THU AM News: AI’s role in healthcare expanding as tech develops; Pro-AI group running data center ads in Wisconsin

September 10, 2026

— As Wisconsin lawmakers grapple with how to regulate the use of AI in healthcare, tools for both consumers and clinicians are quickly evolving to play a larger, more autonomous role in the medical field.

“There’s many tools out there now,” Frank Meyers of the Federation of State Medical Boards said yesterday during a committee meeting. “Just about a year and a half ago, it was very difficult finding high-level tools from legitimate providers. Now they’re everywhere.”

The meeting of the 2026 Legislative Council Study Committee on the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Health Care featured presentations from industry representatives, regulators, educators and care providers. They discussed how AI is being rapidly adopted in healthcare and what that means for those tasked with keeping it in check.

Meyers, the federation’s director of regulatory innovation and member services, noted Verona’s Epic Systems has built various AI applications into its ubiquitous electronic health records systems.

At the same time, Microsoft’s Dragon Copilot AI platform is built on an ambient scribe tool that was one of the first on the market, he said. The technology listens in on the clinical encounter while documenting and summarizing what happens.

“In the past, that’s really all it did … but those have significantly advanced, to the point where now they are entering information into the medical record itself, they’re being built into automatic prescription renewals so they can pre-load renewals for the clinician’s sign-off,” Meyers said. “Or they’re checking medical contraindications, they’re doing some research surfacing relevant medical journal entries.”

Along with these applications for clinical use, patients too now have more AI options than ever. That includes Amazon’s Health AI program that can read patient records and explain lab results, answer questions about symptoms and route requests to providers. ChatGPT also has a consumer-side health tool for analyzing medical records and related data.

“It’s not meant to provide diagnostic or medical advice, but like with everything with generative AI … if you push it certain ways, you can always kind of get it to respond in certain different ways,” Meyers said.

Meanwhile, Dr. Richard Bruce with UW-Madison’s Department of Radiology yesterday highlighted how AI is supercharging the scientific side of healthcare. He noted the technology is producing “much better” imaging quality based on available data, lower radiation doses and fewer errors — “all things that are slam-dunk home runs from an imaging perspective.”

AI is also being used for real-time quality checks during ultrasounds, automating labelling and even “coaching” technicians on how to get better quality images.

“We get more efficient, higher-quality healthcare as a result of that,” Bruce told the committee.

Still, speakers yesterday cautioned AI tools still aren’t perfect, and their expanded role has led to high-profile mistakes. In one example from just last month, an AI scribe erroneously recorded that the patient had taken psychedelic mushrooms, despite that not being mentioned during the provider visit.

Meyers said this potential “misunderstanding” by the AI system was entered into the patient’s health record, and later surfaced in a letter to her primary care doctor as a possible explanation for her symptoms.

“Watchdog reviewers found this was not an isolated case,” he said. “They have found another scribe had named the wrong breast cancer diagnosis, epilepsy in a patient that had no such epilepsy … a Google bot making up and combining two different body parts to create a whole new body part that didn’t exist.”

As progress and implementation is outstripping regulatory bodies in some cases, certain U.S. states are taking action to protect people’s personal data amid concerns about how much access and power is granted to AI systems.

Jordan Francis, senior policy counsel for the Future of Privacy Forum, yesterday said states are increasingly giving consumers the right to access lists of third parties their information is being sold to, along with new protections around data-based profiling.

“States are also enacting sectoral privacy laws, addressing specific issues like consumer health for data brokers,” Francis said.

Other states are conducting pilots called “sandboxes” allowing companies to roll out AI tools for healthcare within a specified framework. Utah, for example, is waiving certain regulatory requirements from the state’s medical board for this purpose, allowing unlicensed AI-related activity within the scope of the pilot.

Meyers said Utah’s pilot is still ongoing, and initial findings seem promising. But the effort is still in its early days.

“The main takeaway for sandboxes is they’re primarily designed to allow experimentation of these tools, both by the developers but by the regulators to understand what would be the potential best mechanism for regulating these things,” he said.

Six states currently have active sandbox AI pilots — Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Kansas, Texas and Utah — while eight others have been proposed, though Meyers noted they differ substantially state-to-state.

“What comes next after the one year? And, you know, the answer is they don’t know,” Meyers said of Utah’s AI policy office. “Nobody really knows.”

Watch the video.

— One of the nation’s largest pro-AI groups is now on the airwaves in Wisconsin with an ad that proclaims “data centers are here” and the state “can do this right.”

Meanwhile, a new group called Innovate Wisconsin has started running digital ads that proclaim “data centers are the infrastructure” that powers life-saving research and game-changing technologies.

