Artificial intelligence is driving a revolution in medtech, opening up new possibilities in patient care, workflow optimization, and M&A while also rewriting the playbook of regulation and reimbursement. Meanwhile, key industry catalysts such as the rise of next-generation weight loss drugs and medical robotics are reverberating across markets.
The medtech industry has been on a rapid growth trajectory for over six years, driven largely by public health crises, innovations in artificial intelligence and automation, an aging global population, and the rising prevalence of chronic disease. In 2026, the sector is forecast to grow by 6.4%, with the United States continuing to represent the largest and most influential market.
The most successful medtech companies in 2026 will be those that can demonstrate clear clinical and economic value backing up their AI investments. Staying keenly aware of the fast-evolving regulatory and reimbursement landscape is another prerequisite for success in this field.
Below, we pull from industry and analyst perspectives in the AlphaSense platform to cover the seven major trends shaping the medtech industry in 2026.
AI: From Hype to Workflow Integration
In 2026, AI is moving away from point solutions and standalone tools to full integration across clinical and device ecosystems. Industry surveys reveal that 70% of healthcare and life sciences organizations are actively using AI. According to broker research in the AlphaSense platform, 88% of hospitals plan to leverage AI in 2026, primarily to optimize medical record analysis, clinical imaging, and revenue cycles.
More medical devices and platforms are incorporating AI, particularly in the radiology, cardiology, and surgical spaces. Radiology is seen as the primary beneficiary of AI adoption, with 943 FDA-approved AI-enabled devices in the space compared to just 109 in cardiovascular. Embedded AI in imaging can now flag life-threatening anomalies, often reaching 95% accuracy before the radiologist even opens the file.
Despite the enthusiasm for AI in the medtech space, there are several challenges the industry needs to address. Safety and accuracy remain paramount concerns. In an expert call in the AlphaSense platform, a diagnostic radiologist warns that AI hallucinations can lead to incorrect reporting and adverse clinical interventions, making continuous safety monitoring and human-in-the-loop oversight essential. Data fragmentation also limits AI’s potential, as high-quality foundation models require access to exceptionally clean, diverse, and well-governed clinical data to train effectively.
Additionally, medtech firms will need to navigate an evolving web of international oversight headlined by the EU’s AI Act, which imposes stringent new legal requirements and compliance costs on organizations deploying AI systems.
Robotics Expansion
Surgical robotics is quickly scaling into a complex and competitive global marketplace. The broader medical robotics market is projected to grow from $13.7 billion in 2025 to $27.1 billion by 2030, driven by demographic tailwinds and healthcare workforce shortages. Key catalysts for this space in 2026 include the launch of next-generation platforms, a fierce battle for soft-tissue market share, the expansion of robotic procedures into Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs), and the rapid integration of AI and telesurgery.
Market leader Intuitive Surgical has long maintained a near-monopoly position in the soft-tissue surgical robotics space. With its recently cleared da Vinci 5 system, Intuitive expects procedure growth of 13% to 15% this year. Yet a rising crop of competition is challenging Intuitive’s standing. Medtronic’s Hugo System is entering the U.S. market this year following urology clearance, providing the first major soft-tissue competition to Intuitive. Johnson & Johnson is following close behind with its own soft-tissue surgery robot, OTTAVA, targeting approval this year.
In the orthopedics and spine space, Stryker’s Mako platform remains the gold standard in orthopedic robotics, boasting an installed base of over 3,000 systems and having surpassed 2 million global procedures. Stryker debuted its smaller and more affordable Mako RPS handheld robotic saw in early 2026. Morgan Stanley Research survey data highlights Stryker's continued dominance: Among hospital executives planning to purchase an orthopedic robot in the next 12 months, 75% intend to buy a Mako system. Competitors such as Zimmer Biomet, Johnson & Johnson, and Smith & Nephew are all also vying for share in the rapidly expanding ASC market.
Meanwhile, advances in 5G connectivity and edge computing are making cross-regional telesurgery a practical clinical reality. Sovato recently closed a Series B funding round to advance its system-agnostic remote robotic surgery platform, which allows specialist physicians to operate on patients located in rural or underserved areas.
As robotic adoption accelerates, surgeon training becomes a key challenge. Simulation providers are an integral element, with companies like Surgical Science Sweden launching portable, high-fidelity simulators (like RobotiX Express). These simulators allow surgeons to build muscle memory and provide AI-driven performance analytics without tying up a live operating room console. Additionally, the next wave of robotic systems is being designed with ASCs in mind — featuring smaller footprints, lower capital costs, and faster turnover times to align with the shifting economics of outpatient care.
Hospital-at-Home Revolution
Aging populations, hospital capacity constraints, and a push for cost containment are driving demand for hospital-at-home (HAH) and remote patient monitoring (RPM) models, which actively shift acute and chronic care directly into patients' living rooms.
