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The future of enterprise imaging won’t be shaped by technology alone. It will be shaped by the people who challenge convention, rethink what’s possible and turn new ideas into better ways of working.
Michael Finke, Chief Executive Officer, Jacobian
Strong foundations make innovation possible
There’s a lot of momentum in reporting right now. But what will really matter five years from now?
Michael Finke: Every wave of innovation eventually faces the same test—not whether it can impress, but whether it can scale and endure. Healthcare has never rewarded technology for merely being impressive. It has rewarded technology clinicians can depend on at 2:00 a.m. on an ordinary Tuesday.
True, and it feels like the tech pendulum has swung too far and now balance matters more than momentum. Are we now at risk of conflating two very different things: what looks impressive at first and what holds up in daily practice?
Michael Finke: Today, speech is the experience – the interface between you and getting it done. Get accuracy wrong, and nothing else matters. It is the foundation for trust, adoption, efficiency and satisfaction. What matters is that underlying platform is robust enough for real-world volume and fatigue, day after day. Operational resilience matters. Downtime contingency matters. Attending-resident workflow matters. Workarounds are not workflows.
At a time when everyone claims to be a platform, what does the word mean to you?
Michael Finke: Great question! A product is a map of everything you're allowed to do. An agentic platform is a vocabulary. The distinction between a product and an agentic platform is not autonomy — it is when control flow is decided. A product decides it at build time; an agentic platform decides it at inference time, per request. Products have roadmaps because users can only do what was built; the long tail is a backlog. When users can compose, the long tail stops being a backlog and the roadmap becomes capabilities and guardrails, not features. In my mind, that’s a new paradigm.
So what will endure in these noisy and clamoring times?
Michael Finke: Pilots showcase what’s possible. Outcomes prove what’s dependable. I have learned that solutions that endure are rarely those with the longest feature list. They’re the ones that have been pressure-tested across countless studies, refined through innumerable edge cases, strengthened by client feedback and supported by partners that understand operational excellence as much as technical innovation. Strong foundations don’t slow innovation—they make it possible.
Are you optimistic about the future that is unfolding so fast?
Michael Finke: Definitely! This exciting moment calls for scrutiny paired with enthusiasm – not less ambition, just a clearer eye for what’s actually trusted versus what simply looks good. The future of enterprise imaging will be built by clinicians, technologists and industry leaders willing to challenge one another’s assumptions—and together keep building foundations strong enough to support whatever comes next.