Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have increasingly come to the forefront in hospice care delivery. Among the trends gaining momentum is greater AI utilization in end-of-life decision making processes.

While AI can help provide more education about end-of-life care options to patients and their families, this technology has its limitations, said Dr. Karl Steinberg, medical director at Hospice By the Sea.

Terminally ill individuals can learn a lot about hospice care through AI-generated information, but not all the information is synthesized accurately at the current stage of technological development, Steinberg indicated. AI technologies do not yet have the capacity to understand individual preferences and goals, which can create challenges in patient-centered care delivery, he indicated.

“With AI, you have to look out for generalizability and bias — it’s not a one-size-fits all approach,” Steinberg told Hospice News. “I don’t know that these AI programs so far are sophisticated enough to have cultural humility or show more empathy than a person. The hard part is designing AI in a way that it can respect cultural, religious and individual preferences.”

Exploring AI potential in ACP

Possible uses for AI include the use of tools that can help define goals of care through a patient’s electronic medical record, according to Steinberg. For instance, machine learning technology can detect and track key phrases in patient’s clinical documentation related to their wishes and common challenges.

Additionally, AI could be used to help train medical students and newly hired health care workers, he stated. AI-simulated advance care planning conversations have the potential to teach the importance of active listening and how to have engaging discussions about death and dying.

“AI may be trainable to pick up on conversational cues, but that’s a concern on whether it’s nuanced and nimble to really hold great promise,” Steinberg said. “We have to be careful that AI doesn’t nudge people to choose one direction over another. It must be neutral and factual to help people make truly informed decisions.”

AI utilization in hospice and palliative care comes with several considerations, according Dr. Finly Zachariah, supportive care medicine physician at City of Hope. The cancer research and treatment organization has centers in Arizona, California, Georgia and Illinois.

Innovation in AI technologies is moving at a rapid pace, and hospices need to understand the different ways to carefully, safely and thoughtfully integrate, Zachariah stated.

“When we’re developing AI solutions, it’s important to really understand what problems we’re trying to solve with AI,” Zachariah said. “It’s making sure we really understand what is happening in either the patient journey or the clinical context that causes a problem, then having technology be developed based on that issue. We have a huge issue and gap in the hospice industry where AI can be amazing, but at the heart of it is knowing whether that AI is the right solution and tuned into a specific measure.”

City of Hope leverages technology in its Improving Goal-Concordant Care program. Launched three years ago, the initiative is designed to improve the well-being and outcomes of patients with cancer and other serious illnesses. Through the program, City of Hope began using AI technology in its EMR system that helped to identify serious and terminally ill patients without advance directives or physician orders for life-sustaining treatments (POLST). The technology has also aided in improving goals-of-care conversation completion rates, according to Zachariah.

“We have been able to have these really highly visible, engaging indicators in our system and prompted goals-of-care conversations with this kind of AI,” Zachariah told Hospice News. “Our AI model actually helps identify patients as high risk with a threshold of likeliness and predictability of mortality. Some directional trends we’ve started to see improving are less patients who die without goals of care conversations. We’ve been able to develop detailed goals-of-care notes that allow for discreet and specific information to be documented quickly in a centralized way.

Innovations in AI technology come at a time of tremendous need when it comes to staffing shortages and rising demand for hospice, according to Donnell Beverly, Jr., CEO and co-founder of Eazewell. The company offers an AI funeral planning platform and launched its services nationwide in May 2025. Eazewell has provided services to more than 100,000 families since then.

“As the aging population surges and staff burnout reaches crisis levels, this innovation is arriving at exactly the right time for hospice and palliative care organizations,” Beverly told Hospice News in an email. “In our conversations with hospice providers, we know staff and resources are often stretched thin. Integration can be the most challenging step with any new technology. AI should reduce staff time spent on repetitive tasks, lower call volumes and hold time, as well as improve family satisfaction scores.”

Beverly is a former basketball player and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champion at University of Connecticut. He formed Eazell in collaboration with National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Russell Westbrook and Kemba Walker.

Eazewell’s AI platform is designed to simply and humanize the experience of end-of-life planning, Beverly said. The company has recently expanded and advanced its AI tools designed specifically for hospices and senior living facilities. The expansion is intended to help hospices better engage patients and families in advance care planning discussions, according to Eazewell. The new AI tools will assist in streamlining goals-of-care coordination, automating administrative and documentation tasks and offer continuous 24/7 support for end-of-life care planning.

The AI platform can help terminally ill patients during “major care transitions,” such as tasks including canceling utilities, closing accounts, filing government forms or updating records with Social Security and Medicare, Beverly said.

“When it comes to AI, we are seeing tremendous adoption across industries, including the broader health care ecosystem,” Beverly said. “We’ve learned that AI is most valuable when it removes invisible burdens such as one’s digital inheritance. One thing has become crystal clear: in these difficult moments, families don’t want another portal or a complicated interface; they want clear answers and timely support. Most importantly, [AI] isn’t about replacing human care.”