Microsoft's AI assistant Dragon Copilot available in German clinics

After a pilot phase lasting several months, Microsoft's AI assistant for the healthcare sector, Dragon Copilot, is now generally available for clinics and practices in Germany. This was announced by the company. The aim of the software is to reduce the enormous amount of documentation required in day-to-day clinical practice, allowing medical staff to spend more time on direct patient care.

In spring, Microsoft announced the launch of the AI assistant for the summer, after the system was already available in the USA. The launch in Germany was preceded by an intensive trial phase in five hospitals: Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Mannheim University Hospital, Stuttgart University Hospital, Hannover Regional Hospital, and BG Klinikum Bergmannstrost Halle (Saale).

AI writes in the background

Dragon Copilot works as a so-called “ambient scribe”: with the patient's consent, the AI listens in on medical consultations in the background and automatically creates structured medical notes. These must then be checked and approved by the medical staff. Technically, the solution combines Dragon Medical One speech recognition with the ambient capabilities of Dragon Ambient eXperience (DAX) and generative AI.

Feedback from the pilot clinics has been consistently positive. “Our evaluations show that the documentation workload for medical staff has actually been significantly reduced with the new technology,” explains Dr. Alexander Meyer, Professor of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine at Charité. The doctors have demonstrably had more time for focused discussions. Dr. Christian Dumpies, Senior Physician at BG Klinikum Bergmannstrost Halle, also sees great potential: “Ambient AI speech recognition has the potential to radically reduce the documentation burden and standardize the flow of information without disrupting the doctor-patient conversation.”

Further AI assistants for the healthcare sector in preparation

The Danish provider Corti, which has developed a similar solution, is also planning to enter the German market. Together with digital health transformation eG (dht) and MARIS Healthcare GmbH, the Corti Assistant is to be evaluated in a comprehensive practical test in German hospitals. The aim is to analyze the effects in various specialist areas to create a basis for a broader introduction.

Zoom presented its AI-based virtual agent for the healthcare sector at Zoomtopia 2025 in September as part of “AI Companion 3.0,” which supports integration into medical workflows and electronic patient records. The assistant is designed to proactively take over tasks and optimize appointments and administrative processes.

(mack)