The push comes as data centers have proven increasingly unpopular in Wisconsin and elsewhere. Last month’s Marquette University Law School Poll found 78% of Wisconsin registered voters believed the costs of data centers outweighed the benefits, compared to 55% who said the same in October. Last week, WisPolitics reported that the topic of data centers was playing an outsized role in advertising across key races in the state.

In a Truth Social post Aug. 31, President Donald Trump proclaimed opponents of data centers would end up “backwards and poor.” The same day, NBC News reported that Build American AI was launching a multimillion-dollar ad campaign in Kansas, Ohio and Wisconsin to promote data centers.

AdImpact yesterday picked up the first airing of a Build American AI ad in Wisconsin and had tracked $290,000 in buys from the group in the Milwaukee and Green Bay markets as of this morning.

The narrator in the spot says strong policies are needed to “put our families first.” That includes requiring data centers to pay more for electricity “so families pay less,” to recycle water and to give local residents final say when one is proposed.

“Wisconsin can do this right,” the narrator says to close the spot. “Data centers pay, families save and local communities decide. That’s putting Wisconsin first.”

Innovate Wisconsin received confirmation from the IRS in July that it was a 501(c)(4) that’s exempt from the federal income tax, according to a communication at the federal agency’s website.

That communication doesn’t include a contact. Meanwhile, the address for Innovate Wisconsin Inc. in Sun Prairie is the same as one for a law firm that didn’t return a call yesterday seeking comment. The group also has a Facebook page that began posting in July. Its follower list is private.

A WisPolitics check of the Meta Ad Library found a mix of 15-second videos and display ads from the group with similar messages touting the benefits of data centers. The first began Sept. 1, and one says the projects can generate hundreds of millions in revenue for schools while powering the economy, fueling progress and protecting the future.

The narrator in the spot says, “Wisconsin data centers can open the door to advances never before imagined.”

— A bipartisan group of state lawmakers is asking the developer of a proposed extra-high-voltage transmission line to push back work on the project so the public can offer feedback.

Four lawmakers – Sen. Sarah Keyeski, D-Lodi, and Reps. Maureen McCarville, D-DeForest, Karen DeSanto, D-Baraboo, and Tony Kurtz, R-Wonewoc – in a letter yesterday asked Midcontinent Grid Solutions to delay its application to state regulators for a construction permit on a 190-mile, 765-kV line.

The BECI Project would run west from Crawford County through much of southwestern and south-central Wisconsin, including areas represented by the lawmakers.

It’s part of a larger buildout of the regional electric grid by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator.

MGS has said it plans to submit a project application to the Public Service Commission in early 2027 and anticipates a 12-18 month review period before a final route is approved. MGS anticipates the line will go into service in 2033 under its current timetable.

State lawmakers want MGS to postpone its filing with the PSC until the developer can hold a new round of open house meetings in spring 2027 and give the public more time to provide input on the project.

The letter says lawmakers have heard from hundreds of constituents concerned about the project, the “vast majority” of whom feel they have not had enough time to give feedback.

“A repeated theme from these conversations is people feel utterly blindsided and overwhelmed by the idea of this project, the scope of the proposed build and the speed at which this process is moving,” the letter reads.

MGS scheduled a series of open houses in affected counties in August and told lawmakers its plans to hold another round of open houses in the fall.

The state lawmakers’ letter comes two days after U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Prairie du Chien, wrote a separate letter expressing his “strong opposition” to routing the project through the Driftless Area, a region Van Orden noted is known for its unique landscape and is economically dependent on tourism and agriculture.

In an email, MGS Director of Community Engagement Alan Ott said the developer will continue accepting comments from the public through its second round of open houses this fall and as part of the PSC review process.

He did not address state lawmakers’ request for the developer to push back submitting its application to the PSC.

“Our commitment is to develop a route that minimizes the impact on people, communities, property and the environment to the greatest extent possible, that is the standard guiding our routing work,” Ott wrote.

The letters come amid broader public backlash against proposals to build new high-voltage lines across the state.

Michael Browne of No 765 Line, a citizen group that opposes the BECI line and the proposed 140-mile MariBell transmission project in western Wisconsin, said the group welcomes lawmakers’ attention to this issue.

“It’s unfortunate that the developer has decided to rush the process in the way that they have,” Browne said. “A byproduct of their urgency is scrutiny on the process and their approach.”

How Madison struck deals to build 212 lower-cost student beds

How the Packers’ $8.6 billion valuation compares to other NFL franchises

TOPICS

AGRIBUSINESS

– Local cranberry farm uses technology to navigate drought conditions

– Wisconsin industries face impact from Canada tariffs

– Wisconsin farmers see crops move closer to harvest

EDUCATION

– With $6M NSF grant, UWM wants to take more research from idea to real-world use

– Carroll University receives gift to expand health sciences programs

HEALTH CARE

– How a fight to save Wisconsin’s Black babies keeps hitting a dead end