SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 29, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SoundHound AI Inc. (Nasdaq: SOUN), a global leader in voice and agentic AI, today announced the expansion of "Emily," MUSC Health's AI agent built on SoundHound's next-generation agentic AI platform. The expansion extends support to MUSC Health's retail and specialty pharmacy operations and builds on a successful collaboration that has supported more than 2.2 million patient calls across the health system.
Since first deploying Emily on SoundHound's AI agent platform in 2024 as part of an initiative to enhance patient appointment management, MUSC Health, the health care system of the Medical University of South Carolina, has scaled the technology across patient access and other nonclinical service workflows.
Using AI to handle a growing portion of calls empowers patients to complete routine tasks independently, reducing wait times and allowing staff to focus on more complex or sensitive needs. This approach improves operational efficiency while maintaining a high-quality patient experience.
MUSC Health's recent expansion of the Epic-integrated AI agent system to its retail and specialty pharmacy phone lines represents one of the first agentic voice implementations for an Epic system. Patients can use natural-language conversations with Emily to:
- Process prescription refill requests
- Receive real-time updates on refill statuses
- Access pharmacy hours and location information
- Be routed directly to appropriate pharmacy teams when needed
This expansion builds on MUSC Health's broader digital transformation strategy to create a self-service "front door" that provides seamless access to care for patients and reduces the administrative burden on staff.
"From patient access to pharmacy operations, we are thoughtfully deploying AI to enhance the human experience in health care," said Crystal Broj, Chief Digital Transformation Officer at MUSC Health. "Our collaboration with SoundHound AI has enabled us to scale agentic AI in a way that delivers measurable efficiencies while maintaining the high level of service our patients expect. That means ensuring the technology is secure, reliable and capable of responsibly managing sensitive patient interactions."
For health systems nationwide facing rising call volumes, workforce shortages and growing patient expectations, MUSC Health's approach demonstrates how enterprise-grade conversational AI agents can deliver operational efficiencies at scale while improving patient satisfaction.
"MUSC Health is proving that AI agents can drive real impact in complex health care environments," said Michael Zagorsek, Chief Operating Officer at SoundHound AI. "Supporting more than 2 million patient interactions and expanding into pharmacy operations underscores how our sophisticated AI agents can scale securely within the industry. The future of patient engagement is intelligent, accessible and enterprise-ready."
Read the full case study on SoundHound's website: From Appointments to Refills: MUSC Health's Expansion of AI-Enabled Patient Access Capabilities With Emily
Media Contacts:
Fiona McEvoy
SoundHound AI
415-610-6590
PR@SoundHound.com
Meg Lewis
Medical University of South Carolina
mediarelations@musc.edu
About SoundHound AI
SoundHound AI (Nasdaq:SOUN) is a voice and agentic AI company that enables businesses to deliver natural, end-to-end conversational experiences across digital and physical channels, including phones, kiosks, chat, smart devices, drive-thrus, TVs, in-vehicle, and more. Its agentic platform, OASYS, is a self-learning, orchestrated AI system where organizations can build and deploy conversational AI agents to handle transactions, tasks, and workflows on behalf of customers and employees. Built on proprietary technology backed by 400+ patents and years of AI research, SoundHound serves leading brands across industries including automotive, financial services, healthcare, retail, telecommunications, and more. It powers millions of products and processes billions of interactions annually for enterprise customers worldwide. Learn more at: www.soundhound.com
About MUSC
Founded in 1824 in Charleston, MUSC is the state's only comprehensive academic health system, with a mission to preserve and optimize human life in South Carolina through education, research and patient care. Each year, MUSC educates nearly 3,500 students in six colleges and trains more than 1,060 residents and fellows across its health system. MUSC leads the state in research funding from the National Institutes of Health, including National Institute of General Medical Sciences COBRE awards. For information on our academic programs, visit musc.edu.
As the health care system of the Medical University of South Carolina, MUSC Health is dedicated to delivering the highest-quality and safest patient care while educating and training generations of outstanding health care providers and leaders to serve the people of South Carolina and beyond. In 2025, for the 11th consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health University Medical Center in Charleston the No. 1 hospital in South Carolina. To learn more about clinical patient services, visit muschealth.org.
MUSC has a total enterprise annual operating budget of $8.9 billion. The more than 36,200 MUSC members include world-class faculty, physicians, specialty providers, scientists, contract employees, affiliates and care team members who deliver groundbreaking education, research and patient care.
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9ec334b1-be62-4554-8caa-87f36b63e9d5
