The AI arms race continues as more and more companies are investing in various artificial intelligence tools to make their operations more efficient. Augmedix (NASDAQ:AUGX) shot up over 70% in Thursday’s trading session after putting up a big win of its own that should show the value of AI in healthcare settings and, by extension, healthcare stocks.
Augmedix struck a deal with HCA Healthcare (NYSE:HCA), which brought the two firms together to create an AI-driven system that records conversations. While HCA won’t have much to do with the development process itself, it will supply cash to give Augmedix resources sufficient to develop the software in question. When finished—if all goes as planned—the end result should be a system that can document conversations just from ambient recordings. The finished software will then be available for use in acute care operations.
This collaboration, however, won’t be the end of HCA Healthcare’s involvement with Augmedix. Augmedix raised an additional $12 million from not only HCA Healthcare but also from healthcare investor Redmile Group. The raised equity, Augmedix noted, will allow it to reach “cash flow sustainability.” HCA Healthcare is also currently testing several Augmedix products, including natural language processing tools and automatic speech recognition systems. These should be a significant help in keeping better and safer records for hospitals and other settings.
A look at the last five days in trading for Augmedix stock shows that shares were fairly flat overall. The latest news about HCA Healthcare’s further involvement gave Augmedix a nice upward cant that it managed to maintain throughout Thursday’s trading session.
