Over the past couple of years, ambient speech technology has proven to be more than a buzzword. Ambient speech solutions—which use healthcare-specific language models to capture patient-provider encounters and contextualize them into structured notes—have been adopted at an unprecedented rate, and many healthcare organizations are seeking out these solutions to achieve benefits such as increased efficiency, improved note quality, and improved clinician well-being.
In October 2024, KLAS published an Ambient Speech Decision Insights report, which examined purchasing trends in this market and emphasized the importance of EHR integration with these solutions. More recently, KLAS published a performance report sharing customer satisfaction with ambient speech vendors as well as market insights.
Note: KLAS reports use the term “ambient speech” to refer to this area of AI clinical documentation technology. While “ambient speech” is the most frequently used term in the market, other common terms include “ambient AI,” “AI scribing,” and “AI clinical scribe.”
Points to Know
- Despite the surge in implementing ambient speech solutions, clinician adoption remains in early stages, with deeper adoption seen in ambulatory organizations and outpatient settings.
- KLAS has validated sufficient customer feedback for six vendors—Abridge, Ambience Healthcare, DeepScribe, Microsoft, Nabla, and Suki. EHR integration is crucial for healthcare organizations when selecting ambient speech solutions.
- Ambient speech technology is rapidly evolving. KLAS encourages readers to stay updated with the latest vendor performance data and look forward to the upcoming Arch Collaborative report on the impact of these solutions on clinician experience.
Read more below to dive deeper into the data.
The State of Ambient Speech Adoption
The recently published report shares helpful insights into the state of customer adoption of ambient speech technology. While the implementation of ambient speech solutions has skyrocketed in recent months, clinician adoption of these solutions is still generally in very early stages. Currently, ambient speech technology is more deeply adopted by ambulatory organizations (with more than 25 physicians) or in outpatient settings. Looking forward, healthcare leaders of both ambulatory and acute healthcare organizations anticipate a swift increase in depth of adoption in the next six months.
Among interviewed organizations that have adopted ambient speech technology, a large portion selected their initial ambient speech users by either (1) focusing on inefficient or overburdened clinicians or (2) seeking volunteers. Word-of-mouth among clinicians is important for encouraging adoption and clearly defining the technology’s capabilities and learning curve. Sharing tangible outcomes can also help encourage adoption. The most commonly reported outcomes achieved by respondents are decreased physician burnout, improved same-day closure rates, and improved workflow—all of which can contribute to increased clinician satisfaction, better work-life balance, and improved retention and recruiting.
While ambient speech can provide significant benefits, interviewed organizations emphasize that it is not a universal solution. Depending on workflow, comfort level, and demographic, some clinicians may benefit more from other services like virtual scribing.
A Look at Ambient Speech Vendors
There are many vendors in the ambient speech market, and KLAS was able to validate sufficient customer feedback for six vendors—Abridge, Ambience Healthcare, DeepScribe, Microsoft, Nabla, and Suki. As mentioned before, EHR integration is a key deciding factor for healthcare organizations when looking to purchase an ambient speech solution.
Abridge and Microsoft are recognized for their Epic Workshop partnership—this allows them to work with Epic and develop technology and native integrations with the ambient speech solutions. As such, the majority of interviewed Epic organizations use either Abridge or Microsoft and highly value the embedded technology.
Suki and Nabla both take an EHR-agnostic approach to their solutions, which are validated with many different EHRs. Suki partners with both athenahealth and MEDITECH, making their solution a popular choice for organizations using those EHR vendors. Nabla customers highlight that the vendor is able to work with less commonly used EHRs.
KLAS has collected a limited number of customer interviews for Ambience Healthcare and DeepScribe, but feedback for these vendors indicates very high customer satisfaction. KLAS has also validated other vendors in this space, including Commure, Onpoint Healthcare Partners, Oracle Health, and Solventum. As the market develops further, we will continue to measure these and other vendors.
The Future of Ambient Speech
Ambient speech technology has rapidly evolved and is continuously changing. To keep pace with this market, KLAS encourages readers to look at the latest vendor performance data on our website. The KLAS Arch Collaborative is also administering an ambient speech–specific survey to measure the impact of these solutions on the clinician experience. Later in 2025, we will publish an Arch Collaborative report sharing initial findings from this survey. For further information on the ambient speech market and deeper insights into vendor performance, please read our 2025 Ambient Speech report.
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