Even generative AI critics and detractors need to admit the know-how is nice for one thing: transcription.
When you’ve joined a gathering on Zoom, Microsoft Groups, Google Meet or different video name platform of your alternative at any level within the final yr or so, you’ve doubtless seen an elevated variety of AI notetakers becoming a member of the convention name as nicely.
Certainly, not solely do these platforms all have AI transcription options in-built, however there are after all different stand alone providers like Otter AI (utilized by VentureBeat together with the Google Workspace suite of Apps), and fashions reminiscent of OpenAI’s new gpt-4o-transcribe and older open-source Whisper, aiOla, and plenty of others with particular niches and roles.
One such startup is San Fransisco-based Freed AI, co-founded in 2022 by former Fb engineers Erez Druk and Andrey Bannikov, now its CEO and CTO, respectively. The concept was easy: give medical doctors and medical professionals a approach to robotically transcribe their conversations with sufferers, seize correct well being particular terminology, and extract insights and motion plans from the conversations with out the doctor having to elevate a finger.
The concept labored nicely, because the medical scribe platform just lately reached a brand new milestone: 20,000 paying clinician customers, Druk shared in a latest dialog with VentureBeat, every saving 2-3 hours saved every day in guide transcription or be aware group duties.
With almost 3 million affected person visits per 30 days, Freed is quickly turning into a foundational device for documentation in small and mid-sized healthcare settings.
That point dividend has helped drive a excessive diploma of emotional resonance with prospects, who typically describe the product by way of restored work-life stability.
“Clinicians spend greater than 11 hours every week on documentation,” Druk famous. “We constructed Freed to cut back that burden by listening to the go to and writing the medical be aware.”
Rising competitors
However Freed’s success has attracted intensifying competitors. Simply at this time, Doximity — the publicly traded doctor networking firm — launched a free ambient AI scribe out there to all verified U.S. physicians, nurse practitioners, doctor assistants, and medical college students, as Axios and Stat Information reported.
The transfer highlights a shift towards commoditization within the AI scribe market, the place pricing is rising as a differentiator.
“We wish to present free entry to instruments our prospects have requested for,” Doximity’s chief doctor expertise officer Amit Phull advised Axios, “they usually can determine on their very own whether or not the usual providing — or in the event that they’re paying for one thing else — stacks up.”
That launch follows different high-profile scribe funding rounds within the tens or a whole bunch of tens of millions. Whereas buyers pitch visions of EHR-scale platforms, these ambitions nonetheless hinge on proving worth in billing, chart assessment, and compliance — not simply be aware creation.
Nonetheless, Druk and the Freed crew consider they’ve an edge.
Turning burnout into alternative
Freed wasn’t born out of a technical brainstorm however from a private ache level. Druk credit the thought to his spouse’s struggles as a working towards household doctor, the place the fixed burden of note-taking grew to become a every day supply of stress.
“For seven years, day-after-day I heard at house, ‘I’ve notes to do’ — greater than I heard ‘I really like you’ from my spouse,” he stated. “That’s how burdensome documentation is.”
That lived expertise changed into a deliberate product imaginative and prescient: to take away the documentation burden from clinicians and provides them again management over their time and psychological vitality.
“The concept for Freed was: why is no one constructing one thing to assist clinicians?” Druk stated. “Everyone seems to be doing issues to them, not for them.”
Greater than transcription: a modular AI system constructed for drugs
Freed’s system does greater than document and transcribe conversations. The core product is a structured, specialty-aware AI documentation engine that generates medical notes tailor-made to every person’s preferences.
Druk defined that Freed’s structure depends on a extremely modular pipeline. Whereas preliminary transcription is powered by a fine-tuned model of OpenAI’s open supply Whisper mannequin — optimized particularly for medical vocabulary — that’s solely the start line.
The corporate’s platform layers on a whole bunch of focused AI duties to extract construction, filter out small discuss, modify terminology to medical requirements, and match user-specific templates.
“It’s not nearly transcription accuracy,” Druk stated. “It’s about constructing a system clinicians belief — one which will get smarter over time and adapts to their workflow.”
“Our engine learns from clinician edits,” he added. “Over time, Freed turns into your individual private scribe, not a generic one.”
Greater than 20 in-house clinicians repeatedly audit anonymized notes to enhance mannequin efficiency. And as clinicians make edits, the system continues to be taught.
Pricing and accessibility
Freed affords simple pricing:
- $90/month for particular person clinicians
- $84/month per person for groups of two–9 clinicians
- Customized pricing for 10+ seats
Every plan features a 7-day free trial, and the corporate affords 50% reductions to college students, residents, and trainees. Freed’s platform can be compliant with HIPAA, HITECH, and SOC 2 requirements. Audio recordings are encrypted and deleted by default, and clinicians retain full management over their notes always.
Quietly constructing a $20M ARR enterprise
Whereas Freed just lately raised $30 million in Collection A funding led by Sequoia Capital, its monetary momentum has come largely from its current buyer base.
In April 2025, Druk publicly shared on X that Freed has surpassed $20 million in annual recurring income.
That development displays not simply robust product-market match but additionally a transparent go-to-market technique. Somewhat than chase enterprise contracts with massive hospital programs, Freed has centered on small clinics and solo practitioners — a section typically missed by well being tech distributors.
“We’re centered on the lengthy tail, supporting small clinics — the 40% of clinicians in personal follow — to assist hold them alive,” Druk stated. “These clinicians don’t have multimillion-dollar IT budgets, however they’re those who want our assist most.”
Freed is now used throughout greater than 1,000 small healthcare organizations, largely within the 1–50 clinician vary.
Druk stated he believes this focus isn’t just strategic, however mission-aligned — serving to hold small practices viable amid {industry} consolidation.
Trying forward: benchmarks and EHR Integration
Druk acknowledged a standard problem within the more and more crowded AI scribe/AI transcription market: it’s onerous to tell apart actual efficiency from well-marketed parity.
To handle this, Freed is growing an inner benchmarking system to measure be aware high quality and accuracy throughout 30 distinct standards — with the purpose of making an industry-wide framework for evaluating AI scribes.
“There are 100 AI scribes on the market. From the surface, they give the impression of being the identical,” Druk acknowledged. “We wish to assist the market measure what truly issues.”
In parallel, the product roadmap consists of smarter EHR integration. Freed just lately launched a Chrome extension to assist seamless be aware transfers, and upcoming releases will embody extra automation round inputting notes into frequent EHR programs.
Clinician suggestions highlights private affect
Past utilization metrics and product options, Freed’s affect is most clearly captured in person tales. Clinicians report reclaiming nights, weekends, and in some instances, complete careers.
Druk recalled a name with one doctor who advised him she had been getting ready to close down her personal follow after 10 years — till she tried Freed and altered her thoughts.
One other clinician stated, “I’ve been working towards for 44 years — why didn’t you construct this 30 years in the past? I can get pleasure from my follow once more.”
In a survey carried out with one enterprise buyer, 100% of clinicians reported improved work-life stability. Eighty % stated they have been happier of their jobs, and 80% believed they have been delivering higher affected person care.
“We take this cloud that’s hanging over clinicians’ heads — the stress of documentation — and we take away it,” Druk stated. “That’s what Freed is about.”
