In a year marked by scientific breakthroughs, some of the most meaningful changes in oncology happened not in the lab — but at the bedside. Leaders say 2025 was the year AI-enabled innovation in care delivery began to rival discovery itself.
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Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: Looking back on 2025, what’s one innovation or discovery you believe drove meaningful change in oncology care?
Sachin Apte, MD. Chief Clinical Officer and Physician-in-Chief at Huntsman Cancer Institute (Salt Lake City): In 2025, there has been amazing progress in oncology. It’s difficult to name one trend, innovation or discovery that drove meaningful change in oncology care delivery! But if I had to pick one, it would simply be summarized by: AI.
I think 2025 was a sentinel year when the impact of AI started to become mainstream in the thinking of those who work in oncology. Although AI is not new, 2025 marked the year when the clinical, research, operational and finance teams who work in oncology began to embrace the extraordinary promise and possibilities. Rather than being spectators, in 2025, clinical, research and operational teams became engaged and eager participants.
Of course, much work remains to develop expertise, trust, etc. But what strikes me about 2025 is the willingness to try AI and the incredible speed of adoption. We are just beginning to grasp the possibilities, amazing change lies ahead.
Frantz Berthaud. Senior Vice President, Oncology Services at University Medical Center of El Paso (Texas): Much like everyone else, I envision that AI will be the premiere answer. For me, it is its use in accelerating drug development and trial matching. Major pharma companies like AstraZeneca and Pfizer leaned heavily into AI by using it to comb through multi-omic (genomics, proteomics, etc.) data and inform clinical trial design leading to, honestly, a turning point for precision oncology. With the use of AI, we can now assess vast data sets including genomic profiles, EHRs, trial outcomes to suggest patients that are eligible candidates for trials or therapies with unprecedented speed and accuracy.
This translates to more efficient trial matching, boosting enrollment and helping accelerate drug development. I also believe there’s an element of equity and access here where we’re not leaving trials off the table for any patient.
Natasha Carrera. Associate Director of Service Line Management at Fred Hutch Cancer Center (Seattle): 2025 was the year oncology proved that delivery innovation can be as transformative as scientific discovery. By redesigning how complex therapies are delivered — safely, outpatient and at scale — the field expanded access, improved experience and laid the groundwork for the next generation of immunologic therapies.
Alyssia Crews. Vice President of Oncology and Urology Service Lines at Orlando (Fla.) Health Cancer Institute: I always remind our teams that we are in the most exciting era of oncology. The speed of scientific progress, discoveries, and novel tools and solutions is awe-inspiring. While it requires a collective effort to stay informed, these innovations allow us to deliver the compassionate care patients and families need within their communities. AI is in every facet of care, allowing physicians, advanced practice providers, clinicians and team members to spend more quality time on the conversations and care aspect of their roles vs “on the computer.”
The use of AI to help identify nodules and areas of interest in imaging is allowing us to catch and treat cancers early, translating to better outcomes. Personalized medicine, aka precision medicine, continues to grow and “Wow!” Witnessing gene therapy come into the scene and eradicate sickle cell disease was mind blowing and being one of the first systems in Central Florida to bring this online was exhilarating. Oncology is in a state of constant evolution and it is a profound privilege to bring these groundbreaking innovations to our communities.
Arturo Loaiza-Bonilla, MD. System Chief, Hematology and Oncology at St. Luke’s University Health Network (Bethlehem, Pa.): Looking back on 2025, the most meaningful change in oncology care delivery was not a single algorithm, but the convergence of interoperability, policy and operational AI. For the first time, EMR data liquidity meaningfully improved — driven by CMS interoperability and patient-access rules — growing Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources adoption and clearer expectations around data exchange. In parallel, both CMS and the FDA became more explicit and pragmatic about responsible AI use, shifting the conversation from “if” to “how” AI can be safely deployed in clinical care and trials.
This created the conditions for a second-order shift: the rise of agentic, workflow-embedded AI. Instead of standalone tools, we saw AI systems begin to orchestrate real tasks — trial identification, care navigation, triage, utilization review and follow-up — across fragmented oncology workflows. The impact came not from autonomy alone, but from governed, human-supervised agents that reduced delays, closed operational gaps and scaled access without adding burden to clinicians. In 2025, AI started to look less like innovation theater and more like essential infrastructure for modern oncology care delivery. Can’t wait to see what this wave of transformation brings in 2026!
Ruben Mesa, MD. President of the Cancer National Service Line and Senior Vice President at Advocate Health (Charlotte, N.C.) and Executive Director of the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center (Winston-Salem, N.C.): AI ambient listening for charting, combined with AI generated chart summaries from Epic are starting to make a real positive impact on facilitating charting of oncology patients for physicians, nurses and APPs. This will allow for greater efficiency in patient encounters, better communication with patients and possibly free up access.
Walter Stadler, MD. Chief Clinical Officer at City of Hope Chicago: Ongoing integration of germ-line and tumor specific genomics into the care paradigm.
Approximately 10% of locally advanced and metastatic cancer patients have a cancer predisposing germ line mutation. These mutations can not only have major implications for treatment but additionally have major implications for testing and screening of family members. Molecular phenotyping (somatic genomic testing of the tumor) is a standard component of cancer diagnosis for many cancers because it drives specific molecularly targeted therapy and its importance is expanding.
Sai Yendamuri, MD. Chief Strategy Officer And Senior Vice President of Business Development And Outreach at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center (Buffalo, N.Y.): The one change I would point out is the use of AI in several spheres:
- Ambient listening in documentation — this has helped with burnout issues
- AI in identifying patients for clinical trials — while this is in its infancy, it has tremendous potential for screening suitable candidates, particularly in community oncology practices
While AI has widespread impact in other areas such as discovery, these are the ones with immediate impact.
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