October 21, 2025
Forward of the third TEDAI San Francisco convention (Oct. 21 and 22), she spoke with CANOPY about her imaginative and prescient for the way forward for healthcare.
After Sam De Brouwer’s AI firm, doc.ai, was acquired by Atlanta-based Sharecare in February 2023, it went public at an IPO at a valuation of $3.9 billion. She then based healthcare startup XY.AI Labs, providing AI automation for income cycle administration (RCM), information entry, doc processing, and scheduling, empowering suppliers to give attention to care, not clicks.
De Brouwer additionally curates and produces TEDAI, the first-of-its-kind TED Convention in San Francisco, impressed by her nonprofit work with One Laptop computer Per Baby from MIT MediaLab and with TED conferences. Forward of the third TEDAI San Francisco convention (Oct. 21 and 22), she spoke with CANOPY about her imaginative and prescient for the way forward for healthcare.
Sam De Brouwer: XY.AI Labs is an agentic AI platform for healthcare operations, serving to save the $1.5 trillion operational bottleneck in healthcare. Our agentic platform presents a set of AI brokers to streamline operations, optimize income, and provides clinicians again the reward of time.
I based XY.AI Labs two years in the past after spending nearly 15 years in AI for healthcare and seeing firsthand how AI brokers might resolve issues we couldn’t earlier than. Beginning with healthcare operations was apparent as a result of the necessity for this expertise is very large, particularly for small- and medium-sized operators.
What have been your most vital milestones, and what are you trying ahead to?
Sam De Brouwer: We’ve got raised our $3 million seed, launched our agentic platform, pushed our first brokers into manufacturing, and closed our first paying prospects with annual contracts and first value validation. We’ve got additionally expanded the staff and added velocity, filed our second patent, and began severe conversations with strategic companions for enlargement.
In a few years, I see healthcare changing into extra financially environment friendly, with extra time spent on affected person care and new nodes of intelligence on the level of care.
What developments in your discipline are you most enthusiastic about?
Sam De Brouwer: It’s laborious to maintain up with AI. The sector of edge computing has all the time fascinated me as a result of I’m all for privacy-preserving approaches first, and the fields of reinforcement studying and steady studying. Intelligence is the brand new asset, and something that doesn’t be taught is not going to survive. I like the concept of the price of constructing software program nearing zero, making it extra inexpensive. I wrote about “From Code to Care: How Zero-Value Software program Is Reshaping Healthcare” not too long ago on LinkedIn.
I’m excited by the alternatives that generative AI can provide in schooling and healthcare, particularly in drugs and biotech, and the way it might speed up discoveries in science. I’m additionally fascinated by the conversations that generative AI triggers and the way it pushes us to suppose and mirror on progress. It’s nearly like witnessing a brand new cycle of human evolution in real-time.
Are there any modifications or developments you need to see on this sector?
Sam De Brouwer: Extra decentralization and extra transparency within the idea of consent concerning our information.
How do you outline success?
Sam De Brouwer: At all times doing the appropriate factor with function and equity and going for the win.
What’s TEDAI’s relationship to the TED group?
Sam De Brouwer: TED is a identified format and started in 1984 as a convention the place expertise, leisure, and design converged. Right now, it spans many worldwide communities and initiatives exploring every little thing from science and enterprise to schooling, the humanities, and international points. It’s dedicated to curiosity, purpose, surprise, and the pursuit of data — with out an agenda. TED AI, co-hosted by Chris Anderson, head of TED, is new and focuses on the ability and influence of AI in all its nuances.
What’s on the agenda on your staff forward of this 12 months’s occasion?
Sam De Brouwer: A staff of 100 volunteers from the Bay Space is working to carry collectively talks and panels representing programs, instruments, and frameworks already utilized by a minimum of half of the planet. Volunteers are utilizing coworking areas in San Francisco and Silicon Valley for conferences; we anticipate to welcome 1,000 attendees to the convention, that includes phenomenal audio system deploying AI throughout varied sectors, in addition to panels and workshops that includes CTOs and EVPs from among the largest corporations, buyers, researchers, and extra.
Each speaker’s TED speak will likely be hosted on TED’s ecosystem and attain tens of millions of viewers post-event. We’re additionally internet hosting a two-day hackathon organized by the Open Supply neighborhood to make the most of AI’s transformative energy for good and to learn everybody.
To say just a few names, we’re trying ahead to welcoming:
- Prem Akkaraju, CEO of Stability AI.
- Vlad Tenev, co-founder and CEO at Robin Hood Markets.
- Tudor Achim, co-founder and CEO at Harmonic.
- Eric Zelikman, AI researcher, co-author of Quiet-STaR.
- Could Habib, co-founder & CEO of Author.
- Kai-Fu Lee, chairman & CEO of Sinovation Ventures, founding father of 01.AI (distant).
- Ayse Coskun, chief scientist at Emerald AI, professor at Boston College.
- Rodrigo Liang, co-founder and CEO, SambaNova.
- Judy Fan, assistant professor, Division of Psychology, Stanford College.
- John Thickstun, assistant professor of pc science, Cornell College.
What’s essentially the most worthwhile piece of recommendation you’ve ever acquired?
Sam De Brouwer: If you happen to need assistance, ask.
What’s the best lesson you’ve realized in your profession?
Sam De Brouwer: Don’t take no for a solution.
What’s the one vacation spot you by no means get uninterested in touring to?
Sam De Brouwer: Paris. It’s my hometown.
What’s one factor — both industry-related or not — you realized within the final month?
Sam De Brouwer: It’s too late to retire!
Is there a talent you suppose everybody ought to grasp?
Sam De Brouwer: The one that provides you function.
What’s one truth you suppose everybody ought to know?
Sam De Brouwer: It’s unbelievable to have entry to wash, free water. Let’s be grateful.
Is there a musician, band, or album you’d suggest to everybody?
Sam De Brouwer: “Lodge California” by the Eagles.
What’s your biggest supply of inspiration?
Sam De Brouwer: My husband — we’ve been collectively for greater than 33 years — and he’s nonetheless my biggest supply of inspiration.
This story was produced by CANOPY and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
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