The agentic AI assist Stanford University cancer care staff needed

Every day, thousands of people are diagnosed with cancer around the world. Each case is unique, with hundreds of distinct tumor subtypes that require treatment protocols involving new drugs, clinical trials, and device-based therapies. Leading cancer centers, therefore, rely heavily on multidisciplinary tumor boards, or specialized sessions where radiologists, pathologists, surgeons, oncologists, genetic counselors, and other specialists perform sophisticated analyses of vast amounts of patient data and parameters to develop personalized care plans.  

A recent study by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) found physicians spend between 1.5 and 2.5 hours per patient meticulously reviewing images, pathology slides, clinical notes, and genomic data. In this context, agentic AI has extraordinary potential to reduce admin friction and transform how medical services are delivered.

At Microsoft Build 2025 earlier this month, Nigam Shah, CDO for Stanford Health Care, discussed agentic AI’s ability to redefine healthcare, especially in oncology, as physicians get overloaded with the administrative tasks of medicine, he said, which lead to burnout. “Add to this that medical knowledge doubles every 60 or 70 days, so it’s very difficult to keep up with the medical literature,” he added.