One of two prime awardees on the $775.72 million multiple-award IDIQ, Knowtex is expanding AI that gives clinicians more time with Veterans. It’s already live at 79 VA medical centers and more than 310 VA facilities nationwide for over 7,000 VA clinicians
Knowtex co-founders
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 25, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Knowtex, the first frontier AI lab for healthcare, announced today that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has selected it as a prime awardee on the Ambient Scribe Enterprise Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. The award expands the use of AI that gives VA clinicians more time with the Veterans they serve. The VA Technology Acquisition Center awarded the contract on September 18, 2026. It is a multiple-award IDIQ with a five-year ordering period and a shared maximum ceiling of $775.72 million across all awardees, making it the largest public enterprise commitment to ambient AI in American healthcare.
As one of only two companies named a prime awardee, Knowtex contracts directly with VA to provide cloud-based ambient scribe solutions that capture clinical encounters, generate draft notes, and deliver advanced AI capabilities such as coding, order entry and clinical intelligence integrated with VA’s electronic health record systems, so providers can face the Veteran, not the keyboard.
“Serving the clinicians who care for our nation’s Veterans is highly impactful, mission-focused work,” said Caroline Zhang, CEO and co-founder of Knowtex. “Being named a prime on VA’s enterprise ambient scribe contract is an honor and a responsibility. We earned VA’s trust one clinic, one clinician, and one Veteran visit at a time. We are proud to continue that partnership at enterprise, national scale.”
A milestone two and a half years in the making
Knowtex has been working with VA since its AI Tech Sprint in 2024, when after a competitive evaluation of more than 150 solutions, Knowtex emerged as one of only two ambient AI vendors selected. In October 2025, VA awarded Knowtex a $15 million contract to deploy its ambient documentation platform. In February 2026, VA gave Knowtex the green light for nationwide primary care implementation. Knowtex is currently deployed in 79 VA medical centers and more than 310 total VA facilities across 10 Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs).
Highlights:
- More than 7,000 VA clinicians are using the Knowtex platform
- Knowtex has helped those clinicians save more than 450,000 hours of documentation time – time that goes back to Veteran care
- 88% sustained clinician adoption of Knowtex
- 4.5 out of 5 average satisfaction across more than 5,100 clinician ratings
- 3% increase (from 92 to 95%) in Veteran trust and patient satisfaction assessed by Kansas City VA
“Today was the first time I have been able to complete my notes and go home on time since I started working at VA 10 years ago,” one Kansas City VA provider told VA News.
Built by a frontier AI lab
On September 15, 2026, Knowtex launched the first frontier AI lab for healthcare. The lab builds specialty-specific clinical models, anti-hallucination safeguards, and its own evaluation science. It recently published KnowBench, a deployment-grounded benchmark for clinical AI, on arXiv. KnowBench measures Effort Reduction: the share of AI-generated clinical work that the responsible clinician accepts. The Knowtex platform currently scores 97.99%.
“Ambient AI inside VA has to perform in the real exam room, on real systems, for clinicians who have no time to spare,” said Jocelyn Kang, CTO and co-founder of Knowtex. “We built the first fully integrated ambient scribe in CPRS, to federal-grade security standards, and we measure every model against how a clinician would actually judge the output. That discipline is what the VA’s enterprise scale demands.”
Knowtex goes well beyond transcription. From each encounter, the platform produces clinical notes, codes, orders, after-visit summaries and real-time clinical intelligence. It supports more than 200 specialties, so providers get documentation support tailored to the care they provide, from primary care to specialty clinics. It’s also EHR-agnostic by design, so it can work across the systems clinicians already use. Beyond VA, Knowtex serves more than 300 organizations nationwide.
A team that knows VA from the inside
Knowtex’s forward-deployed team includes former VA nurses, clinicians, and program professionals, many of whom spent years caring for Veterans directly. Together they bring decades of experience inside VA medical centers and enterprise digital health programs. Their firsthand understanding of VA’s clinical workflows, culture, and mission to Veterans shapes every deployment, from the first site visit to national rollout.
“This is what we’ve been building toward,” Zhang said. “Our nation’s Veterans deserve the best care from clinicians who are fully present in the exam room. We are committed to helping VA deliver that at every medical center, for every Veteran.”
About Knowtex
Knowtex is the first frontier AI lab for healthcare. The lab builds original clinical models and evaluation science for healthcare AI, and its platform turns every patient encounter into accurate notes, correct codes, orders, and actionable clinical intelligence for providers. Founded by Stanford AI scientists Caroline Zhang and Jocelyn Kang, Knowtex is EHR-agnostic, specialty-customized, and deeply integrated into clinical workflows. It supports more than 200 specialties and is used by leading federal and community health systems, including the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Knowtex is backed by Y Combinator, HF0, Stanford StartX Med, Texas Medical Center Innovation, Jeff Dean, and others, and has been supported by Amazon Web Services (AWS), the UCSF Rosenman Institute, and MedTech Innovators. Learn more at knowtex.ai.
Disclaimer: Reference to the Department of Veterans Affairs does not constitute or imply VA endorsement of Knowtex or its products.
Media Contact:
Michelle Faulkner
Big Swing
617-510-6998
[email protected]
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/48a9e61e-29a9-4d10-b4ac-77ca0d587552
