Epic used its 2026 Users’ Group Meeting on Tuesday to detail several new and expanding AI capabilities across its EHR platform.
Here are five things health system leaders should know:
1. Agent Factory lets health systems build their own AI agents. The platform allows organizations to deploy one of 120 out-of-box AI features, customize it with their own policies and knowledge bases, or build new agents without writing code. Early adopters are already using it; broader availability is set for 2027. ECU Health said using AI to summarize Transfer Center requests has saved its team an estimated 20 hours a week.
2. Health Alerts brings free outbreak detection to EpicResearch.org. The tool monitors county- and state-level diagnosis rates across thousands of ICD-10 codes, screening out seasonal patterns like flu before alerts are reviewed by clinicians and data scientists. The alerts are public and searchable by state, county or condition.
3. Real-time prior authorization checks are now live. Clinicians using Epic can immediately see whether a health insurer requires prior authorization before starting treatment, letting the approval process begin sooner or letting non-required treatments start right away.
4. MyChart Central is now available in all 50 states, giving patients one login across every organization where they’ve received care.
5. Care Everywhere Diagnostic Image Exchange now lets health systems share diagnostic-quality CT, X-ray and MRI images with other Epic organizations in one click.
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