Epic Picked the Wrong Horse in the AI Scribe Race

Abridge, Ambience, and Nabla can sleep well.

Original image was created by DALL-E

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After days of rumors and a steady stream of memes (like the one below), Epic announced on Tuesday at its UGM conference an AI scribe called “Art for Clinicians,” a gen AI revenue cycle tool called “Penny” for coding and denial appeals, and a patient tool called “Emmie” to help with scheduling and visit prep.

But first, a quick announcement. On September 11, 2025, I’ll be moderating the panel “GenAI in Healthcare: A Conversation with Foundation Model Builders” at the Prax AI x Healthcare Summit in NYC. The agenda for this conference looks really strong, especially if you’re in healthcare AI.

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OK, now back to Epic and its AI scribe mistakes... 😉

Source: Nathan Hayman at https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nathanhayman_healthcare-healthcareinnovation-digitalhealth-activity-7360664819856760833-8YnQ

So, Epic will collaborate with longtime partner Microsoft to power the charting. Clinicians will use Epic’s Haiku and Canto to record visits. Microsoft’s Dragon Copilot will handle ambient transcription. Epic will then turn that feed into the final note and visit documentation.

My loyal readers will remember my review of the 50 most popular AI scribes, where Dragon was (and still is) — let’s be honest — far from stellar. Think of Dragon Copilot as a mashup of Dragon Medical One and Dragon Ambient eXperience (DAX). In other words, nothing plus nothing equals nothing. 😉

Who didn’t read my review? You guessed it. Epic’s CEO Judy Faulkner. If she had, she would have learned how much Dragon sucks and how much of it still feels stuck in the 1990s. Instead, she went with who she knew: Microsoft. Surprise, surprise.

So now Microsoft has to build the real thing basically from scratch. Meanwhile, leaders like Ambience and Abridge are far ahead not only in AI scribing but also in RCM (Revenue Cycle Management). If anyone can pull off a late-stage heist, it might be Microsoft. We shall see.

Why Epic picked Microsoft is no surprise.

For years, Epic has run a four-tier marketplace:

1️⃣ Cornerstone Partners. Microsoft lives here.

2️⃣ Partners. Nuance, owned by Microsoft, lives here.

3️⃣ Pals. Companies like Abridge and Talkdesk live here.

4️⃣ Member Services. The rest of us, the little guys.

Microsoft has been Epic’s choice at Stanford Health Care, UC San Diego, UNC Health, UW Health, and Duke Health. Abridge has partnered with Epic at UPMC, where they started, as well as Emory and The University of Kansas Health System.

TL;DR:

1. Epic’s Microsoft Addiction. Innovation Be Damned.

2. Real-World Smackdown. Abridge, Ambience, Nabla Torch Dragon Badly.

3. Scribe Scorecard. Dragon vs The Leaders.

4. Big Tech’s Endgame in Healthcare