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Quest Diagnostics (DGX) and Google Cloud to Transform Healthcare Data with AI

Quest Diagnostics (DGX) and Google Cloud to Transform Healthcare Data with AI

Yahoo23-03-2025

We recently compiled a list of the Top 8 AI News Updates Investors Shouldn't Miss. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE:DGX) stands against the other AI stocks.
On March 19th, the stock market bounced back after the US Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged at 4.25% to 4.5%. The Fed also anticipated two rate cuts this year despite elevated inflation. The S&P 500 index was up over 1%, while the Nasdaq Composite jumped by well over 200 points. The rally was led by the magnificent seven stocks after weeks of market declines amid trade wars and disappointing economic data.
Elsewhere, AI continues to transform industries and individual lives, from AI nurses reshaping hospital care to schools reporting that students are learning faster and more effectively with AI.
Furthermore, AngelList CEO Avlok Kohli claimed that all software companies are AI companies now.
'The enthusiasm into AI actually carries over into everything, which effectively impacts all startups,' said Kohli when asked if investors are as excited about emerging startups outside of AI.
Meanwhile, security risks surrounding AI continue to loom. Computer scientist and AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li co-authored a report suggesting that lawmakers should consider AI risks that 'have not yet been observed in the world' when devising AI regulations. The report highlighted that the novel risks posed by AI could require legislation that compels AI developers to publicly report their safety tests and security protocols.
We selected AI stocks by reviewing news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. We listed the stocks in ascending order of their hedge fund sentiment taken from Insider Monkey's Q4 2024 database of over 1000 hedge funds.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points ().
A healthcare specialist providing a risk assessment for a patient.
Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE:DGX) leverages technology and innovation to offer diagnostic testing and information services. It uses large repositories of de-identifiable clinical lab results to help physicians gain accurate insights into diseases for better treatment and patient outcomes. The company has ramped up the deployment of AI in several areas of its organization, including microbiology and cytology testing, specimen processing, and customer service.
On March 18th, Quest Diagnostics (NYSE:DGX) announced a partnership with Google Cloud to optimize data management, enhance data analytics, improve patient engagement, and personalize experiences for providers. The company will utilize Google Cloud's GenAI and data analytics technologies across segments, including R&D, operations, administrative workflows, and customer experience, while ensuring data privacy.
"We are excited about the potential to innovate and personalize the services we bring to our patients, clients, and employees. Google Cloud provides a best-in-class platform for securely streamlining and integrating data to generate novel insights and improve productivity. Google Cloud's generative AI capabilities can help dismantle care roadblocks by personalizing the way patients and providers interact with us, improving care access, customer experiences, and quality."
Overall, DGX ranks 3rd on our list of top AI news updates investors shouldn't miss. While we acknowledge the potential of DGX as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than DGX but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the .
READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at .

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OpenAI taps Google in unprecedented cloud deal despite AI rivalry, sources say: Reuters
OpenAI taps Google in unprecedented cloud deal despite AI rivalry, sources say: Reuters

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OpenAI taps Google in unprecedented cloud deal despite AI rivalry, sources say: Reuters

