How AI is shaping the future of women’s health

By Sayeh Radpay, president, HumanisRx

In the lead up to International Women’s Day 2026, women’s health leaders, experts and insiders explore the critical challenges shaping the future of women’s health

Maria, 55, suffers from depression, type-2 diabetes, an elevated risk of heart disease, and chronic pain.

She has three different doctors and has been trying to manage a complex and often changing medication regimen.

She monitors her diabetes with a glucose meter that syncs with her phone and uses a medication reminder app.

The glucose meter is great for sharing data with her doctor, but she has to update her medication app every time her medications change, which happens every couple of months. Sometimes, managing her health feels like a full-time job.

On top of this, the responsibility for her spouse and children’s health has always fallen on her.

She sees her parents starting to show the signs of age and is concerned about how she’ll be able to manage.

From Dr. Google to AI-Powered Care

Health-centred devices and technology have become an essential part of everyday life, particularly for women.

Whether it’s for managing new symptoms,  chronic conditions, pregnancy, perimenopause, or ageing, women are integrating tech solutions for themselves and their families.

Years ago, we were relying on Google or WebMD searches for insight, relying on our own assessment of our conditions.

These days, we can input thousands of data points into tracker apps in our smartphones, or automatically deliver realtime data from wearable devices.

Every day, new apps and devices enter the market, with varying degrees of trustworthiness.

The global market for women’s health devices is projected to grow from its current value of $3.17 billion USD to $20.92 billion USD by 2034, more than double what it is now.

The growth can be attributed to several factors:

• An ageing population and increased awareness of women’s health: A larger cohort of women require continuous symptom monitoring and management, particularly around impactful life stages like menopause.
• Consumer demand for continuous, personalized care: The popularity of wearable health devices like FitBits and Apple Watches have integrated data points and digital coaching into daily life.
• Advances in AI diagnostic accuracy: Larger and higher datasets are being combined with better validation processes, driven by investor and consumer pressure.
• Accessibility and cost factors: The increased cost of healthcare has driven lower-income or uninsured patients to use free or low-cost digital tools before seeking professional care.
• Gaps in care due to policy changes: Governmental policies that limit or reduce women’s healthcare have spurred the creation of healthtech startups to bridge the gap.

The evolution of digital healthcare for women has changed the landscape of wellness, with benefits and risks on both fronts.

Big Benefits and Significant Risks

Historically, medical understanding of women’s physiology lagged far behind men’s.

Research studies that included only college-aged men couldn’t account for conditions that affect women, like hormonal disorders, autoimmune diseases, and cardiovascular symptom presentation.

Therapies for medical conditions affecting men were perceived as more profitable to investors.

The popularity among women for self and automated health tracking is providing a wealth of data that researchers and businesses can tap into to find real-world insights.

This availability of information means that more and more women can arrive at doctor’s appointments with information and questions.

The latest generation of physicians are being trained in better bedside manner and the  growth of AI scribes has freed up time previously spent on documentation to patient care.

Because digital tools can be less costly than in-person care, there’s a risk of overreliance from patients, who then miss out on individual care.

As with “Dr. Google” and other self assessments, search results and AI tools often lack nuance and can result in alarming false positives.

AI tools often operate in a black box with little clinician oversight or safeguards, which can lead to misdiagnosis.

When using these tools, it’s important to have a trained clinician to ensure the accuracy of the outputs. It’s also vital that the inputs are coming from verified sources.

Technology Driven Medication Safety

Our company, HumanisRx, developed MedMonitor as a proactive, backend intelligence tool for medication safety and optimization.

It empowers earlier, targeted fixes for the medication-related aspects of high-burden conditions, helping close gaps in adherence, safety, and cost that disproportionately impact women across life stages.

Maria is one of our patients. Our tool identified that she was having trouble staying on her medication schedule.

Missed pills and injections means that she experiences mood swings and unstable blood sugar, affecting her energy levels and causing her to miss work.

It also caught a cardiovascular condition that was going untreated and flagged a potential for stomach-bleeding due to her use of both pain and depression medication.

Our clinical pharmacist suggested a revised medication regimen that would be easier to manage, cost less, and address at-risk issues.

She worked directly with Maria on managing her medications, and how she could safely integrate over-the-counter pain medications.

Over time, Maria was able to take better control of her health and improve her quality of life.

Looking Ahead

As technologies like AI, telehealth, and wearables progress, so should personalisation and safety.

These tools have the ability to make individualised care accessible to larger swaths of the population by lowering costs and physical barriers.

For women who tend to take on the lion’s share of our families’ healthcare needs, these innovations can tame some of the chaos and ease some of the burden.

The challenge is to safeguard the quality of the output by working hand-in-hand with medical professionals.

Are we up to the challenge?

Sayeh Radpay is the president of HumanisRx, a team of pharmacists, doctors, and technologists who share a vision of a future where Canadians lead healthier lives through medication use that is safe, effective, and responsible.