AI Is Reading 15 Million X-Rays a Year With No Human in the Loop | Prashant Warier, Qure.ai

Description

80% of lung cancer cases are diagnosed too late, not because the signals aren't there, but because the system wasn't designed to catch them at the right moment. Qure.ai is changing that. In this episode, Craig Smith sits down with Prashant Warier, co-founder and CEO of Qure.ai, to explore how the company has built the most scaled autonomous AI use case in healthcare today, reading 15 million chest X-rays per year across 70 countries with no radiologist in the loop. The conversation centers on the CREATE study, which validated Qure.ai's Lung Nodule Malignancy Risk Score: a system that analyzes routine X-rays people already get for unrelated reasons, identifies high-risk nodules, and flags which patients need follow-up CT scans. The results are striking: standard CT screening programs find cancer in about 2 out of 100 patients; Qure.ai's algorithm identifies 54 out of 100 high-risk patients who turn out to be positive on CT. Warier also shares his prediction that within 5 to 10 years, primary care will be AI-first, meaning the first conversation you have when something feels wrong will be with an AI, not a doctor. Key Topics Covered: ● The CREATE study: how Qure.ai's Lung Nodule Malignancy Risk Score improves positive cancer detection from 2 out of 100 to 54 out of 100 on follow-up CT ● Why 80% of lung cancer is diagnosed late, and how the signals are already present in routine imaging that millions of people get every year ● The most scaled autonomous AI use case in healthcare: 15 million TB X-rays per year, no human radiologist in the loop, across 70 countries ● Why AI can detect lung cancer more than 60 days earlier than conventional diagnostic pathways ● The regulatory and practical barriers to making AI diagnostics directly available to patients, and why it still has to go through the medical establishment ● Warier's 5-to-10-year prediction: primary care will be AI-first, with patients talking to AI before they ever see a doctor Lung cancer is the world's deadliest cancer almost entirely because it's found too late, and Qure.ai's approach of using imaging that already exists, rather than adding new screening burden, is one of the most scalable paths to changing that outcome globally. Subscribe to Eye on A.I. for weekly conversations with the people building and deploying the future of AI. Craig Smith on X: https://x.com/craigss EYE On A.I. on X: https://x.com/EyeOn_AI Connect with Prashant Warier LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/in/pwarier Timestamps 00:00 How AI Is Transforming Healthcare Diagnostics 02:17 The Origin Story of Cure.ai 04:03 Moving From Image Recognition to Early Disease Detection 05:02 Why AI in Healthcare Requires FDA Approval 06:31 How Cure.ai Combines Vision Models and LLMs 07:56 Inside the Radiologist Workflow With AI 10:38 The Global Impact of AI-Powered Tuberculosis Screening 12:17 How AI Improves Accuracy and Early Detection 14:08 The CREATE Study and Lung Cancer Screening Breakthroughs 19:31 How Cure.ai Is Expanding Across Healthcare Systems 21:34 Beyond Lung Cancer: Heart Disease, Stroke & Fractures 25:07 The Future of AI-Powered Diagnostics 28:11 Why Earlier Detection Will Define the Future of Healthcare 31:39 Should Patients Have Direct Access to AI Diagnostics? 36:19 Will AI Become the Primary Care Doctor of the Future? 38:22 The Most Scaled Autonomous AI System in Healthcare Today