Andy De, Chief Marketing Officer, Lightbeam Health Solutions
"The adverse impact of rising health insurance premiums and the loss of Medicare and Medicaid patients, which has already led to a number of rural and community hospitals shutting their doors, combined with reduced healthcare IT spend, will drive increased M&A across healthcare organizations as well as enterprise SaaS vendors in 2026. AI startups will continue to see disproportionate VC investment, but pragmatism will begin to outweigh FOMO, with growing demand for Agentic AI platforms and AI agents that address real-world problems, reduce fatigue and burnout for physicians, nurses, and care teams, and deliver robust value, ROI, and payback on these investments."