An Open Letter to EHRs: Why Waiting on AI Could Cost You Everything

The healthcare world is entering an AI revolution. Epic is embedding AI across its entire EHR ecosystem, clinical documentation, billing, patient engagement, predictive analytics, you name it, with tools like Art, Penny, Emmie, and the Cosmos dataset powering everything behind the scenes. They’re making AI part of the experience, not a separate feature. STATHealthcare Dive+8Fierce Healthcare+8Healthcare IT Leaders+8

Meanwhile, Oracle Health (formerly Cerner) is delivering its AI promise in steps, but the results are mixed. In the last three years, Oracle lost 57 acute care customers, including 12 large health systems, a striking jackknife in market position. Client satisfaction remains alarmingly low, with half of users saying they would not repurchase. STAT+8Healthcare Dive+8Digital Health News+8

The Cost of Waiting

This moment mirrors the App Store era, and I’ve seen this movie before.

When I founded Bottle Rocket, we were on the frontlines of the mobile revolution. Back then, companies had a choice: build platforms that could host apps natively or treat apps as an afterthought. The difference was everything. Those who moved early dominated entire industries. Those who waited lost customers, relevance, and entire lines of business to competitors who became the new default.

Healthcare is at the same inflection point now. The AI era will separate winners from laggards and EHR vendors who don’t make AI a native, strategic layer of their platform risk being left behind.

Missing this wave means:

• Losing customer loyalty. EHR satisfaction is dropping, and Epic’s aggressive AI strategy is already pulling systems away from competitors.
• Letting third parties own the experience. Bolt-on AI scribes and disjointed add-ons put your customer data, workflows, and revenue streams in someone else’s hands.
• Forfeiting your position in the future of care without embedded intelligence, you lose the opportunity to deliver provider efficiency, better patient outcomes, and business resilience at scale.

I watched entire industries transform during the app revolution, some flourished, others disappeared. The same thing is happening now in healthcare, only faster.

You Don’t Have Have a Multi-Million Dollar AI Team to Win This Race

Most EHR vendors aren’t built to be AI companies, nor should they be. Building and maintaining cutting-edge AI infrastructure requires massive investment, specialized engineering talent, and continuous innovation. Epic has thousands of engineers working on this. Oracle has the resources of an entire cloud division behind Cerner’s AI pivot.

For everyone else, competing at that level is unrealistic but that doesn’t mean you can sit this one out. The expectations are already shifting:

• Clinicians are demanding AI capabilities to work faster, document smarter, and reduce burnout.
• Procurement teams are writing AI into RFPs if you can’t check that box, you’re not even in the conversation.
• Competitors are positioning AI as table stakes, selling against you if you can’t deliver an embedded solution.

This is why we built Matic Inside, so you don’t have to be an AI shop to compete in the AI era. With Matic Inside, you can:

• Deliver embedded AI capabilities directly within your workflows in weeks, not years.
• Keep control of your customer experience, data, and revenue streams instead of handing them over to third-party scribes and point solutions.
• Compete head-to-head with the largest players without spending millions or delaying your roadmap for years.

Here’s the Move Forward

The reality is simple: the market won’t wait for you to “figure out” AI later. EHRs that embed intelligence today will keep their customers, win new deals, and future-proof their platforms. Those who wait will watch others do it for them.

Don’t wait. Embed AI now, or risk being leapfrogged. The winners in this era will be those delivering smarter, faster, frictionless care with AI built in, not bolted on.

We built Matic Inside with that in mind—so you can offer embedded AI that preserves the integrity of your platform and drives real results. In this race, the cost of hesitation may be insurmountable.  Learn about Matic Inside.  Contact Us