How Abridge Scaled to a $5.3B Valuation: Ambient AI in Healthcare | Zachary Lipton (Cofounder & CTO)

Zachary Lipton is the Co-founder and CTO of Abridge, an AI healthcare company that recently raised $300M at a $5.3B valuation to transform clinical documentation with ambient AI. 

We discuss his journey from jazz musician to ML researcher to startup co-founder, and how personal experience led him to reinvent the doctor–patient encounter. 

We also discuss: 

- Deploying AI in live hospital settings,
- How ambient AI is reshaping clinical documentation at scale, 
- What it takes to deeply integrate with systems like Epic, 
- The LLM moment and how ChatGPT changed the game for healthcare, 
- Navigating safety, privacy, and compliance in high-stakes environments, 
- And much more!

—

Brought to you by Autoblocks (https://www.autoblocks.ai/) — helping teams build safe, reliable, and compliant LLM-based products.

—

Building with AI is a weekly podcast featuring conversations with top AI product builders and leaders. Through thoughtful dialogue, host Haroon Choudery explores how AI is reshaping industries in real-time. This season, we're diving deep into one of the most impactful and high-stakes applications of AI: healthcare.

—

Subscribe to Building With AI:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/
• X: https://x.com/buildingwith_ai

Where to find Zachary Lipton:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharylipton/
• X: https://x.com/zacharylipton

Learn more about Abridge:

• Website: https://www.abridge.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/abridgehq/
• X: https://x.com/AbridgeHQ

Where to find Haroon Choudery:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haroonchoudery/
• X: https://x.com/haroonchoudery

Learn more about Autoblocks:

• Website: https://www.autoblocks.ai/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/autoblocks/posts/
• X: https://x.com/AutoblocksAI

—

[00:00] – Up Next 
[00:45] – Episode Introduction 
[02:25] – Autoblocks: AI Optimization Platform 
[03:50] – A Personal Health Crisis Sparks a Startup 
[13:08] – The LLM Moment 
[22:00] – Reimagining Doctor-Patient Encounters with AI 
[27:50] – Embedding AI in Complex Clinical Workflows: The Abridge Playbook 
[32:05] – “This Saved My Marriage”: What Clinicians Really Think 
[36:16] – Making AI Smarter with Context 
[44:40] – Can AI Fix Healthcare’s Broken Billing System? 
[51:05] – Scaling AI in Regulated, High-Stakes Environments 
[52:30] – Why This Work Matters: Leadership, Mission, and Impact