CVS Health Advances Digital Strategy: Is It the Next Revenue Pillar?

Retail pharmacy powerhouse, CVS Health CVS, is advancing its digital-first strategy and investing in emerging technologies as part of its long-term growth plan. The company recently announced plans to invest $20 billion over the next 10 years to build a more technology-enabled consumer health experience. According to Tilak Mandadi, CVS Health’s Chief Experience and Technology Officer, the move is intended to address barriers within the U.S. healthcare system.

Central to the company’s new plan is interoperability — a long-standing challenge in health care to allow all parts of the sector to communicate with each other through a single patient record, regardless of the company identity. CVS expects this effort to significantly change the consumer health experience in the next five years. Of late, the company has ramped up investments in fast-growing spaces like enterprise data platforms, cloud capabilities, and digital products to offer innovative solutions through mobile and web channels.

In January 2025, CVS Health replaced its legacy CVS Pharmacy app with a new, all-in-one solution that provides customers greater visibility into their healthcare journey and tools to navigate potential challenges. The new CVS Health app comes with enhanced features, like the ability to manage prescriptions for the whole family across CVS Pharmacy stores, CVS Caremark mail orders and CVS Specialty pharmacies, health and wellness content via external partners and an AI-powered search. The company plans to roll out more capabilities this year to make care more accessible, affordable and convenient. This expanding digital may lead to stronger top-line performance for CVS Health.    

CVS Health Peer Comparison

CVS Health’s closest peer, Walgreens Boots Alliance WBA,is also pushing forward its digital transformation strategy. Walgreens Boots uses AI, IoT, cloud-based mobile applications, robots, machine learning and more to make data-driven decisions while building its omnichannel capabilities to cater to value-seeking customers. Investing in micro-fulfillment centers is part of WBA’s strategic steps to make community pharmacy more efficient.

Cardinal Health CAH, CVS’ joint venture partner since 2013, has been focused on a digital-first culture that emphasizes continuous learning and innovation across the company. CAH’s InteLogix Platform leverages AI and machine learning to provide predictive analytics to simplify and streamline medication supply for health systems. Also, OptiFreight Logistics boosts Cardinal Health’s operational efficiency.

The Zacks Rundown for CVS

Year to date, CVS Health shares have surged 41.7%, outpacing the industry’s decline of 3.4%.

From a valuation standpoint, CVS has been trading at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 0.20 over the last five years compared to the industry average ratio of 0.38. It carries a Value Score of A.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CVS’ earnings has moved upward for both 2025 and 2026 over the past 90 days.

CVS stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). 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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