What does it take to call out billion-dollar healthcare AI companies when the system is rigged against whistleblowers?

In this episode of Inside Assemble AI, hosts Sam Day and Mac welcome Sergei Polevikov, PhD-trained data scientist, AI entrepreneur, author of the widely-read Substack newsletter AI Health Uncut, and co-host of Digital Health Inside Out. Sergei has spent years investigating irregularities in healthcare AI, from inflated product claims and misleading adoption reports to the structural VC incentives that allow fraud to fester.

This is one of our most candid conversations yet — covering the 10 patterns that predict healthcare AI failure, why the real AI adoption rate in healthcare is nowhere near what industry reports claim, and why human-in-the-loop remains an essential safeguard regardless of how capable foundation models become.

TOPICS COVERED:

→ How Sergei went from healthcare AI founder (WellAI / Chart2Chart) to fraud investigator — and why transparency, not scandal, drives his mission.

→ His 10 healthcare tech failure patterns, including: the Chinese wall between management and teams, investors-as-customers conflicts of interest, smoke-and-mirrors technology, champagne-and-cocaine financial mismanagement, toxic code of silence, founder extortion, and celebrity protection schemes.

→ Why surveys from firms like Menlo Ventures and McKinsey dramatically overstate AI adoption — and what US Census Bureau data covering 30,000+ smaller healthcare organisations actually shows.

→ The structural reason why incumbents like Epic, Optum, and Cigna are disincentivised to build genuinely innovative AI products — and why startups like Abridge are winning despite the odds.

→ What's genuinely working in healthcare AI right now: AI scribes (done well), drug discovery, genomics, and protein structure modelling.

→ His advice for founders entering the healthcare or pharma space: protect your mission when VC money arrives, read every clause in your operating agreement, and choose partners who care about patients — not just their LPs.

RESOURCES & LINKS:

2. Advancing AI in Healthcare: A Comprehensive Review of Best Practices: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0009898123003212

3. "Digital Health Inside Out" podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalHealthInsideOut

CONNECT WITH ASSEMBLE AI:

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Amazon Music. Follow our YouTube channel and Substack newsletter for more deep dives into AI's real impact across industries. Have a topic you'd like us to explore? Reach out — we welcome new voices and fresh perspectives.

Keywords: healthcare AI, AI fraud, digital health, VC pump and dump, Babylon Health, Olive AI, Theranos patterns, AI scribes, Epic health, healthcare startup, AI adoption, human in the loop, AI compliance, healthcare innovation