OpenAI plans to add Alphabet'sGoogle cloud service to meet its growing needs for computing capacity, three sources told Reuters, marking a surprising collaboration between two prominent competitors in the artificial intelligence sector. The deal, which has been under discussion for a few months, was finalized in May, one of the sources added. It underscores how massive computing demands to train and deploy AI models are reshaping the competitive dynamics in AI, and marks OpenAI's latest move to diversify its compute sources beyond its major supporter Microsoft, including its high-profile Stargate data center project. It is a win for Google's cloud unit, which will supply additional computing capacity to OpenAI's existing infrastructure for training and running its AI models, sources said, who requested anonymity to discuss private matters. The move also comes as OpenAI's ChatGPT poses the biggest threat to Google's dominant search business in years, with Google executives recently saying that the AI race may not be winner-take-all. OpenAI, Google and Microsoft declined to comment. Alphabet's stock was up 2.1% on Tuesday afternoon following the news, while Microsoft shares were down 0.6%. Scotiabank analysts called the development "somewhat surprising" in a note on Tuesday, highlighting the growth opportunities for Google's Cloud unit, while expressing caution regarding competition from ChatGPT. "The deal ... underscores the fact that the two are willing to overlook heavy competition between them to meet the massive computing demands. Ultimately, we view this as a big win for Google's cloud unit, but ... there are continued worries that ChatGPT is becoming an incrementally larger threat to Google's search dominance," the analysts wrote. Since ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, OpenAI has dealt with increasing demand for computing capacity - known in the industry as compute - for training large language models, as well as for running inference, which involves processing information so people can use these models. OpenAI said on Monday that its annualized revenue run rate surged to $10 billion as of June, positioning the company to hit its full-year target amid booming adoption of AI. Earlier this year, OpenAI partnered with SoftBank and Oracle on the $500 billion Stargate infrastructure program, and signed deals worth billions with CoreWeave for more compute. It is on track this year to finalize the design of its first in-house chip that could reduce its dependency on external hardware providers, Reuters reported in February. 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AI Time Platform Laurel Raises $100 Million to Transform the Professional Services Industry
AI Time Platform Laurel Raises $100 Million to Transform the Professional Services Industry

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AI Time Platform Laurel Raises $100 Million to Transform the Professional Services Industry

