Want smarter insights in your inbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get only what matters to enterprise AI, data, and security leaders.<\/em> Subscribe Now<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Even generative AI critics and detractors have to admit the technology is great for something: transcription.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019ve joined a meeting on Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet or other video call platform of your choice at any point in the last year or so, you\u2019ve likely noticed an increased number of AI notetakers joining the conference call as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, not only do these platforms all have AI transcription features built in, but there are of course other stand alone services like Otter AI (used by VentureBeat along with the Google Workspace suite of Apps), and models such as OpenAI\u2019s new gpt-4o-transcribe and older open-source Whisper, aiOla, and many others with specific niches and roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One such startup is San Fransisco-based Freed AI, co-founded in 2022 by former Facebook engineers Erez Druk and Andrey Bannikov, now its CEO and CTO, respectively. The idea was simple: give doctors and medical professionals a way to automatically transcribe their conversations with patients, capture accurate health specific terminology, and extract insights and action plans from the conversations without the physician having to lift a finger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The AI Impact Series Returns to San Francisco – August 5<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The next phase of AI is here – are you ready? Join leaders from Block, GSK, and SAP for an exclusive look at how autonomous agents are reshaping enterprise workflows – from real-time decision-making to end-to-end automation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Secure your spot now – space is limited: https:\/\/bit.ly\/3GuuPLF<\/p>\n\n\n\n The idea worked well, as the medical scribe platform recently reached a new milestone: 20,000 paying clinician users, Druk shared in a recent conversation with VentureBeat, each saving 2-3 hours saved daily in manual transcription or note organization tasks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With nearly 3 million patient visits per month, Freed is rapidly becoming a foundational tool for documentation in small and mid-sized healthcare settings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That time dividend has helped drive a high degree of emotional resonance with customers, who often describe the product in terms of restored work-life balance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cClinicians spend more than 11 hours a week on documentation,\u201d Druk noted. \u201cWe built Freed to reduce that burden by listening to the visit and writing the clinical note.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Freed\u2019s success has attracted intensifying competition. Just today, Doximity \u2014 the publicly traded physician networking company \u2014 released a free ambient AI scribe available to all verified U.S. physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and medical students, as Axios and Stat News reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The move highlights a shift toward commoditization in the AI scribe market, where pricing is emerging as a differentiator. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe want to provide free access to tools our customers have asked for,\u201d Doximity\u2019s chief physician experience officer Amit Phull told Axios, \u201cand they can figure out on their own whether the standard offering \u2014 or if they\u2019re paying for something else \u2014 stacks up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That launch follows other high-profile scribe funding rounds in the tens or hundreds of millions. While investors pitch visions of EHR-scale platforms, those ambitions still hinge on proving value in billing, chart review, and compliance \u2014 not just note creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, Druk and the Freed team believe they have an edge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Freed wasn\u2019t born out of a technical brainstorm but from a personal pain point. Druk credits the idea to his wife\u2019s struggles as a practicing family physician, where the constant burden of note-taking became a daily source of stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor seven years, every day I heard at home, \u2018I have notes to do\u2019 \u2014 more than I heard \u2018I love you\u2019 from my wife,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s how burdensome documentation is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That lived experience turned into a deliberate product vision: to remove the documentation burden from clinicians and give them back control over their time and mental energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe idea for Freed was: why is nobody building something to help clinicians?\u201d Druk said. \u201cEveryone is doing things to them, not for them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Freed\u2019s system does more than record and transcribe conversations. The core product is a structured, specialty-aware AI documentation engine that generates clinical notes tailored to each user\u2019s preferences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Druk explained that Freed\u2019s architecture relies on a highly modular pipeline. While initial transcription is powered by a fine-tuned version of OpenAI\u2019s open source Whisper model \u2014 optimized specifically for clinical vocabulary \u2014 that\u2019s only the starting point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The company\u2019s platform layers on hundreds of targeted AI tasks to extract structure, filter out small talk, adjust terminology to medical standards, and match user-specific templates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just about transcription accuracy,\u201d Druk said. \u201cIt\u2019s about building a system clinicians trust \u2014 one that gets smarter over time and adapts to their workflow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur engine learns from clinician edits,\u201d he added. \u201cOver time, Freed becomes your own personal scribe, not a generic one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than 20 in-house clinicians regularly audit anonymized notes to improve model performance. And as clinicians make edits, the system continues to learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Freed offers straightforward pricing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each plan includes a 7-day free trial, and the company offers 50% discounts to students, residents, and trainees. Freed\u2019s platform is also compliant with HIPAA, HITECH, and SOC 2 standards. Audio recordings are encrypted and deleted by default, and clinicians retain full control over their notes at all times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Freed recently raised $30 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital, its financial momentum has come largely from its existing customer base. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In April 2025, Druk publicly shared on X that Freed has surpassed $20 million in annual recurring revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That growth reflects not just strong product-market fit but also a clear go-to-market strategy. Rather than chase enterprise contracts with large hospital systems, Freed has focused on small clinics and solo practitioners \u2014 a segment often overlooked by health tech vendors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re focused on the long tail, supporting small clinics \u2014 the 40% of clinicians in private practice \u2014 to help keep them alive,\u201d Druk said. \u201cThese clinicians don\u2019t have multimillion-dollar IT budgets, but they\u2019re the ones who need our help most.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Freed is now used across more than 1,000 small healthcare organizations, mostly in the 1\u201350 clinician range. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Druk said he believes this focus is not just strategic, but mission-aligned \u2014 helping keep small practices viable amid industry consolidation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Druk acknowledged a common challenge in the increasingly crowded AI scribe\/AI transcription market: it\u2019s hard to distinguish real performance from well-marketed parity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To address this, Freed is developing an internal benchmarking system to measure note quality and accuracy across 30 distinct criteria \u2014 with the goal of creating an industry-wide framework for comparing AI scribes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere are 100 AI scribes out there. From the outside, they look the same,\u201d Druk acknowledged. \u201cWe want to help the market measure what actually matters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In parallel, the product roadmap includes smarter EHR integration. Freed recently launched a Chrome extension to support seamless note transfers, and upcoming releases will include more automation around inputting notes into common EHR systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond usage metrics and product features, Freed\u2019s impact is most clearly captured in user stories. Clinicians report reclaiming nights, weekends, and in some cases, entire careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Druk recalled a call with one physician who told him she had been preparing to shut down her private practice after 10 years \u2014 until she tried Freed and changed her mind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another clinician said, \u201cI\u2019ve been practicing for 44 years \u2014 why didn\u2019t you build this 30 years ago? I can enjoy my practice again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a survey conducted with one enterprise customer, 100% of clinicians reported improved work-life balance. Eighty percent said they were happier in their jobs, and 80% believed they were delivering better patient care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe take this cloud that\u2019s hanging over clinicians\u2019 heads \u2014 the stress of documentation \u2014 and we remove it,\u201d Druk said. \u201cThat\u2019s what Freed is about.\u201d<\/p>\n Daily insights on business use cases with VB Daily<\/strong><\/p>\n If you want to impress your boss, VB Daily has you covered. We give you the inside scoop on what companies are doing with generative AI, from regulatory shifts to practical deployments, so you can share insights for maximum ROI.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\tThanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here.\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n An error occured.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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\n<\/div>Rising competition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Turning burnout into opportunity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
More than transcription: a modular AI system built for medicine<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Pricing and accessibility<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Quietly building a $20M ARR business<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Looking ahead: benchmarks and EHR Integration<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Clinician feedback highlights personal impact<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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