Verified
CVS Health
Scaling- Healthcare
- 300,000+ employees
- $20B+ tech plan over 10 years
- Health100 on Google Gemini
- ~75% of pharmacy calls resolved by AI
CVS Health deploys AI inside each business: conversational AI resolves most CVS Pharmacy calls, Aetna runs AI claims agents and nurse documentation tools, and Oak Street Health used ambient scribes in about 90% of visits in 2025. Chief Experience and Technology Officer Tilak Mandadi, who reports to CEO David Joyner, owns AI strategy and runs Health100, a consumer AI platform built on Google Cloud's Gemini models that began a targeted launch in Jul 2026. CVS Health has committed more than $20 billion to technology over ten years.
cvshealth.comTheir approach to AI
- The platform
- Health100, a CVS Health subsidiary announced with Google Cloud in Mar 2026, is the consumer AI platform; inside its businesses CVS Health builds its own tools and buys others, such as Salesforce Agentforce Health for Aetna and CVS Caremark call centers (May 2026).
- The models
- Health100 runs on Google's Gemini models, CVS Health's prescription tool uses trained open-source language models (May 2026), and Tilak Mandadi said in Dec 2025 that his engineers pick the least expensive model that delivers the result.
- The reach
- Tilak Mandadi said in Jun 2026 that conversational AI fully resolves about 75% of the more than 500 million calls a year that reach CVS Pharmacy; CVS Health has not published how many of its 300,000-plus employees use AI tools.
- The catch
- CVS Health's one firm-level return, more than $1 billion of operating expense savings over the last few years (Aug 2026), mixes AI with other technology efficiencies, and Health100 stayed invitation-only in Sep 2026.
Snapshot
- Employees
- 300,000+
- Dec 31, 2025, primarily in the U.S. (2025 Form 10-K)
- Technology budget
- $20B+ over 10 years
- Commitment first described in Jun 2025; annual technology and AI spend not disclosed
- AI/ML headcount
- 2,200+est.
- Machine learning, data and software engineers on the Chief Data Officer's team, per DataIQ (2025)
- Who owns AI
- Tilak Mandadi
- EVP, Chief Experience and Technology Officer and President of Health100; reports to the CEO
- Platform
- Health100 plus tools in each business
- Health100 built with Google Cloud (Mar 2026); Salesforce Agentforce Health in call centers (May 2026)
- Models
- Gemini, open-source LLMs
- Gemini in Health100; trained open-source models in prescription reading
- Reach
- ~75% of pharmacy calls
- Resolved by conversational AI (Jun 2026); Health100 invitation-only in Sep 2026
- Use cases
- Every business line
- Claims, member service, call centers, nursing, pharmacy dispensing, clinic notes
Key findings
CVS Health CFO Brian Newman said on Aug 5, 2026 that technology efficiencies and AI produced more than $1 billion of operating expense savings over the last few years, within a commitment to spend more than $20 billion on technology over ten years that CVS Health first described in Jun 2025.
Tilak Mandadi told CNBC in Jun 2026 that conversational AI fully resolves about 75% of the more than 500 million calls a year that reach CVS Pharmacy, and Prem Shah said on Aug 5, 2026 that moving those calls to AI refocused about a million pharmacist hours on patient care.
CVS Health and Google Cloud announced Health100 on Mar 5, 2026, a CVS Health subsidiary and consumer platform built on Gemini models, Cloud Healthcare API and BigQuery; its AI assistant Haio began a targeted launch in Jul 2026, and TIME reported in Sep 2026 that wide availability is planned by the first quarter of 2027.
Aetna launched a second-generation Claims Assist Manager, an agentic AI claims tool, on May 26, 2026, cutting processing time by more than 20% for complex claims that need manual review, and Aetna said in Dec 2025 that its nurses save about 90 minutes a day on average with AI.
Tilak Mandadi, CVS Health's Chief Experience and Technology Officer, reports directly to the CEO and leads AI, technology and insights strategy; Mandadi said in Jun 2025 that CVS Health will never use AI for a clinical diagnosis or in denials of any kind.
Where CVS Health sits
- Stage
- Scaling
CVS Health sits at Scaling: AI runs in production in every business, from conversational AI that resolves about 75% of CVS Pharmacy's calls to ambient scribes in about 90% of Oak Street Health visits and agentic claims tools at Aetna; an internal chat platform supports more than 185,000 colleagues, according to the 2026 proxy; and Tilak Mandadi, who reports to the CEO, owns AI strategy while the business presidents report AI results on earnings calls. CVS Health falls short of Embedded because it has not published how many of its more than 300,000 employees use AI each week, and its only firm-level return, more than $1 billion of operating savings, does not separate AI from other technology efficiencies.
