Quants sophisticated chatbots are improving cancer care and transforming customer service
Many have negative associations when it comes to customer service provided by artificial intelligence, but Chetan Dube insists it can be done right.The 59-year-old billionaire AI pioneer is the CEO of Quant, an innovative forerunner in the development and deployment of increasingly sophisticated digital employees, otherwise known as chatbots. “The reason why [people get] upset with chatbots is because they cannot get the job done, they waste your time,” Dube told NYNext.“But that was yesterday … Digital beings are coming into parity with the way humans think.”McKinsey estimates that AI will handle between 50% and 70% of customer-service interactions by 2030, and Quant is already powering a significant share.The company’s chat bots provide post operative care to cancer patients at Memorial Sloan Kettering, helping manage follow-up appointments, coordinating medications and navigating insurance claims.“We have a digital health care concierge that is 24/7, continuously monitoring your wellness program, your diet, how many steps you’re walking, consulting with providers to ensure coverage claims get processed and eligibility is honored,” said Dube, who sold his previous AI company, Amelia, for $80 million in 2024.
“Of course, you can get that qualified care from a human, but it’s a very, very expensive proposition.”The firm’s agents are also supplying customer support services for one of America’s largest utility providers, Pennsylvania Power & Light (PPL); fast food chains such as Pizza Pizza and Saudia Airlines.Bu, Dube believes that hospitals are where the full promise of agentic AI comes into focus.The agents never forgets a patient’s history and can perform the most tedious tasks — medication refills, monitoring of recovery metrics — indefinitely.Such advantages make agentic AI immediately attractive to employers, but whether the systems can be preferable for the people on the other end of the line is a more nuanced question...