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Doctors spend 28 hours weekly on documentation. Microsoft aims to cut that burden.
The tech giant launched Dragon Copilot on March 3. This artificial intelligence (AI) assistant listens during patient visits and automatically writes clinical notes and medical summaries so doctors can focus on patients.
“AI has the incredible potential to free clinicians from much of the administrative burden in healthcare and enable them to refocus on taking care of patients,” said Joe Petro, Microsoft’s vice president of Health and Life Sciences Solutions.
Dragon Copilot works on mobile, browser, and desktop platforms and integrates with electronic health records like Epic. Users can edit documentation through prompts and access “general-purpose medical information” from “trusted content sources.”
This comes significantly as healthcare burnout remains critical, only dropping from 53% to 48% last year. The problem drives Microsoft’s push into medical AI following its $16 billion purchase of AI voice company Nuance Communications in 2021.
The new system fuses two existing Nuance technologies. Dragon Medical One provides dictation capabilities that have documented billions of patient records. DAX Copilot contributes ambient listening technology.
Microsoft’s surveys show Dragon Copilot users save five minutes per patient and report 70% less burnout. “With Dragon Copilot, we’re not just enhancing how we work in the EHR — we’re tapping into a Microsoft-powered ecosystem where AI assistance extends across our organization,” said Dr. R. Hal Baker, chief digital officer at WellSpan Health.
Medical AI adoption accelerates across the industry. Google recently expanded its Vertex AI Search for healthcare, creating tools that identify patient health risks through multimodal image-searching. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published guidelines for generative AI in healthcare last year, laying out both benefits and risks.
Other competitors include Abridge and Suki, which have raised $460 million and $170 million respectively.
However, as this trend in medical AI grows, concerns about AI hallucinations in healthcare remain. Just recently, researchers found that OpenAI’s Whisper model occasionally fabricated medical information. However, Microsoft emphasizes its system incorporates healthcare-specific safeguards built on responsible AI principles.
Dragon Copilot launches in the U.S. and Canada in May 2025, with planned expansion to the U.K., Netherlands, France, and Germany. Microsoft hasn’t disclosed pricing but indicates it will be “competitive” with easy upgrades for existing customers.