How the stages are defined - Ownership
- Tilak Mandadi, Chief Experience and Technology Officer and President of Health100, reporting to the CEO
- Platform
- Hybrid: Health100 built on Google Cloud; Salesforce and ServiceNow agents bought
- Models
- Google Gemini in Health100, trained open-source LLMs, vendor agent platforms
- Hosting
- Google Cloud for Health100; Microsoft Azure, preferred cloud under a five-year deal from Dec 2021; Salesforce and ServiceNow clouds; no own data centers named
- Reach
- ~75% of pharmacy calls resolved by AI (Jun 2026); no employee usage count
How they deploy
From healthcare company to healthcare technology company
CVS Health CEO David Joyner said on Aug 5, 2026 that AI and technology are moving CVS Health from a consumer healthcare company to a consumer healthcare technology business, with technology at the center of its differentiation. Joyner said CVS Health will be deliberate about where it does and does not deploy AI, anchored in human touch and privacy, and will balance efficiency gains with growth from products such as Health100.
Start from the result, then pick the cheapest model
Tilak Mandadi told investors on Dec 9, 2025 that CVS Health takes what he called an uncool AI approach: it starts with the automation or augmentation result it wants and works back to the AI use cases needed, and his engineers pick the least expensive large language model that achieves the result. Mandadi said CVS Health built a technology, products and engineering organization years earlier, hiring from Disney, MGM, Twitter, Amazon, Google and Microsoft and pairing those hires with healthcare technology experts.
One consumer platform, opened to the industry
CVS Health announced Engagement as a Service at its Dec 9, 2025 Investor Day: an AI-native consumer engagement platform that integrates Aetna, CVS Caremark, CVS Pharmacy and MinuteClinic and that other payers, pharmacy benefit managers, pharmacies and providers can join. CVS Health named the platform Health100 when it announced Google Cloud as partner on Mar 5, 2026, and Tilak Mandadi described it as CVS Health's entry into selling its technology assets to the industry.
AI inside each business
CVS Health runs most of its AI inside business operations instead of through one employee portal. Aetna President Steve Nelson named four areas on Aug 5, 2026: claims payment and transactional work, the colleague experience, member navigation with AI agents, and provider relationships including prior authorization. Prem Shah said the pharmacy businesses use AI for clinical quality in CVS Specialty and the retail Stars programs and to move routine pharmacy calls to conversational AI.
Where AI will not be used
Tilak Mandadi told Yahoo Finance in Jun 2025 that CVS Health will never use AI for a clinical diagnosis, never in denials of any kind and never to prevent human contact in the patient experience. CVS Health's 2025 Form 10-K describes AI as an augmentative technology used to reduce provider and payer friction, offer AI self-service while keeping human touch available, and modernize internal operations.
- Deployment model
- CVS Health runs a central technology, products and engineering organization under Chief Experience and Technology Officer Tilak Mandadi, who reports to the CEO, leads AI, technology and insights strategy, heads CVS Health Ventures and is President of the Health100 subsidiary. Mandadi described that organization in Dec 2025 as an internal technology provider serving Aetna, CVS Caremark and CVS Pharmacy as if they were external clients. Senior vice presidents with chief digital and technology officer titles sit in the businesses, such as Nathan Frank at Aetna and Tony Ambrozie for CVS Pharmacy and Health100, and the business presidents report AI results on earnings calls. A separate enterprise data and analytics office is led by Ali Keshavarz, and the Chief Information Security Officer reports to Mandadi.
- Model providers
- CVS Health builds Health100 on Google's Gemini models; Google Cloud said in the Mar 2026 announcement that its customers can tune models directly and review responses for unvalidated content. CVS Health's prescription interpretation tool, which runs across its national pharmacy network, uses trained open-source large language models (May 2026); CVS Health has not said who trained them. CVS Health also buys agent platforms: Salesforce Agentforce Health for Aetna and CVS Caremark call centers (May 2026), and ServiceNow EmployeeWorks as an employee assistant inside Microsoft Teams, according to ServiceNow. CVS Health surveys about 150,000 AI simulations of its customers built with the startup Simile (Sep 2026). CVS Health has not named a frontier model provider other than Google.
- Data and infrastructure
- CVS Health named Microsoft its preferred cloud provider in a five-year alliance announced in Dec 2021, adding Azure to an existing multicloud setup and building an integrated data platform and machine learning models on Azure for personalization. Health100 runs on Google Cloud, using Gemini, Cloud Healthcare API and BigQuery (Mar 2026). CVS Health's 2025 Form 10-K describes enterprise data platforms, cloud-native technology behind the Health Engagement Engine in pharmacy services, and information systems that rely on third-party cloud service providers it does not name. Tilak Mandadi built an integrated data layer across insurance, pharmacy benefits, pharmacies and care delivery, according to TIME in Sep 2026. CVS Health has not said where the open-source models in its prescription tool run.
Platforms and internal tools
Health100 and HaioAnnounced Mar 2026; targeted launch Jul 2026
Health100 is a CVS Health subsidiary and consumer platform meant to connect a person's health plan, pharmacy benefit manager, pharmacy, providers and digital health apps regardless of brand, with Haio, a personal AI health assistant, in the Health100 app and on the web. Health100 earned the CARIN Code of Conduct accreditation for consumer data privacy from DirectTrust in Jul 2026.
