Inside the evolution of Nabla Echo and how health systems are scaling ambient AI across care settings
As ambient AI tools become increasingly recognized for their impact, a growing number of organizations are bringing them into virtual care settings, helping clinicians reduce documentation time, focus more on patients, and overcome many of the friction points that previously made telehealth encounters more cumbersome.
To bring ambient AI into virtual care, modules like Nabla Echo enable the capture of virtual encounters across diverse environments and third-party technologies, such as video conferencing platforms, telephonic encounters, EHRs, and various audio setups, where accessing the audio on both sides of the conversation can be complex. “You can’t just run ambient AI in virtual care the way you do in-person; it’s much more complex,” says Etienne Sabatier, Product Lead at Nabla. “That’s exactly why we created Nabla Echo—to simplify audio capture without changing how clinicians work.”
Sabatier discusses the next wave of ambient AI innovation, including key considerations for clinical and IT leaders as they expand these tools into virtual care. He also explains how Nabla Echo addresses long-standing challenges in virtual care by making audio capture more consistent, reliable, and adaptable across different environments.
Q: Why was Nabla Echo created, and what specific clinician or IT pain point does it solve?
Sabatier: Nabla’s mission is to reduce clinicians’ administrative burden by minimizing documentation tasks and allowing them to focus fully on the patient during the encounter. Ambient AI supports that by capturing the conversation and automatically generating the note. That works very well for in-person visits, where Nabla can run on a computer or mobile device and capture audio directly.
In the past, though, achieving that same effortless interaction during virtual care appointments was more challenging. That’s because virtual care is more complex: conversations happen through third-party platforms like Zoom or Microsoft Teams, over the phone, or through embedded EHR portals. This makes it harder to reliably capture audio from both the patient and the physician sides.
The result can be inconsistent audio capture and a disjointed experience. For example, a provider might be using headphones, performing the visit in a browser window that the system can’t access, or using speaker mode with a third-party recorder, without realizing that the patient’s audio wasn’t captured until after the visit.
Nabla Echo was designed to address these situations. It captures audio from both sides of the virtual encounter, bringing the full power of ambient AI to remote care. The software is installed on the clinician’s computer, ensuring that the entire conversation is processed through Nabla, regardless of the technology used to facilitate the visit. Most providers don’t even realize it’s running, but it enables ambient AI in virtual care to function as seamlessly as it does for in-person visits.
Q: What principles guided Nabla Echo’s design to make it both secure and easy for clinicians to adopt?
Sabatier: Privacy and security are our top priority. Because we work with protected health information, we designed Nabla Echo to activate only during an active clinical encounter. And rather than sending audio to our servers, Echo streams it directly to the Nabla app, where it’s handled in real time and used to generate structured clinical documentation. The transcription is then sent to the cloud, encrypted end to end, and processed entirely within a HIPAA-compliant environment.
Second, we built Nabla Echo to work seamlessly on any platform the encounter takes place on. Whether you’re conducting a video visit on Zoom, working in an EHR, or using your phone, Echo relies on the device’s native audio. This keeps it stable, consistent, and unaffected by system updates.
And third, it had to be invisible. It’s deployed in the background, usually by an IT team, has no separate user interface, and requires no action or authentication from the end user. That’s essential for adoption. It shouldn’t add friction or require clinicians to change their workflow.
Q: How does Nabla Echo improve the virtual care experience for clinicians and patients?
Sabatier: Customers using Nabla Echo today include Codman Square Health Center, KeyCare, CVS Health, and many more. Nabla Echo brings the power of ambient AI to your virtual care encounter, reducing the burden of setting up your environment. Clinicians no longer have to worry about whether the patient can be heard, if they’re using the right audio device, or if the platform will pick up the conversation. Nabla Echo lets them start the visit and trust that the conversation will be automatically captured and transcribed correctly, without any effort.
That’s especially important in virtual care, where patients can feel disconnected when their provider is typing or focused on another window. But when documentation is automated, clinicians can stay fully engaged in the conversation, and patients notice the difference. Also, the note is ready as soon as the visit ends, so providers can move on without spending hours catching up on documentation at the end of the day.
Q: How do clinical and IT leaders define a successful rollout of Nabla Echo—and how does Nabla support that success?
Sabatier: Rapid adoption, reduced documentation time, and lower burnout are key elements of a successful deployment. We work closely with healthcare organizations to understand their virtual care setup and tailor the launch accordingly. Nabla Echo is simple to install, and for our enterprise clients, most IT teams can deploy it across their provider base in just a few days. But it’s also easy enough for individual providers to install themselves. Once it’s live, clinicians don’t need to do anything. We see a very clear drop in support needs once Nabla Echo is implemented, which is one of the most tangible benefits. For virtual-first providers, it can be game-changing. They’re moving quickly from patient to patient, and they don’t have time for tech issues. Nabla Echo ensures encounters are transcribed automatically and clinical notes are generated accurately, no matter the platform, setting, or desktop device.