Healthcare can be complex and fragmented, and helping patients make informed decisions is just as important as helping them access care in the first place. Srijesh K, CPTO, Practo, explains exclusively to Bhavya Bagga, Business Reporter, CXO Media that AI can play a transformative role in guiding patients toward the right care, at the right time, and ultimately to better outcomes.
You have led product and technology teams across global organizations like Salesforce, Expedia, Microsoft, and Adobe. How has this cross-industry experience shaped your approach to driving innovation at Practo, especially in healthcare where trust and outcomes are critical?
Across industries and geographies, one principle remains constant: technology only creates value when it solves a real customer problem. The fundamentals do not change – you have to deeply understand the user, simplify complexity, and build systems that scale reliably.
Healthcare is no different in that respect, but the stakes are undoubtedly much higher. A poor recommendation in e-commerce might result in a bad purchase; in healthcare, it can affect someone’s wellbeing. That changes how you think about innovation. Every product decision has to be grounded in trust, safety, and measurable outcomes. At Practo, we’re combining the speed and product thinking of world-class technology companies with the rigor and responsibility that healthcare demands. The goal isn’t simply to digitize healthcare, but to use technology, data, and AI to improve health outcomes at scale.
What has made this chapter especially meaningful for me is the opportunity to experience innovation flowing in the other direction. For much of my career, I worked on global products that were brought into markets like India. At Practo, we’re taking a product built in India, solving healthcare challenges at massive scale, and expanding those capabilities to global markets. To me, that is a powerful reflection of how far India’s technology ecosystem has come. We’re no longer just consumers of global innovation; we’re increasingly building products that can compete, scale, and create impact around the world.
Practo has evolved from a doctor discovery platform to a broader healthcare ecosystem. What is the next phase of growth for Practo, and how are product and technology priorities aligned to scale healthcare access and outcomes?
Practo has evolved over the years, but at its core, our mission remains the same: helping people find the right care. What we have built is a one-of-a-kind healthcare marketplace that helps patients navigate some of the most important healthcare decisions they’ll ever make, with greater confidence and trust. Whether it’s finding the right doctor, choosing the right procedure, selecting the right hospital, or understanding the best path forward for a specific health concern, our goal is to empower patients to make informed decisions. Care navigation remains our north star because our vision is ultimately to help mankind live healthier and longer lives.
With tech advancements, we’re building intelligence into every stage of the healthcare experience, helping patients answer critical healthcare questions, reducing the time and effort required to make decisions, and providing accurate guidance when they need it most. Technology, data, and AI are central to that vision. We’re building AI-enabled products and services that support every stakeholder in the ecosystem, from patients and doctors to hospitals and healthcare administrators. Ultimately, all of it serves a single objective: helping patients achieve better outcomes, faster.
As we have expanded internationally, one thing has become increasingly clear – this need is universal. Healthcare systems may differ across countries, but people everywhere are looking for trusted guidance through an increasingly complex healthcare journey. That is why we’re seeing strong momentum in markets like the US and UAE as well. Many of our newest experiences and workflows are increasingly powered by AI and agentic systems, helping us scale that guidance more effectively than ever before.
AI is increasingly influencing diagnostics, patient engagement, and operational efficiency. How is Practo leveraging AI today across the healthcare journey, and where do you see the biggest opportunities for responsible AI in healthcare?
We see AI as one of the biggest opportunities to improve healthcare outcomes. One of the strongest indicators of that conviction is how quickly Practo has evolved into an AI-native organization. We have been among the earliest and fastest healthcare platforms to embed AI across products, workflows, and customer experiences.
We are leveraging AI deeply to strengthen care navigation across the platform. Healthcare journeys are not about one transaction. They do not end with finding a doctor or completing a consultation; they start there. A patient may need tests, prescriptions, follow-ups, lifestyle interventions, or even a procedure. We’re building AI-powered experiences that assist patients throughout that journey – helping them access information faster, make better decisions, anticipate next steps, and stay on track toward better health outcomes.
We are doing the same on the provider side. Doctors, hospitals, and healthcare administrators spend significant time on operational and administrative workflows. We’re building AI-powered solutions that automate and simplify many of those tasks, allowing healthcare professionals to spend more time where their expertise creates the most value: patient care.
Ultimately, everything comes back to outcomes. Practo is uniquely positioned to drive this transformation at scale. We have spent nearly two decades building one of the largest healthcare networks in the world, and that combination of trust, data, and ecosystem depth gives us a strong foundation to apply AI in ways that create meaningful value for both patients and providers.
Healthcare AI comes with concerns around accuracy, bias, and patient privacy. How do you balance innovation with responsible AI adoption while maintaining trust among doctors, hospitals, and patients?
Trust is earned over time. We have spent nearly two decades building that trust with patients, doctors, hospitals, and healthcare partners. Ultimately, people trust products that consistently help them make better decisions, save time, and achieve better outcomes. That philosophy shapes how we think about AI as well. We do not start with AI and look for problems to solve. We start with a real healthcare problem and ask whether AI can make that experience meaningfully better for patients or providers. That is how we think about responsible AI: not as a separate initiative, but as a natural extension of our mission to improve health outcomes through technology.
India’s healthcare ecosystem is highly fragmented, with varying levels of digital maturity across urban and rural markets. What are the biggest barriers to healthcare technology adoption in India, and how can digital platforms bridge this gap at scale?
Access remains one of the biggest healthcare challenges in India. Meaningful progress requires multiple stakeholders coming together, from healthcare providers and technology platforms to policymakers and government initiatives like Ayushman Bharat, which have significantly expanded access to care.
At Practo, we help democratize access and reduce barriers to quality healthcare, regardless of where someone lives. Whether a patient is in a metro or a smaller town, they should be able to discover the right doctor, access reliable healthcare information, and receive quality care. Teleconsultation is a great example. With just a phone, a patient can connect with a suitable doctor from anywhere in the country, often within minutes. Technology helps bridge gaps that geography, infrastructure, and availability might otherwise create.
But access alone is not enough. Healthcare can be complex and fragmented, and helping patients make informed decisions is just as important as helping them access care in the first place. That is where technology, data, and increasingly AI can play a transformative role in guiding patients toward the right care, at the right time, and ultimately better outcomes.
You have spoken about building enterprise-grade technology platforms. Do you believe India is ready to build globally scalable healthcare technology products, and what unique strengths does India bring to AI-led healthcare innovation?
In many ways India is one of the best places in the world to build globally scalable technology. For decades, Indian engineers have learned to solve incredibly complex problems under real-world constraints – whether it’s scale, affordability, infrastructure, or diversity. That has sharpened our ability to build resilient, efficient, and highly scalable systems in ways few markets have had to.
The complexity of the Indian healthcare ecosystem has created companies like Practo to solve problems around access, discovery, trust, navigation, and outcomes at an extraordinary scale. What we have built is one of the most comprehensive healthcare marketplaces anywhere in the world, connecting patients, doctors, hospitals, insurers, and healthcare providers on a single platform. There really isn’t another platform that operates with this breadth and scale.
That is why I am optimistic about India’s role in AI-led healthcare innovation. The challenges we’re solving are not uniquely Indian, they’re increasingly global. And when you combine India’s engineering talent with healthcare complexity at scale, you create the conditions for globally relevant innovation.