- Users
- Invitation-only (Sep 2026); wide availability planned by Q1 2027
- Models
- Google Gemini, with Cloud Healthcare API and BigQuery
Aetna Claims Assist ManagerSecond generation May 2026
Claims Assist Manager is Aetna's agentic AI claims platform: adjuster agents combine eligibility, coverage, member and provider data to resolve claims and suggest next actions, and Aetna says the second generation cuts processing time by more than 20% for complex claims needing manual review.
Aetna conversational AI navigationBeta Oct 2025
Aetna's generative AI assistant in its website and mobile app answers coverage, cost and provider questions in plain language with maps, charts and cost breakdowns; Aetna planned to widen access and add two-way voice in the first half of 2026.
AI-Driven Prescription Interpretation and Instruction StandardizationBy May 2026
CVS Health's prescription interpretation tool reads prescriber directions, including conditional dosing, and calculates days of supply inside dispensing workflows in retail and specialty pharmacies, with pharmacists keeping final clinical authority.
- Models
- Trained open-source large language models
Health Engagement Engine
The Health Engagement Engine is CVS Health's pharmacy services technology that turns pharmacy data into interventions at retail, mail and specialty pharmacies and in call centers; the 2025 Form 10-K says it uses assisted AI to deliver insights and automate manual tasks.
Agentic twinsBy Mar 2026
CVS Health surveys AI simulations of its customers, clinicians and providers for market research and message testing, built with the startup Simile; Tilak Mandadi said in Sep 2026 the research runs about ten times faster than human surveys, and the work won a 2026 Stevie award.
- Users
- About 150,000 simulated customers (Sep 2026)
Salesforce Agentforce HealthAnnounced May 2026
Agentforce Health gives Aetna and CVS Caremark call center colleagues AI agents that surface a member's full profile across CVS Health businesses so more needs are handled in one call; the announcement called it Salesforce's largest Agentforce deal to date across regulated industries.
ServiceNow EmployeeWorks
ServiceNow says CVS Health made EmployeeWorks, a conversational AI assistant inside Microsoft Teams, the front door for its colleagues and that it handled 2.5 million conversations in under a year. CVS Health's 2026 proxy separately credits Tilak Mandadi with launching an internal chat platform that supports more than 185,000 colleagues.
- Users
- Vendor-reported; CVS Health has not published a usage figure
Vendors and partners
Google CloudMar 2026
Infrastructure and Gemini models for Health100 · Health100 runs on Google Cloud with Gemini models, Cloud Healthcare API and BigQuery; Google Cloud says its infrastructure supports HIPAA compliance alongside CVS Health's own privacy and security controls.
MicrosoftDec 2021
Preferred cloud provider (Azure); Teams hosts the employee assistant · CVS Health chose Azure as its preferred cloud in a five-year alliance in Dec 2021 and built machine learning models for personalization on it, and was already using Microsoft computer vision to digitize paper and fax prescriptions in specialty pharmacy.
SalesforceMore than a decade; Agentforce Health May 2026
Agentforce Health and Agentforce Service in Aetna and CVS Caremark call centers
ServiceNow
EmployeeWorks employee AI assistant, per ServiceNow
SimileBy Sep 2026
AI simulations of customers and clinicians for market research
H1May 2026
Provider data and AI company; CVS Health Ventures led its $40 million round
Leadership
AI, data and platform leaders
Executives
Board
AI org map
Central technology, products and engineering organization under the Chief Experience and Technology Officer; delivery inside Aetna, Pharmacy Services, CVS Pharmacy and Health Care Delivery
Tilak Mandadi, CVS Health's Chief Experience and Technology Officer, reports directly to CEO David Joyner, leads AI, technology and insights strategy and is President of Health100; the Chief Information Security Officer reports to Mandadi, according to the 2026 proxy statement. Ali Keshavarz leads enterprise data and analytics, Group President Prem Shah runs the pharmacy and care delivery businesses, and Steve Nelson runs Aetna, which has its own chief digital and technology officer.
CVS Health's AI work sits in a central technology, products and engineering organization under Tilak Mandadi, an enterprise data and analytics office led by Ali Keshavarz, and digital and technology teams for each business. CVS Health has not published an AI headcount; DataIQ's 2025 list credited Chief Data Officer Mike Eason with a team of more than 2,200 machine learning, data and software engineers, and more than 12,000 colleagues in the technology organization had taken hands-on AI training by Mar 2026.
