Anthropic and OpenEvidence team up to widen medical AI access

Artificial intelligence developer Anthropic and medical knowledge platform OpenEvidence have announced a collaboration to extend AI-powered clinical decision support to physicians in parts of the world where such tools are scarce.

OpenEvidence, which helps doctors answer clinical questions by drawing on peer-reviewed research and treatment guidelines, is already free to clinicians in the United States and Europe. Under the new initiative, a specialised version of the platform will be offered at no cost to healthcare providers in dozens of low- and middle-income countries, where constrained access to medical literature, specialist expertise and continuing medical education can affect patient care.

The rollout covers about 100 countries, among them Uganda, Angola, Sudan, Haiti and Mongolia, according to a list supplied by OpenEvidence. Financial terms of the collaboration were not disclosed.

Healthcare systems around the world are weighing whether generative AI can ease shortages of physicians and specialists. Proponents say such tools help clinicians sift through large volumes of medical information quickly, while critics warn that systems trained mainly on data from high-income countries may not reflect local conditions.

Anthropic will provide back-end support, while OpenEvidence will adapt the system to different regions with their healthcare infrastructure in mind. Earlier this year, OpenEvidence said it was working with health organisations in Rwanda and Botswana to tailor its tools to settings where disease patterns, diagnostic resources and available treatments differ sharply from those in wealthier nations.

"One hundred percent of what we are building for these places is context adaptive," OpenEvidence founder Daniel Nadler said, adding that access to medical knowledge should not depend on geography.

Nadler said US clinicians consulted OpenEvidence 42 million times in August alone, and that in 2026 several hundred million Americans will have been treated by a doctor who used the platform to help guide care. He noted that even where medical facilities lack round-the-clock electricity, most physicians carry smartphones, giving them access to quality medical information that a decade ago would have been available only at leading institutions.

Dr. Ahmed Bendary, a cardiologist at Benha University in Egypt, said extending this access beyond the United States and Europe would be a major step forward, especially where institutional subscriptions to major medical journals are limited, making evidence-based, point-of-care tools more vital.

The partnership follows Anthropic's recent move to build a laboratory for physical biology work as it pushes further into drug science, at a time of growing public concern about AI's reach and calls from some executives and lawmakers for slower development.