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Laurel, the world's first AI Time platform, today announced it has raised $100 million in Series C funding led by IVP, with participation from GV (Google Ventures). Laurel will leverage this investment to scale its AI time platform and accelerate to solve what it calls the 'time intelligence challenge"—the inability for knowledge industries to accurately map time to business outcomes. In the age of AI, quantifying and understanding human capital goes from a 'nice to have' to a 'cannot exist without' for enterprises. In addition to IVP and GV, new investors in the round, which consists of primary and secondary funding, also include: 01.a (created by former CEO and COO of Twitter & CRO of Facebook), DST Global, Kevin Weil (CPO @ OpenAI), Alexis Ohanian, Vladimir Fedorov (CTO @ GitHub), Arash Ferdowsi (co-founder of Dropbox), and Hans Tung. These investors join returning investors ACME, Anthos, Gokul Rajaram, AIX Ventures, and Marc Benioff's TIME Ventures. The funding comes as Laurel experiences rapid adoption among enterprise professional services firms like Ernst & Young, Grant Thornton, Freshfields, and Crowell & Moring. Over the last 12 months, Laurel grew ARR +300% at double-digit scale, increased usage by +500%, and works with +100 of the top legal, accounting, and consulting firms across US, UK, EU, Australia, and Canada. Laurel's AI Time platform, now leveraged by hundreds of the world's top enterprise professional service firms, uses AI to automatically categorize, describe, and analyze how professionals spend their time on admin work. The platform's ability to connect time data with business outcomes has proven transformative for firms looking to maximize profits, allocate their resources effectively, and understand exactly what workflows to apply AI to and what agents to automate. Customers using the company's AI-native time platform report profit increases between 4-11%—driven by an additional 28 billable minutes per day per professional, and increased realization of 1-4%. Laurel's ROI methodology has been independently audited and validated by a Big-4 Firm. The platform currently processes over $5B in gross market value for its customers, and +$360M of that amount is net-new value attributable to Laurel. In addition, Laurel saves its professionals up to 80% in time recording, freeing them to work on high-leverage work. 'Laurel uniquely delivers value across lawyers, clients, finance, and marketing by streamlining time capture, enriching narratives, and accelerating accurate billing,' says Reed Cunningham, Chief Innovation Officer at global law firm Reed Smith. 'As firms assess the impact of AI and fixed fees, gaining granular intelligence with less effort is essential to redefining value within a firm and for its clients.' 'I've seen first-hand how Laurel can transform our approach to time intelligence. What used to be a manual process of time-keeping and entry is now significantly technology enabled,' says Matt Newnes, Partner and Tax Transformation leader at Ernst & Young. 'Laurel doesn't just help our people to capture time that they spend on work more comprehensively; it helps us to understand much more about how our teams work allowing us to identify best practices to help ensure we always drive the best outcomes for our clients. It has proven to be one of our most impactful AI investments, delivering measurable results while laying the foundation for broader transformation initiatives.' Automating time is Laurel's first step. Laurel's AI platform turns its proprietary data around work and time to address the #1 business problem impacting knowledge industries: operating without visibility into their supply chain. 'Nobody has ever mapped the input of time to the output of outcomes. Industries like legal and accounting are best at understanding their input (time), but still struggle to price value. On the flip side, industries like consulting and financial services understand value, but operate blind to the true cost of creation. While all other industries have been obsessed about optimizing their supply chain, the supply chain of knowledge work—which represents over 50% of Global GDP—has never been surfaced. This funding helps us solve this fundamental challenge while giving firms the data foundation they need to deploy AI strategically. We're not just automating time—we're creating the time intelligence layer that will transform how all knowledge industries operate," says Ryan Alshak, founder and CEO of Laurel. "Laurel has identified one of the largest efficiency gaps in the modern economy, one I understand deeply as a former CFO of a public company. Professional services represent trillions in global economic activity, yet these firms operate without basic visibility into their core resource – time. By solving the time intelligence challenge, Laurel creates a platform for broader AI transformation. As these industries invest heavily in AI over the next five years, Laurel's data foundation becomes essential infrastructure that truly tracks the ROI of AI. The market opportunity is massive, and Laurel's unique position makes them the clear leader in this space," says Ajay Vashee, General Partner at IVP. 'Laurel is creating the enterprise intelligence layer for knowledge work that leverages timekeeping as a product wedge,' said Frederique Dame, General Partner at GV. 'By capturing and organizing the full lifecycle of how professionals spend their time, Laurel unlocks a new class of data that makes work itself measurable, optimizable, and automatable. The goal isn't just better time tracking, it's building the data foundation for AI-powered workflows, predictive resourcing, and strategic insights.' Transforming How Knowledge Industries Understand and Optimize Work While manufacturing companies know exactly how much it costs to produce a car down to the penny, and retail businesses track inventory with precision, professional services firms have historically operated without understanding their most critical resource: human capital. Both the outcomes of the work itself and the time it takes to produce it. As a result, organizations are operating blind on what the biggest impact for AI is across their companies, and how to point people to highest value tasks (like Business Development, Relationship Management, and first principles strategic thinking). As knowledge industries plan to spend over $1 trillion on AI in the next five years, Laurel's time intelligence platform ensures these investments target the highest-impact opportunities. Key customer results include: Average recovery of 28+ billable minutes per professional per day 4-11% increase in overall firm profitability 80%+ reduction in time spent on manual time entry Real-time visibility into project profitability and resource utilization 'While Laurel is unique in that it is AI that generates profits, the reason everyone at Laurel cares so much about solving this problem is because people waste so much time at work, and the only way to solve this at scale is to deeply understand where that time is going,' says Alshak. 'And we're starting with professional services because that will give us the human-in-the-loop required to create the world's first-ever agentic timesheet. The average knowledge worker works 9 hours a day, but only adds leverage for 3. That is 3 hours a day we're doing work that should be done by agents, and 3 hours a day we're doing work that nobody should do. That is our opportunity set – 6.4 billion years currently being spent by knowledge workers on tasks humans no longer need to do. That is our opportunity.' About Laurel Laurel is the world's first AI Time platform for professional services firms. The company's AI transforms how organizations track, analyze, describe, and optimize their most valuable resource: time. By automating work time and connecting time data to business outcomes, Laurel enables firms to increase profitability, improve client delivery, and make data-driven strategic decisions. Founded in 2018, Laurel serves many of the world's largest accounting, consulting and law firms. For more information, visit About IVP IVP supercharges growth in breakout companies, converting momentum into market dominance. One of the original venture firms on Sand Hill Road, IVP partners with companies that define their eras—from Slack, Crowdstrike and Coinbase to Perplexity, Abridge, Glean and Chainguard—before the world truly appreciated them. Each year, IVP invests in just a dozen breakout founders ready to scale from millions to hundreds of millions in revenue and expand from one market to many. We've guided market leaders through cycles and storms, unlocking pivotal growth by activating the right expertise at the moments founders need it. With 130+ IPOs out of 400 investments, IVP helps ambitious founders defy limits, command industries and cement their place at the top.

