How Healthcare NLP has Evolved from 2020 to 2021

Few industries have embraced natural language processing (NLP) as openly as healthcare. With the ability to identify new variants of COVID-19 and help speed up clinical trials for the vaccine, the pandemic is just one example of what NLP is capable of achieving. And while new research points to NLP budgets growing significantly across vertical industries, locations, company sizes, and maturity levels, healthcare is leading the pack.

Big strides have been made in AI and NLP over the last year, but despite progress and increased investments, many of the challenges and barriers to entry remain the same. 

The second annual NLP Industry Survey explores the triumphs, challenges, applications, and tools shaping NLP adoption. 

The largest industry representation (17%) in this survey came from healthcare respondents, even greater than those in technology fields, which is reflective of overall industry adoption. As such, by analyzing how NLP has evolved over the last year in the healthcare space, we can get a glimpse of what’s on the horizon for the technology.