. The company launched the database in 2018 and has since gotten about 70% of U.S.-based Epic health system users on board. Cosmos has compiled de-identified data on 300 million patients globally. The large dataset may give Epic an edge over companies that are using AI technology to diagnose and treat diseases.

Epic is using AI by leveraging Cosmos for many of its use cases. It said it is developing a diagnostic adviser using data from Cosmos that will be available to clinicians at the point of care.

“We’ve been told that 10% to 20% of diagnoses are wrong,” Faulkner said. “I don’t know if that’s true, but I’ve heard that, and if so, getting the diagnosis correct by looking at Cosmos and alerting the doctor may be good thing because then the treatment could be more appropriate for the patient.”

Epic also is using Cosmos and AI for public health purposes, creating a tool to help predict and monitor disease outbreaks, Faulkner said.

Epic’s ambitions stretch far and wide

Epic has dominated the large hospital EHR market over the last decade. The company grew its market share to 42% of acute care hospitals and 55% of acute care beds by the end of 2024, according to market research firm KLAS in April.

The company is looking to wield even greater influence.

Faulkner and Epic President Carl Dvorak spoke of the company’s wins among international hospitals and efforts to reach more rural providers through its Community Connect program.

Also, it recently signed up the State of Washington, a new type of customer for the company. The state will use Epic for critical access and tribal community hospitals as well as its own social services.

It also has its sights on payers, diagnostic labs and medical device companies as well as developing an enterprise resource planning software program to help hospitals manage supplies inventory and handle human resources functions.

It strives to not be your typical EHR company

The event at the company’s 1,670-acre campus, shows the fanatical nature that sometimes surrounds Epic. During the main presentation in its 11,400-person auditorium, thousands of health system customers attended and some held up signs, wore matching T-shirts and shouted when someone on stage from Epic mentioned their names.

The company welcomed new customers during a prolonged ceremony, with each hospital getting its own song and a graphic that indicated which vendor was dropped for Epic.

The user meeting had a science fiction theme. As is tradition, Faulkner came out in a costume, this year dressed as an alien. Other executives dressed as if they were on Star Trek, Dr. Who and other works of popular science fiction while performing skits that showcased Epic’s new AI functionality.

Across the campus, horse and carriages carted around visitors, tour guides showed off the company’s themed buildings and working farm, and large tents were set up for picnics and other outdoor events.

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