Reporting lines
Chairman and CEO
Chief Experience and Technology Office
AI, technology and insights strategy; customer engagement and research; CVS Health Ventures (2026 proxy and leadership page)
Health100
Tilak Mandadi, President; Tony Ambrozie, Chief Digital & Technology Officer
Subsidiary announced Mar 2026; built on Google Cloud
Information security
Chief Information Security Officer
Reporting line from the 2026 proxy statement; the CISO is not named there
Aetna
Steve Nelson, President
Aetna operations
Katerina Guerraz, COO
Clinical solutions, customer and provider operations; Claims Assist Manager
Aetna digital and technology
Nathan Frank, Chief Digital and Technology Officer
Line to the Aetna president inferred from the title
Group President
Prem Shah
Pharmacy Services
Len Shankman, President
CVS Caremark and CVS Specialty; Ed DeVaney is listed separately as President of CVS Caremark
Pharmacy and Consumer Wellness
Siddharth Tenneti, Interim President
CVS Pharmacy stores; Jack Hanlon's AI & Analytics role supports this business (Oct 2026)
Health Care Delivery
Sree Chaguturu, President
Oak Street Health, Signify Health and MinuteClinic
Enterprise data and analytics
Ali Keshavarz, President and Chief Data & Analytics Officer
Reporting line not published
Chief Data Office
Mike Eason, Chief Data Officer
Placement inferred, not published; data and AI platforms and the generative AI environment (DataIQ, 2025)
CVS Health's 2026 proxy statement says the Chief Information Security Officer reports to the Chief Experience and Technology Officer, who reports directly to the CEO. CVS Health has not published the reporting lines of Ali Keshavarz, Mike Eason, the business-line chief digital and technology officers or Jack Hanlon. The CVS Health leadership page, checked Nov 1, 2026, lists Len Shankman as President of Pharmacy Services, overseeing CVS Caremark and CVS Specialty, Ed DeVaney as President of CVS Caremark, leading the pharmacy services segment, and Siddharth Tenneti as interim President of Pharmacy and Consumer Wellness; at the Dec 2025 Investor Day, DeVaney spoke as President of Pharmacy Services and Shankman as President of Pharmacy and Consumer Wellness.
Where the AI workforce sits
Central technology, products and engineering organization
More than 12,000 colleagues in the technology organization had taken hands-on AI training by Mar 2026; CVS Health has not published the organization's size or its AI share.
12,000+ in AI trainingData, machine learning and software engineering under the Chief Data Officer
Estimate from DataIQ's 2025 list; CVS Health has not confirmed the figure.
2,200+ (2025)Business-line digital, technology and analytics teams
Aetna, CVS Pharmacy and Health100 each have a chief digital and technology officer; CVS Health has not published their headcounts.
Not disclosed
Named people
Use cases
CVS Health runs AI in production across Aetna claims, nursing, member service and navigation, CVS Caremark and CVS Specialty member care, CVS Pharmacy calls and dispensing, and Oak Street Health clinic notes, and is launching the Health100 consumer platform. CVS Health has not published a business return credited to AI for any single use case: its use-case figures are time savings, call resolution rates and targets, such as about 90 minutes a day saved per Aetna nurse. For AI as a whole, CFO Brian Newman said in Aug 2026 that technology efficiencies and AI produced more than $1 billion of operating expense savings over the last few years, without separating the two.
| Use case | Area | Status | ROI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claims Assist Manager Aetna's second-generation agentic claims platform combines eligibility, coverage, member and provider data so AI adjuster agents can resolve claims and suggest next actions, cutting processing time by more than 20% for complex claims that need manual review. | Aetna | In production | |
| Nurse clinical documentation Aetna embedded AI in clinical operations to consolidate clinical documentation and help nurses prepare for and engage with members with complex conditions; Aetna said in Dec 2025 that its nurses save about 90 minutes a day on average, so they can reach more members. | Aetna | In production | |
| AI agents in service operations Aetna uses AI agents and intelligent automation in its service operations to resolve member problems before members call, and said in Dec 2025 it was on track to cut overall call center volume by 30% by the end of 2026. | Aetna | In production | |
| Aetna One Advocate case preparation Aetna One Advocates, who guide members through their care, use AI to prepare and review a case in about two minutes instead of 90, Steve Nelson said in Aug 2026. | Aetna | In production | |
| Conversational AI navigation for members Aetna's generative AI assistant in its app and website answers coverage, cost and provider questions in plain language, launched to a beta group in Oct 2025 with wider access planned through the first half of 2026; Steve Nelson said Aetna's AI agents also help schedule appointments. | Aetna | In production | |
| Prior authorization Aetna processed 83% of prior authorization requests in real time and approved more than 95% of eligible requests within 24 hours (Apr 2026); that release credits automation and digital tools, not AI, and Steve Nelson listed prior authorization among the areas where Aetna applies AI in Aug 2026. | Aetna | In production | |
| Agentforce Health in member call centers CVS Health will give Aetna and CVS Caremark call center colleagues Salesforce AI agents that surface a member's full profile across CVS Health businesses, aiming to resolve more needs in one call. | Aetna and CVS Caremark | Announced | |
| GLP-1 analytics CVS Caremark used generative AI with its GLP-1 analytics to identify members taking GLP-1 medications who may need dietary or support services, Ed DeVaney said in Dec 2025. | CVS Caremark | In production | |
