Every 73 days, medical knowledge doubles.
For most doctors, that’s an impossible pace to keep up with. Even reading just a fraction of the new research in one’s speciality could take nearly nine hours a day.
That’s the problem OpenEvidence aims to solve.
Founded by economist and technologist Daniel Nadler, the AI-powered platform is designed to help clinicians instantly access, interpret, and apply the latest medical evidence without getting buried under endless PDFs.
What is OpenEvidence
OpenEvidence is an AI platform built specifically for physicians.
It uses advanced natural language processing to scan, summarise, and synthesise vast amounts of medical literature, from journals like NEJM and JAMA, into clear, evidence-based insights.
The goal is to help clinicians stay updated with the latest research, despite their hectic schedules. And to augment their ability to make informed decisions quickly.
Nadler calls it “a brain extender.”
A tool that does for medicine what computer systems did for Wall Street analysts.
The platform is already being used by about half of all American doctors and is adding 65,000 new users every month. An adoption rate that few digital health products have ever achieved.
And investors are taking notice. OpenEvidence’s investors include reknowned names like equoia, Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Coatue, Thrive, Conviction, ICONIQ, Greycroft, Breyer Capital, Mayo Clinic, and others.
Its latest funding round valued OpenEvidence at $3.5 billion.
Why it matters
Physician burnout has reached record levels, fuelled by administrative overload and an ever-expanding body of medical literature.
As Tennessee-based oncologist Dr. Samyukta Mullangi explains, “Medical oncologists like me are pressed for time and overwhelmed with clinical duties. We finish up our daily work at home after dinner, after the kids are in bed, in what we call ‘pajama time.’ It contributes to a lot of provider burnout.”
OpenEvidence tackles both issues head-on. It gives doctors instant access to credible research that can directly inform patient care.
As Dr Mullangi puts it:
“OpenEvidence solves two unrelated but orthogonal problems: it gives access to paywalled medical literature and leverages AI for reasoning and time-efficient record retrieval.”
She adds that smart AI tooling “has been a game-changer” for her daily workflow.
How OpenEvidence works
Unlike many AI health tools that scrape the web without permission, OpenEvidence has formal licensing agreements with leading publishers, including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Nadler is proud of that ethical stance:
“We’re probably the only pure AI company in America that is not currently being sued for copyright violations.”
That means doctors can access up-to-date research legally and ethically, a crucial distinction in a field where misinformation can cost lives.
It also integrates directly into hospital systems, like Mount Sinai, allowing for secure, custom-tailored access to relevant evidence at the point of care.
Dr David Reich, president of Mount Sinai Health System, shared:
“Cybersecurity remains a key consideration. But I’m very enthusiastic about OpenEvidence. It’s a great tool.”
He noted that Mount Sinai also uses secure ChatGPT environments for medical education, ensuring protected health information never leaves their cyber-secure systems. A reminder that data privacy remains central to AI adoption in healthcare.
The “Golden Age” and the “Dark Age”
Nadler points out a paradox in modern medicine:
“We celebrate the golden age of biotechnology, and we should. But what’s not talked about enough is that this golden age for drug discovery is the dark ages for physicians, in terms of burnout.”
It’s a striking reminder that while medical innovation is accelerating, the people delivering care are struggling to keep up. Tools like OpenEvidence don’t just streamline workflows; they help close that widening gap between innovation and implementation.
Is OpenEvidence free?
Yes. The platform is free for doctors, funded by advertising and strategic partnerships.
“Our business model is the same as Google’s,” says Nadler. “It prioritizes access and engagement rather than paywalls.”
That approach, prioritising reach over cost, has helped OpenEvidence scale rapidly while maintaining alignment with physicians’ needs. It has also attracted major investors, including Google, underscoring confidence in its long-term value.
OpenEvidence vs ChatGPT: Which is a better healthcare tool?
The biggest difference between OpenEvidence and other general AI models like ChatGPT lies in their focus and trust.
While ChatGPT can provide general medical explanations, OpenEvidence is trained on peer-reviewed clinical data with transparent sourcing and licensing.
It doesn’t “hallucinate” or improvise. Instead, it works like a specialised research assistant for doctors, built to ensure accuracy, legality, and reliability.
OpenEvidence is also the only generative AI tool to score 100% on the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE). A benchmark of just how clinically reliable its reasoning has become.
In Nadler’s words,“OpenEvidence is not just about data delivery, but about connecting clinicians with the right information and, in the future, the right experts.”
A step toward smarter medicine
Nadler envisions a future where AI acts as connective tissue between physicians. Helping doctors collaborate on rare or complex cases in real time, even if they are halfway across the world.
Building on it, the company recently launched an AI scribe to further ease clinicians’ administrative load.
The scribe automatically drafts clinical notes from consultations, helping doctors spend more time with patients and less on paperwork. Another step toward making AI the “connective tissue” across healthcare.
“The AI’s job isn’t to answer every question. It’s to get out of the way as quickly as possible and connect one human to another.”
That vision is particularly timely as healthcare systems worldwide face clinician shortages and data overload.
It’s also a refreshing counterpoint to dystopian narratives about AI replacing humans. In this vision, AI becomes a bridge, and not a barrier, between people.
The road ahead
Despite its promise, OpenEvidence faces ongoing challenges. Ensuring robust cybersecurity, expanding beyond the U.S., and maintaining user trust as it scales.
It also must balance its ad-supported model with data privacy. A tension every free platform eventually confronts.
But as medicine drowns in data, its value proposition remains simple and powerful:
Let AI handle the reading, so doctors can focus on the healing.
It may not be the flashiest AI tool in healthcare, but it’s quietly becoming one of the most impactful. A reminder that sometimes, the most powerful innovations are the ones that simply make hard work a little easier.
-By Rohini Kundu and the AHT Team
