On a July 16 call with investors, Andrew Witty said the company has hundreds of AI use cases. The first set of uses is designed to allow tasks to be done more quickly and efficiently than humans can.
“Now you will start to see through the end of this year and next year, those same kinds of tools begin to be deployed in a fundamental reimagination of the business process,” he said. “One is essentially allowing an existing process to run more efficiently. The second [step] is, can we actually take steps out of the process and really start to change things?”
Payment integrity is one area where AI has the potential to remove steps in the process, Mr. Witty said.
The company brought on a record number of clients into OptumRx in 2024, he said, but cut onboarding costs by 9% through digitization and technology efficiencies. Optum Health has also increased the number of people in value-based arrangements by 40% over two years, but it has not added employees.
AI and digitization efforts are part of the company’s strategy to reduce administrative costs in the face of lower Medicare Advantage reimbursement rates.
“One of the three ways we would respond to this is we would double down on our own cost management and efficiency,” Mr. Witty said. “You’re absolutely seeing that, and that coincides with an extraordinary and exciting moment around technological innovation, whether that’s generative AI, digitalization — it’s all wrapped together.”