| Therapy onboarding and adherence insights CVS Specialty uses AI and automation to start patients on therapy, a pharmacist AI assistant to compile patient data before conversations, and AI to spot patients who are not taking their medication; CVS Specialty said in Dec 2025 that average time to start therapy fell 45% over the previous three years. | CVS Specialty | In production | |
| Conversational AI for pharmacy calls CVS Pharmacy answers routine calls with conversational AI, which Tilak Mandadi said in Jun 2026 fully resolves about 75% of the more than 500 million calls a year the pharmacy business used to take; Prem Shah said in Aug 2026 that the shift refocused about a million pharmacist hours on patient care. | CVS Pharmacy | In production | |
| Prescription interpretation Trained open-source large language models read prescriber directions and calculate days of supply in retail and specialty dispensing workflows, with pharmacists keeping final clinical authority; the tool won a 2026 Newsweek AI Impact Award. | CVS Pharmacy | In production | |
| Prescription counting and verification CVS Pharmacy added AI assistants that count and verify prescriptions in its pharmacies. | CVS Pharmacy | In production | |
| Adherence insights for pharmacists CVS Pharmacy gives pharmacists AI tools to identify patients with low medication adherence and uses AI in its Medicare Stars programs. | CVS Pharmacy | In production | |
| Marketing content CVS Pharmacy uses AI in creative and channel marketing, which it says delivers localized in-store messaging 90% faster. | CVS Pharmacy | In production | |
| Front-store pricing and replenishment CVS Pharmacy is developing AI models to semi-automate more than 2 billion front-store pricing decisions a year and is adding AI-driven replenishment in its supply chain. | CVS Pharmacy | Announced | |
| Ambient AI scribes Oak Street Health uses ambient AI scribes in about 90% of visits, year to date at Jun 30, 2025, to cut documentation work for its care teams. | Health Care Delivery | In production | |
| Clinical insights engine CVS Health's care delivery business combines internal and external data with AI to surface insights to providers in their workflow, projected at more than 2 million in 2025, and uses AI to analyze over 1 billion pages of clinical records (Aug 2026). | Health Care Delivery | In production | |
| Health100 and the Haio assistant Health100 connects a person's plan, pharmacy benefit manager, pharmacy and providers in one app with Haio, an AI health assistant; CVS Health began a targeted launch in Jul 2026, and TIME reported in Sep 2026 that wide availability is planned by the first quarter of 2027. | Enterprise | Pilot | |
| Agentic twins for customer research CVS Health surveys about 150,000 AI simulations of its customers, plus twins of clinicians and providers, to test messages and products; Sri Narasimhan put the twins' accuracy at roughly 90% to 95% in Sep 2026. | Enterprise | In production | |
| Employee AI assistant ServiceNow says CVS Health made its EmployeeWorks conversational AI, inside Microsoft Teams, the front door for colleagues, with 2.5 million conversations in under a year. | Enterprise | In production |
Adoption
CVS Health spread AI through its operations before it gave consumers an AI front door: machine learning on Azure for personalization from 2021, conversational AI in pharmacy and Aetna call centers, AI scribes in about 90% of Oak Street Health visits by mid-2025, and agentic claims tools at Aetna in 2026. Consumer AI followed with Aetna's generative AI navigation assistant from Oct 2025 and Health100 with the Haio assistant, invitation-only since a targeted launch in Jul 2026; Tilak Mandadi said in Sep 2026 that the CVS Health app has 18 million monthly active users. For employees, CVS Health's 2026 proxy says an internal chat platform supports more than 185,000 colleagues, and CVS Health launched an AI Learning Academy in Feb 2026, rolling out by organization through 2026 after more than 12,000 technology colleagues took hands-on AI training; the academy logged more than 18,500 live session attendances by Aug 2026. CVS Health has not published how many employees use AI tools each week.
By the numbers
Rollout, first pilot to today
Dec 2021
CVS Health named Microsoft its preferred cloud provider in a five-year alliance and said it would run machine learning models for retail loyalty and personalization on Azure.
2022
Tilak Mandadi joined CVS Health, which built a technology, products and engineering organization serving Aetna, CVS Caremark and CVS Pharmacy as internal clients.
Jun 2025
CVS Health said it would spend $20 billion over ten years on a more technology-enabled consumer health experience, and Tilak Mandadi ruled out AI for clinical diagnosis or denials.
Jul 2025
Aetna added AI tools to Aetna Health that recommend clinical programs and in-network providers to members with certain conditions, plus a service chatbot.
Oct 2025
Aetna released its generative AI navigation assistant to a beta group of members, announcing it publicly on Nov 18, 2025.
Dec 9, 2025
CVS Health's Investor Day reported more than $1 billion of operating efficiencies reinvested in AI and growth, about 90 minutes a day saved per Aetna nurse, ambient scribes in about 90% of Oak Street Health visits, and an AI-native consumer engagement platform.
Feb 2026
CVS Health launched its AI Learning Academy, a persona-based program rolled out organization by organization through 2026.
Mar 5, 2026
CVS Health and Google Cloud announced Health100, a new CVS Health subsidiary building an agentic AI consumer platform on Gemini models.
May 2026
Aetna launched its second-generation Claims Assist Manager, CVS Health expanded its Salesforce partnership in what the announcement called Salesforce's largest Agentforce deal across regulated industries, and its prescription interpretation AI won a Newsweek award.
