Can Voice AI Transform Healthcare? SoundHound Thinks So

Voice AI is emerging as a practical tool to address some of healthcare’s most persistent challenges—staff shortages, administrative overload and fragmented patient communication. SoundHound AI SOUN believes conversational and agentic voice technology can play a meaningful role in easing these pressures while improving patient access and engagement.

SoundHound’s healthcare strategy centers on its Amelia enterprise platform, which combines speech-to-meaning technology with agentic AI workflows designed for regulated environments. Unlike basic chatbots, Amelia is built to handle complex, multi-step interactions such as appointment scheduling, prescription refills, inbound triage and outbound patient outreach with appropriate guardrails and escalation paths. During the third quarter of 2025, SoundHound expanded its healthcare footprint by launching a pioneering inbound and outbound agentic AI solution with a large precision medicine provider and securing a deployment with a U.S.-based regional hospital system, while also renewing a major healthcare supply customer.

Management emphasizes that healthcare adoption favors reliability, accuracy and privacy over experimentation. SoundHound’s proprietary Speech-to-Meaning architecture processes speech and intent simultaneously, reducing latency and error rates—critical in clinical and patient-service settings. The platform’s ability to operate in cloud, hybrid or on-premise environments further supports compliance and data-control requirements common in healthcare systems.

From an investment perspective, healthcare remains a small but strategically important vertical within SoundHound’s diversified enterprise mix. Strong revenue growth in 2025, rising enterprise adoption and a solid cash position provide the financial flexibility to scale regulated-use cases over time. If healthcare providers continue to prioritize automation that improves access without sacrificing trust, SoundHound’s voice AI could become a valuable layer in the industry’s digital transformation.

Key Competitors in Voice AI for Healthcare

In the race to integrate voice AI into healthcare, Nuance Communications — part of Microsoft MSFT and International Business Machines Corporation IBM stand out as direct competitive forces to SoundHound’s voice solutions.

Microsoft’s Nuance Communications has long been a leader in clinical voice recognition. Nuance’s Dragon Medical One and, more recently, embedded AI tools are widely used for clinical documentation, physician dictation, and workflow automation across hospitals and practices. Its deep integration with electronic health records gives Nuance a strong foothold, making it a formidable competitor in voice-enabled healthcare solutions and a frequent alternative for providers evaluating voice AI.

IBM leverages its Watson Health heritage and broader AI stack to deliver voice-assisted care management and data insights. IBM’s voice AI is often bundled with analytics and care orchestration platforms, targeting remote patient engagement, virtual assistants, and clinical decision support.

Both Nuance and IBM appear frequently in healthcare AI discussions due to their established market presence, extensive enterprise implementations, and strategic partnerships, posing competitive pressure on SoundHound’s expansion in regulated healthcare environments.

SOUN’s Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

SoundHound shares have lost 42.5% in the past year compared with the Zacks Computers - IT Services industry’s 19.9% decline. SOUN stock has lagged the broader Computer and Technology sector and the S&P 500, as shown below.

SOUN's Price Performance

In terms of its forward 12-month price-to-sales ratio, SOUN is trading at 19.51, up from the industry’s 16.48.

SOUN's Valuation

Over the past seven days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for SOUN’s 2025 loss per share has widened to 13 cents from 9 cents. The estimated figure indicates an improvement from the year-ago loss of $1.04 per share. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for SOUN’s 2026 loss per share has narrowed to 5 cents from 8 cents.
 

SOUN currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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