Athenahealth is collaborating with Microsoft to offer ambulatory providers more options for ambient artificial intelligence solutions as AI scribe adoption rapidly grows.
In partnership with the tech giant, athenahealth will introduce Microsoft Dragon Copilot, an AI assistant, as an additional ambient documentation option within its athenaOne platform.
Last year, the health IT company launched Ambient Notes, a fully integrated AI-driven ambient solution that simplifies documentation for ambulatory clinicians. The company also partners with ambient scribe companies to offer customers a "choose-your-player" ambient note-taking product. Microsoft Dragon Copilot will complement existing ambient AI solutions in the athenahealth marketplace, including Abridge, Suki AI and iScribe AI.
With Ambient Notes, clinicians can activate ambient listening during patient visits and receive secure, AI-generated clinical notes drafted within seconds, which they can then review and edit to ensure accuracy, according to athenahealth.
Athenahealth provides electronic health records software, revenue cycle management and patient engagement solutions to small and independent provider practices. The company is also building out a suite of AI tools for ambulatory providers.
Available in the first half of 2026, Microsoft Dragon Copilot will be embedded directly into athenaOne.
The company says athenaOne is the only EHR that allows individual clinicians within a practice to choose the ambient model that best suits the way they practice, and all as part of a single contract.
The collaboration also marks Microsoft's move to expand its Dragon Copilot solution to more ambulatory providers and physician practices.
athenahealth’s Ambient Notes solution is currently available to more than 170,000 clinicians on the athenaOne network and has seen adoption across nearly 50 specialties, according to the company.
“Ambient technology is transforming how care is documented and delivered, freeing clinicians to focus more on their patients. At athenahealth, we champion an open ecosystem—easy, flexible and choice-driven,” said Paul Brient, chief product and operations officer for athenahealth, in a statement. “We are excited to collaborate with Microsoft Dragon Copilot to bring our customers a powerful new option.”
“At Microsoft, we’ve long been committed to empowering clinicians with our Dragon technology that simplifies their workflows and restores time for patient care,” said Kenneth Harper, general manager, Dragon product management, Microsoft health and life sciences, in a statement. “Building on our long-term strategic collaboration with athenahealth, we are now bringing Microsoft’s Dragon ambient technology, which is already in use at over 650 healthcare organizations, to athenahealth’s customers so that their clinicians can fully concentrate on delivering exceptional patient care while significantly reducing the administrative burden of clinical documentation.”
Athenahealth is rolling out new AI features for ambulatory providers as part of a larger upgrade to an "AI-native" athenaOne platform, executives said in recent interviews.
The aim is to provide a "reimagined user experience" for physician practices across key functions such as interoperability, patient engagement, clinical documentation and revenue cycle management. The company wants to offer a comprehensive solution with internally developed AI tools along with other vendors' tools, Bob Segert, chairman and CEO at athenahealth, told Fierce Healthcare back in August.