AI Time Platform Laurel Raises $100 Million to Transform the Professional Services Industry
AI Time Platform Laurel Raises $100 Million to Transform the Professional Services Industry

Yahoo

time10 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

AI Time Platform Laurel Raises $100 Million to Transform the Professional Services Industry

IVP leads and GV joins Series C as Laurel reshapes how professional services firms keep time and optimize work using AI SAN FRANCISCO, June 10, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Laurel, the world's first AI Time platform, today announced it has raised $100 million in Series C funding led by IVP, with participation from GV (Google Ventures). Laurel will leverage this investment to scale its AI time platform and accelerate to solve what it calls the "time intelligence challenge"—the inability for knowledge industries to accurately map time to business outcomes. In the age of AI, quantifying and understanding human capital goes from a "nice to have" to a "cannot exist without" for enterprises. In addition to IVP and GV, new investors in the round, which consists of primary and secondary funding, also include: 01.a (created by former CEO and COO of Twitter & CRO of Facebook), DST Global, Kevin Weil (CPO @ OpenAI), Alexis Ohanian, Vladimir Fedorov (CTO @ GitHub), Arash Ferdowsi (co-founder of Dropbox), and Hans Tung. These investors join returning investors ACME, Anthos, Gokul Rajaram, AIX Ventures, and Marc Benioff's TIME Ventures. The funding comes as Laurel experiences rapid adoption among enterprise professional services firms like Ernst & Young, Grant Thornton, Freshfields, and Crowell & Moring. Over the last 12 months, Laurel grew ARR +300% at double-digit scale, increased usage by +500%, and works with +100 of the top legal, accounting, and consulting firms across US, UK, EU, Australia, and Canada. Laurel's AI Time platform, now leveraged by hundreds of the world's top enterprise professional service firms, uses AI to automatically categorize, describe, and analyze how professionals spend their time on admin work. The platform's ability to connect time data with business outcomes has proven transformative for firms looking to maximize profits, allocate their resources effectively, and understand exactly what workflows to apply AI to and what agents to automate. Customers using the company's AI-native time platform report profit increases between 4-11%—driven by an additional 28 billable minutes per day per professional, and increased realization of 1-4%. Laurel's ROI methodology has been independently audited and validated by a Big-4 Firm. The platform currently processes over $5B in gross market value for its customers, and +$360M of that amount is net-new value attributable to Laurel. In addition, Laurel saves its professionals up to 80% in time recording, freeing them to work on high-leverage work. "Laurel uniquely delivers value across lawyers, clients, finance, and marketing by streamlining time capture, enriching narratives, and accelerating accurate billing," says David Cunningham, Chief Innovation Officer at global law firm Reed Smith. "As firms assess the impact of AI and fixed fees, gaining granular intelligence with less effort is essential to redefining value within a firm and for its clients." "I've seen first-hand how Laurel can transform our approach to time intelligence. What used to be a manual process of time-keeping and entry is now significantly technology enabled," says Matt Newnes, Partner and Tax Transformation leader at Ernst & Young. "Laurel doesn't just help our people to capture time that they spend on work more comprehensively; it helps us to understand much more about how our teams work allowing us to identify best practices to help ensure we always drive the best outcomes for our clients. It has proven to be one of our most impactful AI investments, delivering measurable results while laying the foundation for broader transformation initiatives." Automating time is Laurel's first step. Laurel's AI platform turns its proprietary data around work and time to address the #1 business problem impacting knowledge industries: operating without visibility into their supply chain. "Nobody has ever mapped the input of time to the output of outcomes. Industries like legal and accounting are best at understanding their input (time), but still struggle to price value. On the flip side, industries like consulting and financial services understand value, but operate blind to the true cost of creation. While all other industries have been obsessed about optimizing their supply chain, the supply chain of knowledge work—which represents over 50% of Global GDP—has never been surfaced. This funding helps us solve this fundamental challenge while giving firms the data