Jul 2026
CVS Health began a targeted launch of Health100 with the Haio AI assistant.
Economics & controls
Spend and ROI
Technology budget
CVS Health has committed to invest more than $20 billion in technology over ten years, a plan Tilak Mandadi described to Yahoo Finance in Jun 2025 and David Joyner restated on Aug 5, 2026, saying spending would follow use cases where CVS Health expects an appropriate return. CVS Health does not publish an annual technology budget or a separate AI budget. Brian Newman said in Aug 2026 that investments in capabilities and technology run across the business segments and are built into the 2026 guidance and the 2027 earnings floor.
Reported ROI
CVS Health CFO Brian Newman said on Aug 5, 2026 that CVS Health generated more than $1 billion of operating expense savings over the last few years through technology efficiencies and AI, without separating the two. At the Dec 9, 2025 Investor Day, Tilak Mandadi said the technology organization gave back well over $1 billion of base technology operating expense over four years so the businesses could reinvest in AI and growth; that figure describes savings reinvested in AI, not savings produced by AI, and CVS Health has not said whether the two figures overlap. CVS Health has published no return credited to AI for any single use case, and asked in May 2026 when AI turns from net investment to net benefit, its executives did not give a date.
Productivity markers
CVS Health reports AI time savings by function, none of them a cost, revenue or headcount figure: about 90 minutes a day per Aetna nurse (Dec 2025), Aetna One Advocate case preparation down from 90 minutes to two (Aug 2026), complex claims processed more than 20% faster with Claims Assist Manager (May 2026), and about a million pharmacist hours refocused after routine calls moved to conversational AI (Aug 2026). CVS Health said in Aug 2026 that up to 90% of AI Learning Academy participants reported saving 45 to 60 minutes a week 30 days after training, a self-reported figure.
Headcount
CVS Health employed more than 300,000 people at Dec 31, 2025, about 73% of them full-time. CVS Health has not tied job reductions to AI in its filings or earnings calls; executives describe AI as freeing pharmacists, nurses and advocates to spend more time with patients and members.
Governance and risk
Where AI is not used
Tilak Mandadi said in Jun 2025 that CVS Health will never use AI for a clinical diagnosis, in denials of any kind, or to prevent human contact in the patient experience. David Joyner said on Aug 5, 2026 that CVS Health will be very clear about where it will and will not deploy AI, with human touch and privacy as its guide.
Board oversight
CVS Health's Audit Committee oversees information security risks, including those related to AI, and the Chief Experience and Technology Officer and the CISO brief it at least on a bi-annual basis, according to the 2026 proxy statement. The Health Services and Technology Committee, chaired by Jeffrey Balser, received updates in 2025 on responsible AI for augmentation of care, AI and machine learning, and the data cloud, and directors attended management presentations on AI. Teresa Heitsenrether, JPMorgan Chase's data and analytics chief, joins the CVS Health board on Nov 18, 2026.
Humans keep the decision
CVS Health's prescription interpretation AI is checked continuously against pharmacy accuracy benchmarks, and pharmacists keep final clinical authority (May 2026). CVS Health describes its Salesforce call center agents as working with clinical integrity and oversight, and its AI Learning Academy teaches that AI should support human judgment, not replace it (Mar 2026).
Consumer data
Health100 earned the CARIN Code of Conduct accreditation for consumer-facing apps from DirectTrust in Jul 2026, covering transparency, consent, use and disclosure, security and individual access. Google Cloud said in the Mar 2026 Health100 announcement that its policies let customers keep control of their data and that its infrastructure supports HIPAA compliance alongside CVS Health's own controls. A Stevie Awards judge quoted in CVS Health's Apr 2026 award release described the agentic twins work as training models on consent-based patient data.
Disclosed risks
CVS Health's 2025 Form 10-K lists AI risks including cybersecurity incidents or misuse of data while integrating AI models with large data sets, the cost of complying with fast-changing rules, competitive harm from failing to integrate AI, and reputational damage from actual or perceived AI failures. The 10-K also says differing state rules on privacy, cybersecurity and AI could stop CVS Health from standardizing products across states.
Recent signals
Oct 20, 2026
CDO Magazine reported that Jack Hanlon, a former product leader in Meta Superintelligence Labs, joined CVS Health as Senior Vice President of AI & Analytics supporting its pharmacies and retail stores.
Sep 22, 2026
TIME named Tilak Mandadi to its 2026 Executives of the Year in tech and data and reported that Health100 is invitation-only, with wide availability planned by the first quarter of 2027, and that the CVS Health app has 18 million monthly active users.
Sep 14, 2026
Tilak Mandadi and Sri Narasimhan told The Wall Street Journal's Technology Council Summit that CVS Health surveys about 150,000 AI simulations of its customers, built with Simile, which Narasimhan said are roughly 90% to 95% accurate.
Sep 14, 2026
A Wall Street Journal video from the same event carried Tilak Mandadi's criticism of companies that appoint Chief AI Officers.