Patients today increasingly expect care that fits their routines, prompting a shift from hospital-only models to blended care pathways involving digital follow-ups, home-based infusions, and specialty neighborhood centers. A key element of this revolution is that medical technology is evolving to meet shifting consumer needs. Medtech companies are moving upstream into everyday life, realizing that patient compliance and comfort are just as critical as clinical evidence. For example, RPM is becoming critical for effectively managing chronic conditions, particularly in cardiology. Utilizing IoT-enabled devices, wearable sensors, and AI, RPM delivers real-time insights that can reduce hospital readmissions.
At-home diagnostics are also seeing accelerated adoption, with the global point-of-care market growing 6% to 7% annually. At-home cancer screenings, such as Exact Sciences' Cologuard and Guardant Health's Guardant Shield, are seeing rising prescription volumes due to increased Medicare coverage and patient awareness.
The following medtech companies are rapidly adapting their portfolios to capture the home-based-care market:
- DocGo: Primarily intended for patients with implantable cardiac devices like pacemakers and loop recorders, DocGo Inc. utilizes a two-step RPM model, where they deploy lower-level clinicians to the home while advanced practitioners provide remote medical direction via virtual reality platforms.
- Qlife Holding AB: Qlife is driving decentralization through its Egoo Health platform, which brings lab-quality blood testing into the home. The company is targeting HaH projects primarily across Scandinavia and the UK.
- myLaurel: Specializing in post-acute care for frail and complex patients, myLaurel uses a hybrid model of hands-on and virtual care to bridge the high-risk period immediately following a hospital discharge. In 2025, their model resulted in a 33% lower emergency department utilization rate and a 49% reduction in readmissions.
The PFA Revolution
Pulsed field ablation (PFA) has established itself as the dominant standard of care for treating cardiac arrhythmias, particularly atrial fibrillation. Not only is PFA considered significantly safer than legacy thermal ablation technologies, but it is also much more efficient. Clinicians consistently report massive time savings, with procedure times often reduced by roughly 30%. For standard pulmonary vein isolations, PFA enables hospitals to nearly double their daily patient throughput, turning ablation into a highly scalable, predictable, and profitable procedure.
The transition from thermal energy to PFA is happening faster than almost any product cycle in medtech history. Largely as a result of this shift, the electrophysiology market is projected to grow approximately 15% in 2026. The race for PFA dominance has triggered fierce competition and rapid innovation cycles among major cardiovascular players, including:
- Boston Scientific: The undisputed market leader, Boston Scientific has captured upwards of 65% to 76% of the initial PFA market with its breakthrough FARAPULSE system. In 2026, the company continues to defend its stronghold with a broadened ecosystem, including its recently FDA-approved FARAPOINT catheter for focal lesions and expanding labels for persistent AFib.
- Medtronic: The business reported 80% year-over-year growth, driven by the strong commercial demand for its PulseSelect and Affera Sphere-9 catheters. Thanks to these products, Medtronic’s cardiac ablation business is well past the $1 billion revenue mark.
- Abbott: Entering 2026 as a major disruptor, Abbott recently secured FDA approval for its VOLT PFA system. This product allows for single-catheter approaches and flexible conscious sedation, positioning the firm to rapidly take share from early movers.
- Johnson & Johnson: The historical market leader in electrophysiology is aggressively pushing its VARIPULSE platform to retain its massive CARTO 3D mapping customer base. The company is banking on an aggressive pipeline in 2026, including the launch of its dual-energy THERMOCOOL SMARTTOUCH SF and next-generation OMNYPULSE catheters.
Oral GLP-1 Era
While the meteoric rise of GLP-1s has had its most significant impact on the pharmaceutical space, these drugs have also sent shockwaves through the medtech and medical device sectors. The most heavily impacted medtech categories are bariatric surgery, Type 2 diabetes devices, and sleep apnea devices.
Bariatric surgery volumes have dwindled recently, dropping roughly 13% year-over-year as patients opt to trial GLP-1 drugs before committing to invasive surgery. However, industry research suggests that, rather than entirely eliminating surgery, GLP-1s may simply change patient selection, as those with a high enough BMI or those who fail drug therapy will still seek intervention.
In the diabetes space, GLP-1s are a direct tailwind for continuous glucose monitor adoption because patients rely on the devices for behavioral modification, necessary dose titration, and long-term metabolic tracking. Broker research in the AlphaSense platform forecasts that diabetes device makers like Insulet will continue to win new patients despite GLP-1s, driven by the Type 2 launch in the US and international expansion. At the same time, investors are uncertain how oral GLP-1s may affect insulin pump adoption — if the drugs significantly delay beta-cell decline, the total addressable market for insulin therapies could narrow.
The effects of GLP-1 on the sleep apnea market are more mixed. On one hand, significant weight loss from GLP-1 therapies has the potential to reduce disease severity and lower long-term demand for CPAP therapy. On the other hand, real-world data suggests GLP-1 users are more engaged in managing their health, leading to higher rates of diagnosis, CPAP therapy initiation, and long-term adherence to their devices compared with non-users. Furthermore, massive weight reduction from GLP-1s is bringing severely obese patients down into the specific BMI eligibility range required to qualify for hypoglossal nerve stimulation (HGNS), an implantable sleep apnea solution.
