Let’s start out with a common misconception: voice AI agents ≠ chatbots.

While chatbots and AI agents are both generative AI in the sense they generate text or speech, there are a number of key differences in the medium in which they are used, how they are developed, and what they’re capable of.

AI agents are capable of handling complex interactions beyond simple question-and-answer exchanges. In healthcare, they often function as “voice AI agents,” communicating with humans through spoken language over the phone. They can answer questions, provide guidance, and even respond appropriately to humor, as they “understand” what the human is saying. This allows them to be available to patients around the clock, providing support at any time, such as late at night when patients might be anxious.

AI agents offer 24/7 availability, which is particularly important for patients who are stressed after receiving a diagnosis. They can proactively engage with patients, providers, and payors, personalizing the experience by remembering case specific details. Additionally, AI agents can connect patients and providers with staff by documenting conversations. If a patient reaches out in the middle of the night, staff can review the conversation and pick up where the AI agent left off, ensuring seamless support.

Leveraging advanced speech recognition, natural language processing, and conversational AI technologies, and often LLMs, these AI agents can help perform tasks that are critical to healthcare, yet cannot scale with human workers. Some examples include:

  • Making phone calls to patients from nurses or patient advocates, making sure they’re adhering to their prescribed medication and answering any questions they may have
  • Calling payors to complete benefit investigations for patients prescribed specialty medications on behalf of a provider 
  • Completing patient Health Risk Assessments on behalf of payors.

Compare those tasks to a chatbot, which typically provides answers to yes/no or multiple choice questions, but that’s about it; the chatbot can’t make decisions, can’t handle complex requests, and likely ends up eventually directing you to wait for or call a live human. By contrast, an AI agent can take on tasks autonomously once directed by a human. 

To help, we’ve summarized the key differences like this:

Voice AI agents are already reshaping how healthcare organizations interact with patients, providers, and payors, and being able to define what a voice AI agents is just the beginning.

Want to dive deeper into how agentic AI is redefining patient access and support? Download our comprehensive PDF guide, The Agentic AI Workforce is Coming to Healthcare.