A $499 checkup gave me a peek at the future of AI-powered health care
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Good morning. Earlier this week, I got an AI-powered physical exam that frankly wowed me, from a scan that mapped my skin and body composition to heart, blood, and metabolic health tests. A physician walked me through the results a few minutes later while standing in front of my 3D image in a room more reminiscent of “2001: A Space Odyssey” than my doctor’s office. Neko Health, a Swedish health care and technology company founded by Spotify’s Daniel Ek and CEO Hjalmar Nilsonne, opened its first U.S. clinic in Manhattan yesterday, offering this package for $499. It was the kind of health care experience I’ve always wanted and rarely received: fast, simple, and proactive. “We want to create this almost magical consumer experience around health care,” Nilsonne told me. “We want to democratize high-quality preventive health care and make it available to millions or hundreds of millions of people.”
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There’s a lot of discussion about health right now: the health of the planet, the health of our economies, and, of course, the health of our own bodies. We are living longer at a time when health care is getting more expensive, jobs are becoming less secure and much of the developed world is bracing for a ‘silver tsunami’ as aging populations impact everything from tax revenue to consumer behavior. The Trump administration announced plans this week to remove 760,000 Affordable Care Act enrollees from public health care exchanges as part of a crackdown on fraud. The problems are profound, but I’m also struck by the promise of what’s happening right now, via AI and beyond:
The desire to disrupt. There are now thousands of AI-powered health care startups and plenty of disruption within the system, too. AI is saving at least 132 hours annually for half of the health care professionals surveyed in the 2026 Philips Future Health Index. They report seeing more patients and making fewer mistakes. But the most critical disruption for many Americans is cost. I spoke with Mark Cuban at the Digital Health New York Summit last week about how he’s disrupting pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) with Cost Plus Drugs. Launched in early 2022, the direct-to-patient pharmacy business has expanded to manufacturing, where, Cuban says, volume has increased enough to lower the price of 190 medications. He said the company is making money, thanks in part to demand generated by TrumpRx, but that’s not the goal. “My mission is just to fuck up health care,” he said. “Trying to optimize a broken system doesn’t really change anything.”
The desire to live better. Bryan Johnson might want to live forever—and this 55-year-old single mother is aging at a slower pace—but most of us just want to be healthier in the time that we’re here. Is America getting healthier? When it comes to obesity and death from cancer, yes. When it comes to managing stress and the ability to afford health care, no. So it matters that companies like Walmart are trying to put more emphasis on nutrition and initiatives like its Health Ambassador pilot to make health care more accessible. Most important, though, is our growing understanding of the systemic nature of health. I spoke this week with Frederick Lowery, who became CEO of Henry Schein in March. As leader of the world’s largest distributor of dental equipment, supplies, and services, he’s eager to explore the links between oral health and a range of chronic ailments.
The desire to engage. Large U.S. employers expect a median 9.2% increase in health care costs next year, according to the nonprofit Business Group on Health. About half expect to push those costs onto workers, a record number of whom are already disengaged. But Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel, who also oversees all of Amazon grocery, has a different approach. He came in earlier this week to talk about how the company is investing in organic foods and in workers through higher pay, apprenticeship programs, and cheap health care. There’s been a lot of attention to the decision to raise the hourly pay of 100,000 workers to $21 an hour. But Buechel hopes the introduction of low-cost health care and apprenticeship programs could turn what is typically a high-turnover job into a compelling career. I suspect one reason Amazon can do that is that it’s also creating AI-powered health care offerings for consumers. While health care spending is expected to hit $6 trillion this year, the opportunities to create cheaper and better solutions may grow faster.
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com