Orthopedic markets may also see second-order effects. GLP-1-driven weight loss could delay osteoarthritis progression and defer joint replacement procedures, although aging remains the dominant demand driver in this market. At the same time, industry research shows that heavily obese patients who were previously denied hip or knee replacements due to high surgical complication risks are now utilizing GLP-1s to reach a healthy BMI, thus expanding the pool of eligible surgical candidates.
Regulatory and Reimbursement Evolution
In 2026, regulatory and reimbursement frameworks are evolving from static approval and fee-for-service models toward continuous oversight and value-based evaluation. This means today’s successful medtech firms must be able to generate real-world evidence, demonstrate economic value, and navigate increasingly complex regulatory environments in order to win approval.
This shift is most apparent in the regulation of AI-enabled systems, connected devices, and software as a medical device (SaMD), where traditional approval models are insufficient for technologies that evolve quickly over time. Regulators are raising the bar beyond safety and efficacy to include transparency, reliability, and ongoing performance monitoring across the product lifecycle.
Both U.S. and EU regulators are shaping guidance around algorithm transparency, bias mitigation, cybersecurity, and post-market monitoring. In the U.S., the FDA is focused on better aligning regulations with the speed of software releases. In Europe, the majority of substantive requirements for the EU AI Act take effect in August 2026. This creates a parallel compliance burden for medtech companies, requiring them to meet EU specific governance standards for “high-risk” AI systems (which includes many medical devices) alongside FDA requirements.
At the same time, reimbursement models are shifting toward value-based structures, where payment is increasingly tied to clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness. This puts pressure on novel technologies, as payers want evidence of efficacy before reimbursing. Increasingly, the clinical and real-world evidence expectations of payers are aligning with those of regulators, particularly around real-world performance and comparative effectiveness.
This convergence of regulatory and reimbursement requirements is upending the traditional linear pathway — innovation to regulatory clearance to reimbursement — in favor of a more parallel and iterative model. Medtech companies must now generate clinical, economic, and real-world evidence simultaneously, while also engaging regulators and payers earlier in the product lifecycle. In this environment, successful adoption depends not just on innovation, but on the ability to continuously validate performance, demonstrate value, and scale within an increasingly integrated oversight framework.
M&A and Investment Shifts
Medtech M&A and investment activity has aggressively rebounded from the cautious slowdown of previous years, but with a more strategic angle. Rather than pursuing scale alone, companies are increasingly using M&A and portfolio simplification to sharpen focus, build platform capabilities, and reposition toward higher-growth markets. As a result, the sector is undergoing a clear bifurcation: Strategics are acquiring high-growth assets in areas such as cardiology, diagnostics, and AI-enabled technologies, while divesting or spinning off slower-growth businesses to create more focused, “pure-play” organizations.
Recent transactions highlight the shift toward capability-driven M&A. Danaher’s nearly $10 billion acquisition of Masimo reflects a move toward integrating diagnostics with continuous patient monitoring and AI-enabled data analytics, signaling the growing importance of real-time clinical insight platforms. Similarly, Medtronic’s acquisition of CathWorks underscores the push to embed AI-driven diagnostics directly into procedural workflows, enhancing decision-making in the cath lab and allowing Medtronic to complement its fast-growing ablation portfolio.
In parallel, companies are increasingly acquiring software-first businesses to accelerate AI integration. Stryker’s acquisition of care.ai and GE HealthCare’s acquisition of Intelerad are two prime examples of how medtech firms are embedding AI directly into hospital operations and diagnostics, moving beyond standalone devices toward integrated hardware-software ecosystems.
At the same time, portfolio simplification has emerged as a major strategic lever. Spin-offs, once relatively rare and reactive, are gaining traction as a proactive way to unlock value and improve growth profiles. Recent examples include 3M’s spin-off of its healthcare business into Solventum, Medtronic’s separation of its diabetes business (MiniMed), BD’s planned carve-out and merger of its biosciences unit with Waters, and Johnson & Johnson’s planned separation of its orthopedics business. These transactions enable more focused capital allocation, clearer strategic positioning, and improved operational execution.
Investment activity is increasingly concentrated in innovation-driven segments, including AI-enabled devices and automation tech, precision medicine platforms, surgical robots, and minimally invasive procedural systems. These subsectors are seen as high-growth and resilient to commoditization, thus commanding premium valuations. In addition, capital allocation is beginning to reflect the downstream impact of GLP-1 therapies, with greater interest in device categories that are complementary or resilient to metabolic health trends, such as structural heart and certain orthopedic segments.
In this rapidly evolving landscape, investors are becoming more selective. New technologies must demonstrate not only clinical efficacy but also regulatory readiness, reimbursement clarity, and clear economic value to be considered.
Stay Ahead of the Evolving Medtech Landscape With AlphaSense
As the medtech industry becomes more complex, staying ahead requires not just more information, but faster speed to insight and increased confidence in your sources.
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On the AlphaSense platform, you can access:
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