AI holds tremendous promise for the healthcare sector

To understand how you can maximize impact of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare, this report is the result of extensive KPMG research into the value being created by AI in the sector.

The Intelligent healthcare report is designed to provide actionable insights for leaders at every stage of their AI journey, from those deploying their first pilots to healthcare organizations seeking to scale enterprise-wide artificial intelligence for healthcare initiatives.

At-a-glance insights:

AI usage is well established in healthcare:

Top 5 AI applications in healthcare
  1. Generative AI
  2. Speech recognition
  3. Agentic AI
  4. Machine learning
  5. Robotics
0%

say that AI has been systematically incorporated into service and product development

0%

say their organizations have achieved efficiency improvements with the technology

But significant challenges remain

84%

have faced operational challenges when implementing AI spanning, data issues and lack of skills and legal issues

77%

are responding by increasing their investment in AI

Including pressures related to returns on AI investments

69%

state that they are under pressure to demonstrate return on investment (ROI) from their AI investments.

Return on investment (ROI)
from AI initiatives
(Among those who measure it)

How to realize value from your AI transformation journey

To help ensure that AI serves as a catalyst for meaningful transformation, healthcare organizations need a clear, structured approach to adopting the technology. In this report, we propose a value-based approach that can help to maximize value in population health, patient experience, workforce wellbeing and cost effectiveness, integrating AI across all operations and workstreams.

Through this report, we introduce the three phases of AI value — a framework designed to help clinical providers maximize value by aligning AI investments to patient and operational outcomes, prioritize scalable use cases, and prepare for the next generation of AI technologies. Click on each of the phases below to find out more.

Enable Embed Evolve Value Maturity Enterprise Functions Foundations

Enable

The Enable phase focuses on enabling people and building AI foundations. Organizations appoint a responsible executive, create an AI strategy, identify high-value use cases, boost AI literacy, align with regulations and establish ethical guardrails. AI pilots are launched across functions, while cloud platforms and pre-trained models are leveraged with minimal customization.

Embed

The Embed phase integrates AI into workflows, products, services, value streams, robotics, and wearables, delivering greater value. A senior leader drives enterprise-wide workforce redesign, re-skilling and change, embedding AI into operating models with a focus on ethics, trust and security. AI agents and diverse models are deployed, supported by cloud and legacy tech modernization, while enterprise-wide data enhances operations.

Evolve

The Evolve phase evolves business models and ecosystems, using AI and frontier technologies like quantum computing and blockchain to solve large sector-wide challenges. AI orchestrates seamless value across enterprises and partners. Emphasizing ethics and trust with real-time security, this phase uplifts human potential with broad and deep workforce training, fostering a creative, innovative and value-driven future.

Intelligent healthcare

This research outlines a detailed blueprint for AI in healthcare, helping organizations chart a path to unlocking AI’s immense value.

Our executive summary provides a cross-sector view of how organizations are navigating the opportunities and challenges of implementing AI. Download the executive summary to see the blueprint for intelligent industries to help you become an AI-powered, customer-centric organization ready to thrive in the intelligent economy.

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Our people

Dr. Anna van Poucke

Global Head of Healthcare, KPMG International, and Healthcare Senior Partner

KPMG in the Netherlands

Adrian Clamp

Global Head of Connected Enterprise

KPMG International

Lydia Lee

Global Co-Lead, KPMG Connected Enterprise for Health, KPMG International; Partner and National Leader, Digital Health Transformation

KPMG in Canada

Hylke Kingma

Partner Digital Health

KPMG in the Netherlands