Abridge vs Epic AI Charting (2026)
Abridge and Epic AI Charting both listen to the visit and draft a note inside Epic for the clinician to sign. For an Epic health system, the question is whether a separately contracted scribe earns its place beside the one Epic now builds into its own chart. Abridge runs inside Epic Haiku and Hyperdrive and also works with Oracle Health and athenahealth, across outpatient, inpatient and emergency care, with product lines for clinicians, nursing and revenue cycle. Linked Evidence ties every sentence of a draft to the audio it came from. Kaiser Permanente's six month evaluation across more than 1,000 clinicians appears in NEJM AI, and KLAS gave Abridge its Ambient AI award in 2025 and 2026. OpenAI and Google Cloud are among its named subprocessors. Epic AI Charting, also marketed as Chart with Art, reached customers on 4 February 2026 and by August was live in more than 70 specialties. It drafts notes, queues orders from the conversation and restructures notes on a spoken request, with the patient's medications, problems and history in view. Microsoft supplies Dragon ambient technology for transcription and speaker separation through Azure. No accuracy result or independent evaluation of the feature has been released. An Epic organization that wants ambient documentation with the least integration work fits AI Charting. A health system that wants sentence level audio evidence, peer reviewed results, or one scribe across Epic, Oracle Health and athenahealth sites fits Abridge.
- Clinicians should check any sentence of a draft against the audio before signing.
- Some sites run Oracle Health or athenahealth rather than Epic.
- Leadership wants peer reviewed results from a large deployment before scaling.
- Revenue cycle and nursing teams need their own ambient products.
- The organization already runs Epic and wants no separate scribe contract.
- Drafts should draw on the patient's medications, problems and history in the chart.
- Clinicians want to restructure current and future notes by voice.
- Nurses, pharmacists and behavioral health staff need the same feature as physicians.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. Abridge and Epic AI Charting are each graded against the same capability taxonomy, from each vendor's own public materials and the regulatory record, under the AI Health Index verification standard. No vendor pays for placement, and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Plain facts
| Fact | Abridge | Epic AI Charting |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Ambient Scribes | Ambient Scribes |
| Founded | 2018 | 1979 |
| Headquarters | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | Verona, Wisconsin |
| Website | abridge.com | epic.com |
Side by Side
Select any grade to read the note behind it.
Each vendor in one paragraph
Written to be quoted whole. Each paragraph opens the AI Health Index profile of the vendor: what the product is, who buys it and what it does.
Abridge is an enterprise ambient AI platform that turns the clinician patient conversation into a structured, billable note inside the EHR, sold to health systems rather than to individual clinicians. It partners with more than 300 health systems, including Kaiser Permanente, Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Duke Health, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Northwell, UPMC, Sutter Health and NYU Langone, and won the KLAS Research award for Ambient AI in 2025 and 2026.
Source: AI Health Index, October 2026
AI Charting, the ambient documentation feature Epic builds into its own record system, which Epic now also markets as Chart with Art. It listens during a visit, drafts the clinician's note, and queues orders from the conversation for the clinician to review. Clinicians can restructure current and future notes by voice, for example asking for the history of present illness as a bulleted list.
Source: AI Health Index, October 2026
Questions buyers ask
Is Abridge or Epic AI Charting better for an Epic health system?
Epic AI Charting fits an Epic organization that wants ambient documentation with the least integration work and no separate scribe contract. Abridge fits a health system that wants every sentence of a draft tied to the audio it came from, peer reviewed results from Kaiser Permanente's evaluation in NEJM AI, or one scribe across Epic, Oracle Health and athenahealth sites. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified October 17, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Is Epic AI Charting the same as DAX Copilot?
No. DAX Copilot is now part of Microsoft Dragon Copilot, which Microsoft created in March 2025 by merging DAX Copilot with Dragon Medical One. Epic builds AI Charting into its own record system and treats it as a separate product, though Microsoft supplies its Dragon ambient technology for transcription, speaker separation and note components through Azure. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified October 17, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Who can use Abridge and Epic AI Charting?
Epic AI Charting is available only to organizations running Epic. By August 2026 it was live in more than 70 specialties across physicians, nurses, pharmacists and behavioral health, with the nursing version at 11 health systems. Abridge works inside Epic Haiku and Hyperdrive and also with Oracle Health and athenahealth, across outpatient, inpatient and emergency care, with product lines for clinicians, nursing and revenue cycle. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified October 17, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
What evidence backs Abridge and Epic AI Charting?
Kaiser Permanente's six month evaluation of Abridge across more than 1,000 clinicians appears in NEJM AI, and KLAS gave Abridge its Ambient AI award in 2025 and 2026. Epic AI Charting has no accuracy result or independent evaluation released yet. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified October 17, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How much do Abridge and Epic AI Charting cost?
Neither has a public price. Abridge contracts with each health system, and Epic licenses AI Charting as its own capability within its record system. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified October 17, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers.
Abridge is an independent company based in Pittsburgh. Epic, based in Verona, Wisconsin, builds AI Charting into its own record system, with Microsoft supplying the speech technology through Azure, and treats it as a product separate from Microsoft Dragon Copilot. Neither has a public price, and neither commits on whether visit audio or transcripts are kept or used to train models.