AI breakthroughs have implications across many industries, but healthcare may represent one of the largest—and least understood—opportunities. Despite its potential, healthcare trades at a roughly 35% valuation discount to technology and AI-focused stocks.
Healthcare P/E is at a 35% Discount to Tech and AI Stocks
Source: Bloomberg as of 15/01/2026
Healthcare Stands to Benefit From AI Across the Entire Value Chain
Share of US Businesses Adopting Paid Commercial AI Licenses
Source: EY, as of September 2025
The opportunity is substantial. U.S. healthcare employs roughly 22 million people2 and represents nearly 20% of GDP.3 Efficiency gains could lower costs, improve outcomes, and expand margins. Health services companies such as UnitedHealth and Oscar Health are already applying AI to improve care delivery, while medical device firms like Intuitive Surgical are integrating AI into robotic platforms to enhance consistency and outcomes in surgery.
“A lot of the expense is in workflow. If every provider can improve patient care and outcomes and reduce cost using AI, that will have a profound impact on our societies.”
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, December 2025
AI also has transformative implications for drug discovery. Biology is a data-intensive discipline, and advances in data collection—such as measuring thousands of proteins from a single blood sample—are accelerating progress.
Number of Proteins that Researchers Can Easily Measure in a Vial of Blood
AI tools like AlphaFold have solved protein structure prediction. AI software can sift through data libraries to identify viable drug candidates. These AI-designed molecules are now showing 80–90% success rates in early pre-clinical safety trials, compared with historical averages of 40–65%.4
Recently, Nvidia, Eli Lilly, and Thermo Fisher announced a $1 billion investment in an AI-powered drug discovery lab. A growing group of “tech-bio” companies, including Schrödinger and Recursion Pharmaceuticals, are applying these tools with the potential to reshape drug development.
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