Microsoft launches Dragon Copilot, AI voice assistant for healthcare

FILE PHOTO: Microsoft has announced an AI assistant called Dragon Copilot for healthcare that can take notes, automate tasks and search.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Microsoft has announced an AI assistant called Dragon Copilot for healthcare that can take notes, automate tasks and search for documents. The voice assistant combines voice dictation capabilities of Dragon Medical One, a tool built by AI voice recognition company, Nuance, and the ambient listening capabilities of DAX copilot. 

The Satya Nadella-led company acquired Nuance back in 2021 for around $16 billion. 

According to the blog posted by the company making the announcement, burnout among clinicians decreased from 53% in 2023 to 48% in 2024 due to advancements in tech. 

Dragon Copilot will help doctors retrieve information from medical sources and write notes, post-visit summaries and referral letters automatically. They can also edit existing documentation.

They also claimed that surveys conducted internally found that patients using Dragon Copilot faced less burnout while 93 percent of the patients involved said they had a “better overall experience.”

“At Microsoft, we have long believed that 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, corporate vice president of Microsoft Health and Life Sciences Solutions and Platforms in the blog post. 

The tool will be available through mobile app, browser and can be fed with all relevant health records online. Microsoft has said that Dragon Copilot will be generally available in the U.S. and Canada from May, and then gradually expanded to the U.K., Netherlands, France and Germany.