UNH quietly disclosed during the Q1 call that it's on track to spend $1.5 billion on AI in 2026. About a third goes toward new products and platforms, the rest toward internal operations. The headline project is Avery, a generative AI chatbot that's being rolled out to over 20 million members by year-end. Management said they expect a conservative 2:1 return on AI investments, with many projects paying back within 12 to 18 months.
That's an unusually specific and optimistic ROI claim from a healthcare company. But if the medical cost ratio keeps improving like it did this quarter, it's not hard to connect the dots. Feels like the AI spend is doing exactly what it was supposed to, cutting operational friction and pushing costs down before it even fully scales.