Aug 17, 2026
CVS Health appointed Teresa Heitsenrether, JPMorgan Chase's Chief Data & Analytics Officer, to its board effective Nov 18, 2026, citing her knowledge of data, analytics and AI.
Aug 5, 2026
CVS Health said technology efficiencies and AI produced more than $1 billion of operating expense savings, that it began a targeted launch of Health100 with the Haio assistant in Jul 2026, and that conversational AI refocused about a million pharmacist hours.
Aug 4, 2026
CVS Health said its AI Learning Academy, launched in Feb 2026, logged more than 18,500 live session attendances and raised colleague confidence in using AI by up to 72%.
Jul 29, 2026
Health100 earned the CARIN Code of Conduct accreditation for consumer data privacy and security from DirectTrust, covering the app that carries the Haio AI assistant.
Jun 11, 2026
Tilak Mandadi told CNBC at AHIP 2026 that conversational AI now fully resolves about 75% of the more than 500 million calls a year that reach CVS Pharmacy.
May 29, 2026
CVS Health's prescription interpretation AI, built on trained open-source language models, won a 2026 Newsweek AI Impact Award.
May 28, 2026
CVS Health expanded its Salesforce partnership to bring Agentforce Health AI agents into Aetna and CVS Caremark call centers, which the announcement called Salesforce's largest Agentforce deal to date across regulated industries.
May 28, 2026
CVS Health Ventures led a $40 million investment in H1, a provider data company that pairs its data with AI.
May 26, 2026
Aetna launched the second generation of Claims Assist Manager, an agentic AI claims tool that cuts processing time by more than 20% for complex claims.
May 6, 2026
Steve Nelson said Aetna had taken its leaders through an AI academy and would launch one for all Aetna colleagues within weeks.
Mar 5, 2026
CVS Health and Google Cloud announced Health100, a CVS Health subsidiary building an agentic AI consumer platform on Gemini models, Cloud Healthcare API and BigQuery.
Quick answers
- How does CVS Health deploy AI?
- CVS Health deploys AI inside each business: conversational AI resolves most CVS Pharmacy calls, Aetna runs AI claims agents and nurse documentation tools, and Oak Street Health used ambient scribes in about 90% of visits in 2025. Chief Experience and Technology Officer Tilak Mandadi, who reports to CEO David Joyner, owns AI strategy and runs Health100, a consumer AI platform built on Google Cloud's Gemini models that began a targeted launch in Jul 2026. CVS Health has committed more than $20 billion to technology over ten years.
- What does CVS Health use AI for?
- CVS Health runs AI in production across Aetna claims, nursing, member service and navigation, CVS Caremark and CVS Specialty member care, CVS Pharmacy calls and dispensing, and Oak Street Health clinic notes, and is launching the Health100 consumer platform. CVS Health has not published a business return credited to AI for any single use case: its use-case figures are time savings, call resolution rates and targets, such as about 90 minutes a day saved per Aetna nurse. For AI as a whole, CFO Brian Newman said in Aug 2026 that technology efficiencies and AI produced more than $1 billion of operating expense savings over the last few years, without separating the two.
- Who leads AI at CVS Health?
- AI at CVS Health is led by Tilak Mandadi (President, Health100; EVP, Ventures and Chief Experience and Technology Officer); Ali Keshavarz (President and Chief Data & Analytics Officer); Mike Eason (Chief Data Officer). Ownership of AI on the org chart: Tilak Mandadi, Chief Experience and Technology Officer and President of Health100, reporting to the CEO.
- What AI platform does CVS Health use?
- Health100, a CVS Health subsidiary announced with Google Cloud in Mar 2026, is the consumer AI platform; inside its businesses CVS Health builds its own tools and buys others, such as Salesforce Agentforce Health for Aetna and CVS Caremark call centers (May 2026).
- Which AI models does CVS Health use?
- Health100 runs on Google's Gemini models, CVS Health's prescription tool uses trained open-source language models (May 2026), and Tilak Mandadi said in Dec 2025 that his engineers pick the least expensive model that delivers the result.
- How many CVS Health employees use AI?
- Tilak Mandadi said in Jun 2026 that conversational AI fully resolves about 75% of the more than 500 million calls a year that reach CVS Pharmacy; CVS Health has not published how many of its 300,000-plus employees use AI tools.
- How far has AI spread at CVS Health?
- CVS Health sits at Scaling: AI runs in production in every business, from conversational AI that resolves about 75% of CVS Pharmacy's calls to ambient scribes in about 90% of Oak Street Health visits and agentic claims tools at Aetna; an internal chat platform supports more than 185,000 colleagues, according to the 2026 proxy; and Tilak Mandadi, who reports to the CEO, owns AI strategy while the business presidents report AI results on earnings calls. CVS Health falls short of Embedded because it has not published how many of its more than 300,000 employees use AI each week, and its only firm-level return, more than $1 billion of operating savings, does not separate AI from other technology efficiencies.
Open questions
- How much of the more than $1 billion in operating expense savings that CVS Health reported in Aug 2026 comes from AI, and how much from other technology efficiencies?
