AI Scribe in plain English.

An AI scribe is software that listens to a conversation — most commonly a clinician talking with a patient — and produces structured notes, summaries, and follow-up paperwork without anyone typing. In medicine this means the visit note, the coding suggestions, and the after-visit summary arrive in the electronic health record drafted and waiting for a signature, which studies have shown can save physicians an hour or more of documentation a day. Products from Abridge, Nuance (Microsoft), Ambience, and Nabla dominate the clinical market, while general-purpose meeting recorders like Plaud Note and Otter do the same job for business conversations. The open questions are accuracy on rare conditions and accents, consent from the person being recorded, and who is liable when a drafted note is wrong and gets signed anyway.