AI Scribes Produce Operational Impact, but Not Identifiable Financial Outcomes, Yet

Ambient scribes convert verbal patient-provider interactions into structured notes for clinical documentation and, eventually, medical billing. Useful, of course. The innovation saves time.  But at least one study suggests the financial impact is unclear. 

That is likely to be a recurring issue for many types of artificial intelligence features and apps. 

Peterson Health Technology 

The issue is that faster task completion, reduced human error, and streamlined workflows do not always  translate that into immediate financial gains. In fact, financial impact might be neutral to negative at first precisely because time and money has to be spent to implement the solutions. 

This perhaps is not unusual for new technology solutions. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems also promised efficiencies, such as the ability to generate reports faster. Still, the financial payoff wasn’t instant. As always, firms had to redesign their business processes to scale up. 

Likewise, cloud computing cut information technology overhead and boosted agility, but early adoption did not always lead to an immediate financial outcome.

Perhaps AI operational wins are the low-hanging fruit. Customer service chatbots reduce call center workload, but revenue metrics do not automatically improve. 

A 2023 Gartner report suggested 60 percent of AI projects improve process metrics, but only 30 percent show clear financial uplift within a year, for example. 

Study/Source	Operational Improvement	Potential Revenue/Profit Impact
Gartner Research	IT leaders in mature AI organizations identify business metrics early and use clear attribution strategies3	Not immediately quantifiable
Cleveland Clinic	AI used to predict patient influx and optimize staffing3	Indirect impact on efficiency, not direct revenue
Axis Bank	AI assistant handles up to 15% of calls3	Operational efficiency gain, but no direct profit mentioned
McKinsey Survey	About half of C-suite leaders describe AI initiatives as still developing or expanding9	Returns not meeting initial expectations
MIT Economics Paper	Predicted TFP gains from AI over next 10 years less than 0.55%2	Modest macroeconomic effects, not immediate profit
Virtasant Report	AI enables 24/7 customer service and reduces errors in complex processes3	Long-term strategic benefits, not immediate profit