- How much of the $20 billion-plus technology commitment goes to AI each year, and what do model and compute costs run?
- How many CVS Health employees use AI tools each week, and what do the internal chat platform and the ServiceNow assistant each cover?
- What cost or capacity return do CVS Health's deployed tools deliver? CVS Health reports about 90 minutes a day saved per Aetna nurse and a million pharmacist hours refocused, but no savings figure for those or for Claims Assist Manager, prescription interpretation, ambient scribes at Oak Street Health and the clinical insights engine.
- Did Aetna reach its target of a 30% lower call center volume by the end of 2026? The Dec 2025 Investor Day deck listed an approximately 30% reduction in call center volume, the transcript called it a target, and the Apr 2026 proxy said AI helps cut call volume and the handling time of certain complex calls by 20% to 30%.
- Which models besides Google Gemini run in CVS Health's tools, which clouds host the open-source models in its prescription tool, and is Microsoft Azure still its preferred cloud five years after the alliance announced in Dec 2021?
- How many people use Health100 and Haio after the invitation-only phase, and which outside payers, pharmacies or providers have joined?
- Who leads AI, data and analytics under Tilak Mandadi, does Mike Eason still serve as Chief Data Officer, and to whom do Ali Keshavarz and Jack Hanlon report?
- How does CVS Health enforce its rule against using AI in denials across Aetna's prior authorization and claims tools?
Sources
CVS Health
- Leadership team
- Tilak Mandadi, biography
- David Joyner, biography
- Steve Nelson, biography
- Katerina Guerraz, biography
- Prem Shah, biography
- Len Shankman, biography
- Ed DeVaney, biography
- Siddharth Tenneti, biography
- Sree Chaguturu, biography
- Brian Newman, biography
- Amy Compton-Phillips, biography
- Heidi Capozzi, biography
- Sam Khichi, biography
- Health100 earns CARIN accreditation (Jul 29, 2026)
- Aetna Claims Assist Manager cuts processing time by more than 20% (May 26, 2026)
- Agentforce Health in Aetna and CVS Caremark call centers (May 28, 2026)
- Aetna progress on prior authorization (Apr 24, 2026)
- Aetna launches conversational AI navigation (Nov 18, 2025)
- Aetna expands initiatives to simplify experiences (Dec 4, 2025)
- Prescription interpretation AI wins Newsweek AI Impact Award (May 29, 2026)
- Stevie awards for Enterprise AI and Customer Experience AI (Apr 2026)
- AI Learning Academy wins Stevie awards (Aug 4, 2026)
- Preparing our colleagues for the future of work (Mar 10, 2026)
- Investor Day press release (Dec 9, 2025)
Filings and investor materials
- Q2 2026 earnings call transcript (Aug 5, 2026)
- Q2 2026 earnings presentation (Aug 5, 2026)
- Q1 2026 earnings call transcript (May 6, 2026)
- Q4 2025 earnings call transcript (Feb 10, 2026)
- 2025 Investor Day transcript (Dec 9, 2025)
- 2025 Investor Day presentation (Dec 9, 2025)
- 2025 Form 10-K (filed Feb 10, 2026)
- 2026 proxy statement (Apr 3, 2026)
- 8-K exhibit: board changes, Teresa Heitsenrether (Aug 17, 2026)
Partners
News
- Yahoo Finance: CVS lays out $20B plan to modernize consumer healthcare (Jun 3, 2025)
- TIME: Tilak Mandadi, 2026 Executives of the Year, tech and data (Sep 22, 2026)
- Dow Jones via MarketScreener: CVS uses surveys of AI bots for market research (Sep 14, 2026)
- WSJ via Yahoo Finance: why CVS Health's tech chief is allergic to the Chief AI Officer title (Sep 14, 2026)
- CNBC: CVS Health executives on reducing healthcare's biggest pain points (Jun 11, 2026)
- TechCrunch: H1 secures $40M from CVS (May 28, 2026)
- Healthcare Brew: CVS introduces agentic AI platform, new health tech subsidiary (Mar 25, 2026)
- CDO Magazine: CVS Health appoints Jack Hanlon SVP, AI & Analytics (Oct 20, 2026)
- DataIQ 100: Mike Eason, CDO, CVS Health (2025)
- Hospitality Net: Choice Hotels appoints Ali Keshavarz to its board (Jul 1, 2026)
- Healthcare Dive: CVS and Microsoft alliance (Dec 2, 2021)
- Digital Health Insights: as CVS Health works on its engagement platform, others go live (Mar 19, 2026)
- Digital Commerce 360: CVS Health details AI-driven digital strategy (Jan 5, 2026)
- Constellation Research: CVS Health outlines AI-driven engagement as a service plan (Dec 2025)
Data confidence
- Confirmed
- Stated in a primary or reputable public source.
- Estimated
- Derived or approximated from public reporting.
- Unconfirmed
- Reported, but not yet corroborated.
CVS Health profile · Enterprise AI diffusion report by Imagine · facts checked against their sources on Nov 1, 2026
