Make better decisions on the AI medical scribe market

AI scribes are spreading fast in clinics, but the market is getting tougher for independent vendors.

We've found a lot of interesting signals. For example, in February 2026, Epic released AI Charting, its own ambient scribe built into the EHR used by more than 3,700 hospitals. And in April 2026, patients filed a class action against Sutter Health and MemorialCare, claiming their visits were recorded by an AI scribe without real consent. Scribes are now standard enough that the biggest EHR vendor ships its own, and courts are starting to look at how they're used.

In this section, we look at why health systems bought scribes so quickly, what Epic's move means for standalone vendors, and how consent rules could change the way visits are recorded.

Doctors spend a large part of their day on notes, often at home after the last patient. That's the pain scribes were built for, but it isn't the only one.

We compare six kinds of scribe companies, from ambient tools for large health systems to specialty scribes for therapists or emergency doctors and low-cost apps for small practices. Then we rank what their buyers need most: less after-hours charting, notes that fit the EHR, accurate codes, and proof that the tool pays for itself.

This shows which problems a health system will pay to fix, and which ones doctors only praise in a survey.

Per-clinician subscriptions, enterprise licenses, free apps with paid upgrades, add-ons sold inside the EHR and fees tied to coding: AI scribe companies charge in very different ways.

We compare who pays, and what each type of customer costs to serve. A health system buys thousands of seats but asks for security reviews, integration work and training. A small practice signs up online but leaves just as easily. Model costs keep falling, but so do prices once the EHR offers a scribe of its own.

You'll see which models can still charge for a scribe when a basic one comes bundled with the EHR.

Growth numbers mean little unless you know what's pushing them. This section takes the drivers one at a time.

Some drivers are obvious: doctor burnout, staff shortages and better AI models. Others build on each other. A scribe that writes the note can also suggest codes and orders, which gives finance teams a reason to pay. Each clinician who adopts it tends to bring colleagues along. And once a scribe sits inside the EHR, adding features is easier than ripping it out.

Before building or investing, you should know what keeps a health system paying for a scribe after the first wave of enthusiasm, and what keeps doctors using it.

Microsoft's Dragon Copilot and Ambience Healthcare get most of the hospital headlines, but they're only part of the AI scribe market.

Many interesting players work in narrower spaces. Some write notes only for therapists, dentists or emergency rooms. Others turn the transcript into billing codes, build scribes for the EHRs that smaller clinics use, or sell their engine to other software companies under another brand.

They're hard to compare because every demo produces a clean note. The real test is how many edits doctors make, how a scribe copes with a visit full of interruptions, and whether it works inside the EHR a clinic already has. Few vendors publish those numbers.

Below, you'll find the market grids and ecosystem maps we built to show who serves which clinicians, which EHRs each scribe works with, and where new players are getting in.

Heidi Health, Suki, Nabla… a few scribe companies have found paying customers, each in a different way.

Heidi Health lets clinicians sign up on their own and has spread to the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Suki works with EHR vendors to build its assistant into their software. Nabla sells to health systems and runs inside their EHR, as at University of Toledo Health. None has shown yet that its model holds up once scribes come built into the EHR.

We'll look at how these teams won their first users, earned the trust of hospital IT and compliance teams, and found a reason to exist next to the EHR's own scribe.