HealthTech of the Week: The medicine of the future has become the medicine of today. What did 2025 teach us about healthtech?

When we began this year’s HealthTech of the Week series, we expected that artificial intelligence would be one of the central themes. What we didn’t anticipate was the scale of its dominance over all other trends. AI became not only a recurring topic but, more importantly, a practical tool without which many young health companies can no longer imagine developing their products. Insights drawn both from the stories of the startups featured throughout the series and from reports on the medical market in Poland and across Europe show that the past year can be described as the moment when AI-powered medical solutions entered the mainstream.

In the first months of 2025, we saw a surge in tools that no longer focus solely on imaging diagnostics but expand into areas previously ruled by manual processes. One of the most telling examples came from pharmacotherapy. The team behind Pharmdiver demonstrated that by analyzing data on interactions, treatment regimens, and patient histories, it is possible to meaningfully reduce therapeutic errors. This branch of medicine—often overlooked in innovation discussions—turned out to be an ideal playground for machine learning.

At the same time, AI entered the field of medical logistics, a topic rarely highlighted in media narratives about healthcare digitalization. Intelligent supply platforms such as Medby showed that cost optimization, equipment usage forecasting, and automated analysis of purchasing requests are no longer futuristic concepts but daily realities shaping how facilities operate. The conclusion? In 2025, AI became a quiet yet indispensable partner for hospital administrators, helping them make decisions faster and with greater precision.

Biotechnology powered by algorithms

One of the most fascinating aspects of this year’s analyses was the opportunity to observe companies using AI within biotechnology. Genotic became a standout example, showing how algorithms can shorten antibody design from several months to less than three weeks, while simultaneously reducing the need for animal testing. This is a breakthrough not only from an ethical standpoint but also an economic one. A growing part of the global pharmaceutical market is shifting its R&D processes toward generative models. Reports published in 2024 and 2025 confirm that in silico design may become the dominant standard within the next few years.

Biotechnology is a sector with an exceptionally high barrier to entry, which is why automating protein analysis or genomic sequence evaluation opens the door for companies that a decade ago would not have stood a chance of developing their own therapies. These examples illustrate most clearly that AI is not merely a supportive tool—it is increasingly becoming the foundation for entirely new categories of medicine.

From apps to digital health companions and beyond

The past months also brought a visible shift in how AI is used in tools designed directly for patients. A notable example was the evolution of MAMENO, which transformed from an educational menopause app into a conversational chatbot powered by language models. Importantly, the story is not just about automating responses to user questions. The founders showed that algorithms can provide emotional and informational support, simplify access to medical knowledge, and tailor communication to individual needs.

This trend was also reflected in 2025 reports on the development of AI in healthcare: conversational tools are becoming one of the fastest-growing segments of the market. This results not only from the increasing maturity of the technology but also from the fact that healthcare systems in many countries are overloaded. Chatbots can serve as a first line of contact, educate patients, and sometimes offer emotional support—all without replacing specialists where they are needed most.

The experiences of the innovators featured in our series, along with industry reports summarizing the healthcare market, confirm that AI is no longer the future of medicine—it has become an essential component. Studies indicate that more than half of new medical companies integrate machine learning at some stage of product development, and in areas such as cardiology, oncology, or mental health, this percentage is even higher. At the same time, a recurring challenge emerged from conversations with startups: although companies are technologically ready, healthcare systems are not always able to keep pace.

European and national reports emphasize that cybersecurity and the lack of structured implementation procedures remain major obstacles. Startups also face prolonged pilot phases and difficulties in securing partnerships with public medical facilities. These challenges will not disappear overnight, but it is increasingly evident that the industry is collectively seeking solutions—through standardization efforts and the creation of safe environments for testing innovation.

The medicine of the future has become the medicine of today

This year, AI ceased to be an abstract vision or a popular topic for conference presentations and began to permeate multiple layers of healthcare, including those that once seemed resistant to automation and digitization. We no longer ask whether AI will change medicine, but how quickly and in which areas it will have the most profound impact. The shift in the tone of the debate is striking: two years ago, the most common question was “Can we trust AI?” Today, far more often we hear “Which processes will AI improve next?” or “What do we need to do to use its potential safely but without delay?”

The stories of founders featured in the series clearly show that real-world implementations have outpaced the narrative. Solutions optimizing pharmacotherapy, designing antibodies in silico, analyzing equipment needs in medical facilities, or enabling natural, empathetic conversations with patients—all these examples shifted the conversation from the future to the present. Importantly, industry reports confirm the same trend: the number of companies treating AI as a technological foundation rather than an add-on continues to grow, and in some segments of digital health it has already become the standard.

This is why 2025 was the year when AI finally stopped being a promise and became a practice. A practice still full of challenges, requiring safeguards, regulation, and responsibility, but one that increasingly delivers tangible benefits—for physicians and patients alike. We now see tools that shorten diagnostic times, reduce therapeutic errors, help facilities plan their operations, and relieve medical staff from time-consuming tasks. We also see solutions that are creating entirely new categories of health services, making care more accessible, more personalized, and more data-driven.

If 2024 was a year of acclimatization, 2025 became a year of maturity. AI is no longer an innovation sitting at the margins—it is a structural element influencing how we design medicine, how we finance it, how we experience it, and how future generations of startups will build it. And this is only the beginning of the transformation that awaits the healthcare sector in the years ahead.

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Stay tuned for more in the “HealthTech of the Week” series, where we’ll continue to uncover fascinating stories from the world of medical technologies that are changing the face of healthcare. If you’re working on an innovative project in the field of new technologies and medicine or want to recommend an interesting solution, contact us at: [email protected].