Artificial intelligence companies have been a focus of investment in the medical technology sector so far in 2025. Although the number of funding rounds decreased in the first half of the year, AI startups were favored by investors, according to a recent report by PitchBook. For example, earlier this month, Aidoc received $150 million in funding for an AI foundation model. 

AI devices have also been the subject of recent acquisitions. In August, Tempus agreed to buy Paige, a company making digital pathology software, for $81 million. More recently, GE Healthcare built out its AI portfolio with the planned acquisition of brain MRI software firm Icometrix. 

Read on for recent deals involving AI-enabled medical devices covered by MedTech Dive:

There’s a top-secret project underway inside Dell.

Most of Dell’s employees aren’t meant to know about it, and those who do have signed NDAs and been told to keep communications about it to a minimum.

“Do not mention the Project Maverick name,” reads a NDA agreement seen by Business Insider.

But despite its secrecy, “Project Maverick,” as it is codenamed, isn’t a revolutionary piece of hardware or groundbreaking new technology. It’s Dell’s plan to overhaul the company’s operations and streamline all systems, data, and processes into a standardized platform.

Dell sees this transformation as “critical” for its AI strategy and future success, and the company has brought on a team of Deloitte consultants to help guide the project, internal documents about the project obtained by Business Insider show.

“The ‘game’ is changing — we must be far more nimble, decisive, and quick,” one internal document says. “What made us successful in the past won’t take us where we need to go.”

Documents seen by Business Insider include an onboarding presentation and a “guidance and resources” document uploaded to the project SharePoint, describing its scope and intended outcomes. Business Insider has also seen an NDA agreement sent to a Dell employee.

“While we’re not going to discuss the specifics of our internal processes, we prioritize innovation and service to support our team members, customers, and partners,” a Dell spokesperson told Business Insider.

‘Severely outdated’ systems

Project Maverick’s mission is to modernize the 41-year-old company’s vast IT sprawl, part of which Dell inherited during its acquisition of EMC in 2015, the second-largest technology merger ever.

According to the onboarding presentation, Dell’s operations run on roughly 4,700 applications, 70,000 servers, and more than 10,000 databases. That environment is “holding us back,” Dell said in the presentation, because it is so complex and expensive to maintain.

The tangle of systems forces staff into “manual processes and excessive reporting,” diverting energy away from pursuing innovation, Dell said.

One slide breaking down specific functions described Dell’s subscription capabilities as “severely outdated,” its customer resource management as a source of “confusion and inefficiency,” and its stock keeping units, or SKUs, as a driver of “go-to-market delays.”

Two Dell employees told Business Insider that the quality of the tools hampers their daily work. They asked to remain anonymous as they are not permitted to speak publicly, but Business Insider has verified their employment.

“Our tools suck. They’re very old,” said one employee, who has been with the company for more than 10 years.

“It is very hard for us to do our jobs in the Dell ecosystem as it is today,” said a second Dell employee. “Many systems don’t talk to each other, or only do a small piece of a broader process, requiring users to switch between several tools to complete a task.”

The push to consolidate tools is “long overdue,” the person added.

A third employee told Business Insider that while some tools “aren’t very intuitive,” they had few complaints about the ones they use daily.

What will change at Dell?

Dell has been working on Project Maverick since November 2024 and is set to launch for the client solutions group — the part of Dell that sells personal computers, monitors, and other hardware — in February 2026, in line with the start of Dell’s financial year, according to a project timeline seen by Business Insider.

An internal FAQ says there will be a single cutover day, after which most existing systems will be decommissioned. “Friday, it’s going to work one way, Monday, it’s going to work a different way,” explained the Dell employee who has been at the company for more than 10 years and who works on Project Maverick.

The company’s other key business line, the infrastructure solutions group — which provides servers, storage solutions, and other IT infrastructure — is scheduled to be updated in May 2026.

Project Maverick will mean “less time on manual tasks, better data and insights for decision-making, faster response to customer needs, a more agile, competitive Dell,” according to the internal documents.

