Microsoft Announces AI Agents for Healthcare in Copilot Studio to Ease Clinical Workloads

Microsoft Announces AI Agents for Healthcare in Copilot Studio to Ease Clinical Workloads

Microsoft is rolling out new AI tools aimed at reducing administrative burdens on healthcare workers. The tech giant announced the public preview of a healthcare agent service for its Copilot Studio platform, allowing health systems to build AI assistants tailored for medical tasks.

The healthcare industry is facing mounting challenges—rising costs, workforce shortages, and increased care demands. Clinical staff, from doctors to nurses, are often burdened with high levels of stress and administrative overload, leading to burnout and attrition. 

These AI agents can handle a range of healthcare duties, from scheduling appointments to matching patients with clinical trials. By automating routine processes, Microsoft hopes to free up time for doctors and nurses to focus on patient care.

Create health agents using built-in medical knowledge bases, triage protocols and language models trained to understand clinical terminology. 

Through Copilot Studio, healthcare providers can build customized AI agents with reusable features, pre-built intelligence, and healthcare-specific templates. These agents can handle tasks like appointment scheduling, clinical trial matching, patient triaging, and more, allowing healthcare professionals to spend more time focusing on patient care. Moreover, the service supports extending existing agents by incorporating additional plugins, regardless of where those plugins are developed.

To address the sensitive nature of healthcare data, Microsoft has embedded responsible AI practices throughout the healthcare agent service. The service comes with clinical safeguards—such as provenance tracking and clinical semantic validation—to ensure that AI-generated information remains accurate, transparent, and trustworthy. The safeguards help prevent common issues with generative AI, such as inaccuracies or omissions, which are particularly important when dealing with patient health.

Early adopters of the healthcare agent service include the Cleveland Clinic and Galilee Medical Center, which collaborated with Microsoft to refine the service for healthcare use. The Cleveland Clinic used the service to streamline access to health information, enhance patient interaction, and ultimately improve care delivery. Dr. Dan Paz, head of the Radiology Department at Galilee Medical Center, also emphasized the benefit of integrating clinical safeguards into AI workflows, noting the improved traceability of patient data, which reassures patients about the reliability of AI-generated information.

While promising, the technology is still in early stages. Microsoft plans to work closely with more healthcare organizations to refine the agents before broader deployment. The company hasn't yet announced pricing for the service.

This launch is part of Microsoft's broader push into healthcare AI, following its $16 billion acquisition of Nuance Communications in 2021. As health systems grapple with staffing shortages and burnout, Microsoft is betting that AI assistants can help ease the load on overworked clinicians.

Chris McKay is the founder and chief editor of Maginative. His thought leadership in AI literacy and strategic AI adoption has been recognized by top academic institutions, media, and global brands.

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