April 23, 2026

Deal with it

Hi there,

Here is this week’s Hot or Not.

Hot: Healthcare model developers

Healthcare AI model developers saw the biggest headcount growth in digital health over the past 12 months. 

Notably, three developers are leading the surge: 

• Tennr's hiring data signals a push into larger health systems and specialty verticals like DME, infusion, and radiology
• Hippocratic AI is expanding into pharma and medtech R&D following its acquisition of Grove
• Anthropic reached 11 healthcare roles in Q1'26, days after launching its healthcare offering

See how other healthcare markets stack up in our State of Digital Health Q1’26 report.

Not: A unified big tech AI agent strategy 

No single hyperscaler dominates the 95 AI agent startup partnerships signed over the past two years.

The market is splitting by use case:

• Google leads software development at 57%, with Replit and Claude Code both choosing Google Cloud
• Microsoft captures 77% of legal and healthcare deals, where its compliance track record is the moat
• Amazon holds 64% of customer service AI partnerships, built on AWS' real-time infrastructure advantage

Get the full picture in our recent analysis on hyperscaler AI strategy. 

Hot: Digital health M&A

Digital health M&A deals were up 47% in Q1'26.

The quarter's deals show that commercial adoption is what commands a premium. For example: 

• Abbott paid $23B for Exact Sciences on the back of 20M Cologuard screenings and Medicare coverage
• DeepHealth acquired Gleamer for $269M (700+ hospital contracts, $30M projected revenue)

Explore the trend in our recent report.

Not: Enterprise AI readiness

Just 5 firms account for 32% of all S&P 500 AI activity, while nearly 30% of S&P 500 companies have no documented "build, buy, partner" AI activity over the past 2 years.

Among those that do show activity, the median company is still not doing a ton and has <4 AI company relationships. Most are still pilots or integrations highlighting just how early we are on AI adoption in the enterprise..

See the full breakdown in our Future of the Enterprise AI Buildout report.

The +1

Source: u/CaptainIncompetent33 via Reddit.

9 shades of grey. Should have been a bar chart. 

I love you.

Anand

@asanwal 

Co-Founder & Exec Chair

P.S. Don’t miss the 10th annual launch of our AI 100 list. Register for the briefing here. 

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