Guest: Viraj Narayanan, CEO of Cornerstone AI

🔑 Key Takeaways

Healthcare data is messy by default. It's generated by countless sources with different standards—think EMRs, Apple Watches, and pharmacy systems—making research data fragmented and hard to use.

AI can clean up the mess. Cornerstone AI applies automation to standardize and improve the fidelity of clinical research data, significantly cutting down manual effort.

Productivity > Replacement. Rather than replacing jobs, AI is helping PhDs and data scientists focus on higher-value tasks, enabling more research and faster discovery.

Standardization is foundational. Without clean, consistent data, the insights drawn—even with AI—are limited or flawed.

Trust is earned. The biggest mindset shift is seeing your own messy data cleaned instantly by AI, not a polished demo set.

Patients win too. Cleaner, faster data means more reliable research, potentially more personalized medicine, and better access to understandable information.

💬 Quote of the Episode

“We’re going to look back in 10 years and think—‘I can’t believe we had PhDs doing that kind of manual data work.’”

— Viraj Narayanan

⏱ Timestamped Highlights

00:00 – Intro to Viraj and Cornerstone AI: Automating healthcare data quality

01:54 – The "plumbing problem" of healthcare data and what no one thinks about

04:48 – Why AI in healthcare often starts with admin—not research

05:35 – Steph Curry and SNOMED: How basketball shows us the need for standardization

08:58 – Wild West of research data: From 2% lift to 40%+ with AI

11:41 – Why research is built on redundancy and how AI rewires the model

14:43 – Change management: From trust to technical buy-in to leadership alignment

18:42 – Will AI take jobs? No—but it will transform what we do with talent

21:03 – What patients will see: Cleaner, faster, more understandable data

23:49 – Where to reach Viraj and final thoughts

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