Changes will include creating a single global catalog, consistent lead times, and automated order management capabilities.

“This is a bold opportunity to deliver the benefits our teams have been asking for and a key enabler of Modern Dell,” the project documents say.

Alongside Project Maverick, major changes have been hitting other parts of Dell’s business. In the last two years, the company’s global head count has dropped by 25,000, marking a 19% decline in personnel.

In July, Jeff Clarke, the longtime vice chairman and COO, announced in an internal memo that he was stepping in to take on CSG’s “day-to-day leadership.”

CSG is the company’s biggest revenue driver, but the division’s revenue has declined for the last three years.

Dell announced another major leadership shift this week — Yvonne McGill, the chief financial officer, has stepped down after nearly 30 years at the company.

Transforming a legacy brand for the AI future

Michael Dell founded his eponymous brand in 1984, under the name PC’s Limited, and it quickly established itself as a trusted maker of office PCs.

Since 1992, Dell has been a Fortune 500 company — barring four years from 2014 when it was taken private — and Dell himself is the world’s 11th-richest man, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The company has evolved into a major server and data storage provider, benefiting from the AI boom as demand surges for the infrastructure required to deploy the new technology.

But Project Maverick demonstrates how successful legacy brands must reorient all their operations for an AI-driven future.

Joe Depa, the global chief innovation officer at the Big Four professional services firm EY, told Business Insider that major transformations are “inevitable” as companies implement AI.

“Implementing AI isn’t about dropping a tool into old workflows — it requires rethinking processes, systems, and even business models through an ‘AI-first’ lens,” he said.

Minimizing your operational complexity is crucial because “siloed, manual systems can’t handle the scale, speed, or intelligence AI enables.”

Companies that re-architect their operating models around AI “will set the competitive standard,” Depa added.

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“Measure our progress not by the speed of our technology, but by the strength of our cooperation and by the depth of our compassion.”

With these words, historian Yuval Noah Harari addressed attendees at the 2025 Inclusion Conference on the Bund in Shanghai on Sept 11, urging a shift in focus from technological advancement alone to prioritizing human connection and ethical considerations in the age of artificial intelligence.

Harari, author of the Sapiens series, opened his speech with a vivid depiction of an ordinary morning in 2025, highlighting the pervasive influence of AI systems on daily life, from managing electricity grids and rerouting public transportation to making critical decisions in finance, energy, and even military operations.

The historian acknowledged technology has brought undeniable benefits, including advancements in health, knowledge, and connectivity.

However, Harari expressed concern about the rapid pace and method of technological change, warning that the true danger lies not in a “robot rebellion”, but in a more subtle and insidious shift of power from accountable humans to “opaque algorithms we cannot even see”.

He cautioned against the unbridled deployment of technology for commercial gain without adequate safeguards, emphasizing that “any system that truly reshapes human society should not be launched first, governed later.”

Drawing on historical lessons, Harari reminded the audience that progress is about more than just speed. He noted that human strength is derived from collaboration and engagement with the outside world.

“Every nation grows by exchanging ideas, goods and methods with foreigners,” he said, adding that isolation leads to stagnation. He also emphasized the importance of “building verifiable global commitments instead of just racing to see who is faster”.

Harari argued that advanced technological societies must prioritize self-correction mechanisms to identify and rectify errors and biases. He pointed to the analogy of a baby learning to walk, where the ability to quickly adjust after each fall is crucial for progress.

“If we try to run with AI before we have the ability to identify and correct the system”s inevitable mistakes, the price of this speed will be paid by those who can least afford it,” he warned.

Memory, Harari stressed, plays a crucial role in guiding the future. “Memory is the mechanism for digesting and telling the story of what is happening to us,” he said, highlighting its importance in recognizing errors and making amends.

He warned against entrusting memory to non-human intelligence, asserting that “if we entrust our memory to a non-human intelligence, nothing will remain of us.”

While embracing ambition and competition, Harari cautioned against pushing these forces beyond the boundaries of human understanding and memory, urging balance.

Luo Bin contributed to this story.