UNHUnitedHealth Group Incorporated

“As we said earlier, we are spending about $1.5 billion in AI across UnitedHealth Group. Think about it this way, 1/3 of this is explicitly invested into software products and platform, accelerating Optum Insight's transition of business models into an AI-first software and services firm. The remaining 2/3 is spent across signature end-to-end processes and functions across UnitedHealth Group.”

“We remain on track to invest nearly $1.5 billion in AI-related initiatives in 2026.”

“this quarter, we launched digital prior auth in keeping with the enterprise priority on prior auths. We already have a couple of payer clients and provider clients using them, another 50 clients in the pipeline. And the early results are that prior auths submitted through our software have shown a 96% approval rate on first submissions.”

“In the end, all internal investments in AI use cases is routed through Optum Insight and has the potential to be commercialized outside of UHG, and we expect a return conservatively of 2:1 on these programs over the next few years, many of them paying back within the next 12 to 18 months.”

“Member adoption of UHC AI-powered digital tools continues to grow. Almost half of all members are now registered for and using UHC digital access. We saw 73 million digital visits in Q1, up 42% over the last 2 years, reflecting sustained and growing engagement with our digital platform.”

“Our unique PreCheck Prior Authorization capability reduces prescription approval time from over 8 hours to under 30 seconds and provides a 68% reduction in denial due to missing information and an 88% reduction in appeals, easing interactions for clients, members and providers.”

“At Optum Insight, new AI-first products continue to gain traction. Optum Real is helping payers and care providers deal more efficiently with administrative functions such as claim adjudication and coverage validation and can reduce manual contact costs by 76%.”

“Areas like consumer member experience. You must have noticed we just launched Avery, a generative AI chatbot answering member questions for UnitedHealthcare, which will be expanded to over 20 million members by the year-end.”

“We started the year by onboarding more than 800 new clients while reducing contact call center volume 25% through enhanced digital and AI-enabled self-service with member satisfaction over 95%.”

“Optum Real, an AI-first platform launched a couple of quarters ago, now has 0.5 billion transactions year-to-date and expects to close the year at over 2.5 billion transactions.”

“Digital self-service is now the primary way members interact with us, with over 80% of consumer contacts through digital formats and an NPS in the top quartile of the industry.”

“For care providers, digital channels continue to grow, with transaction volumes up 75% year-over-year and about 75% of in-network providers using our portal or API tools.”

“for Optum Insight, I would view this as what we're doing is a couple of things. One is slowly decommissioning old products that were not AI-based and reinvesting in those products through the AI investments. So you're getting the slow rundown of those products in Q1 and then the investments to transfer those over into more AI-based. And I think you'll see the benefits of that coming into the back half.”

“We are rapidly scaling self-service digital scheduling, including AI-enabled tools that guide patients to the right appointment in the right setting at the right time for them. That's improving access, reducing friction and expanding capacity without adding incremental clinical burden.”

“A third area is clinical workflows. For example, Ambient rollout for physicians and nurses in Optum Health and then summarization capabilities for nurses and clinical reviews.”

“Optum AI, our new AI consulting arm, has already signed its first few contracts, helping companies like LabCorp through their operational AI initiatives.”

“Our enterprise-wide AI ambitions are meaningful and the agenda is in motion. We're getting after business units and functions alike and, importantly, critical processes that are core to several of our businesses. This is not just a matter of being more productive at what we already do, but a reimagining of how we organize, operate and work going forward.”

“Optum Insight has untapped potential in an AI-centric world. They're starting to sell business and building broader service relationships around that reality, but to evolve more modern scale solutions and for users to be ready to embrace them will take more time, in my mind, later into 2026 and into 2027.”

“I would also just remind you that we've assumed a little bit of lower script volume, obviously, due to the membership that we had. But as the year progresses, I think you'll see some of our G&A initiatives and AI investments coming through, and that will actually improve the outlook in the back half.”

“The operating cost ratio was 13.8% in the quarter, reflecting the timing of targeted investments across operations, technology and care delivery as well as incremental investments in areas such as AI, customer experience, cybersecurity and community engagement.”

“We are investing in AI-enabled modernization. While early, these capabilities are already improving experiences for consumers and care providers, increasing productivity and reducing administrative burden.”

“Optum Insight is seeing increased market interest with its AI-first enterprise approach.”

“This is kind of uncharted territory when you think about the scope that this could have. So we aren't giving any guidance with respect to the compounding effect, if you will, of these kinds of changes across the business.”