foundation they need to deploy AI strategically. We're not just automating time—we're creating the time intelligence layer that will transform how all knowledge industries operate," says Ryan Alshak, founder and CEO of Laurel. "Laurel has identified one of the largest efficiency gaps in the modern economy, one I understand deeply as a former CFO of a public company. Professional services represent trillions in global economic activity, yet these firms operate without basic visibility into their core resource – time. By solving the time intelligence challenge, Laurel creates a platform for broader AI transformation. As these industries invest heavily in AI over the next five years, Laurel's data foundation becomes essential infrastructure that truly tracks the ROI of AI. The market opportunity is massive, and Laurel's unique position makes them the clear leader in this space," says Ajay Vashee, General Partner at IVP. "Laurel is creating the enterprise intelligence layer for knowledge work that leverages timekeeping as a product wedge," said Frederique Dame, General Partner at GV. "By capturing and organizing the full lifecycle of how professionals spend their time, Laurel unlocks a new class of data that makes work itself measurable, optimizable, and automatable. The goal isn't just better time tracking, it's building the data foundation for AI-powered workflows, predictive resourcing, and strategic insights." Transforming How Knowledge Industries Understand and Optimize Work While manufacturing companies know exactly how much it costs to produce a car down to the penny, and retail businesses track inventory with precision, professional services firms have historically operated without understanding their most critical resource: human capital. Both the outcomes of the work itself and the time it takes to produce it. As a result, organizations are operating blind on what the biggest impact for AI is across their companies, and how to point people to highest value tasks (like Business Development, Relationship Management, and first principles strategic thinking). As knowledge industries plan to spend over $1 trillion on AI in the next five years, Laurel's time intelligence platform ensures these investments target the highest-impact opportunities. Key customer results include: Average recovery of 28+ billable minutes per professional per day 4-11% increase in overall firm profitability 80%+ reduction in time spent on manual time entry Real-time visibility into project profitability and resource utilization "While Laurel is unique in that it is AI that generates profits, the reason everyone at Laurel cares so much about solving this problem is because people waste so much time at work, and the only way to solve this at scale is to deeply understand where that time is going," says Alshak. "And we're starting with professional services because that will give us the human-in-the-loop required to create the world's first-ever agentic timesheet. The average knowledge worker works 9 hours a day, but only adds leverage for 3. That is 3 hours a day we're doing work that should be done by agents, and 3 hours a day we're doing work that nobody should do. That is our opportunity set – 6.4 billion years currently being spent by knowledge workers on tasks humans no longer need to do. That is our opportunity." About Laurel Laurel is the world's first AI Time platform for professional services firms. The company's AI transforms how organizations track, analyze, describe, and optimize their most valuable resource: time. By automating work time and connecting time data to business outcomes, Laurel enables firms to increase profitability, improve client delivery, and make data-driven strategic decisions. Founded in 2018, Laurel serves many of the world's largest accounting, consulting and law firms. For more information, visit About IVP IVP supercharges growth in breakout companies, converting momentum into market dominance. One of the original venture firms on Sand Hill Road, IVP partners with companies that define their eras—from Slack, Crowdstrike and Coinbase to Perplexity, Abridge, Glean and Chainguard—before the world truly appreciated them. Each year, IVP invests in just a dozen breakout founders ready to scale from millions to hundreds of millions in revenue and expand from one market to many. We've guided market leaders through cycles and storms, unlocking pivotal growth by activating the right expertise at the moments founders need it. With 130+ IPOs out of 400 investments, IVP helps ambitious founders defy limits, command industries and cement their place at the top. View source version on Contacts Media Contact: Alexa Guerra, Head of Marketing | marketing@ Sign in to access your portfolio

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