How AI is fueling our hope in the fight against cancer

The fusion of artificial intelligence and medical science is no longer a futuristic dream. It’s happening now, and it’s bringing unprecedented hope to patients, doctors, and researchers. In a recent, deeply personal and inspiring address, Ruth Porat, President and Chief Investment Officer of Alphabet and Google, shared a powerful vision of how AI is set to revolutionize cancer research, detection, and treatment.

Speaking at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, Porat, a two-time cancer survivor herself, framed AI not just as another technological advancement, but as a “general purpose technology” — a rare and transformative force with the power to reshape our world, much like the steam engine or the internet.

“We are living in an extraordinary time for technology,” Porat began, setting the stage for a discussion that seamlessly blended cutting-edge innovation with profound human experience.

Porat didn’t speak merely as a tech executive. She spoke as a patient who has faced the fear and uncertainty of a cancer diagnosis.

“When I was first diagnosed, my children were very young: 5, 7 and 9 years old. For me, like many of your patients, everything was fine — until it wasn’t… The first thing I felt was fear — in particular, fear that I wouldn’t see them grow up.”

This personal journey, she explained, led her to cherish the word “manageable.” While grateful for her own outcome, her mission is now intensely focused on a future where cancer is not just manageable, but preventable and curable for everyone. “Why not imagine a world where the best care is not the exception, but it is the norm?” she challenged the audience.

Highlighting the sheer potential of AI, Porat shared a conversation with Vint Cerf, widely recognized as the “father of the internet.” His perspective is startling: AI’s potential is even greater than that of the internet itself, “because it can augment human capabilities.”

This theme of augmentation, of AI as a partner rather than a replacement, was a cornerstone of her message. It’s about empowering the brilliant minds already dedicated to conquering cancer.

So, how is this partnership working in practice? Porat pointed to stunning breakthroughs already emerging from Alphabet’s labs.

One of the most significant is AlphaFold, an AI system that solved the 50-year-old grand challenge of protein folding. Proteins are the building blocks of life, and understanding their complex 3D structures is critical to understanding disease.

“Until recently, mapping the structure of just a single protein used to take years of painstaking work… With AlphaFold, this was achieved in months, not years,” Porat noted.

By predicting the structure of over 200 million proteins and making the data freely available, AlphaFold is supercharging the ability of scientists to understand how cancers form and to design drugs that can stop them in their tracks.

Early detection is a patient’s most powerful weapon. Here, too, AI is making a dramatic impact. Google’s AI models can now analyze pathology slides with incredible speed and accuracy, spotting tiny clusters of cancer cells that might be missed by the human eye, especially under the pressure of a heavy workload.

The results are transformative: the time it takes for pathologists to review slides is cut in half. But the true power lies in collaboration. “The best results come when humans and AI work together,” Porat emphasized, “that outperforms both the pathologist who worked without AI and the algorithm that works without the pathologist.”

This isn’t just about efficiency; it’s about equity. Porat quoted her oncologist, ASCO CEO Dr. Cliff Hudis, who said, “AI is a critical part of democratizing healthcare, so that everyone everywhere can have access to the best insights.”

Beyond the lab, AI is poised to tackle one of the biggest burdens in modern medicine: administrative overload. Doctors and nurses lose countless hours each week to paperwork, time that could be spent with patients.

New “agentic AI” systems are being developed to handle everything from drafting prior authorization forms to summarizing patient exams and scheduling appointments. In a powerful collaboration with ASCO, Google has already launched the ASCO guidelines assistant, an AI tool that can sift through dense, 90-page documents to provide clear answers in seconds.

The goal? To give medical professionals the “gift of time.” As Porat beautifully put it, this reclaimed time allows for “greater humanity in the doctor-patient relationship.”

Porat concluded with a moving story about a “bird of fear” that perches on a cancer patient’s shoulder, a constant, nagging reminder of their illness. She shared her own journey of learning to shoo that bird away, and her dream for a future where that bird never appears for anyone.

Her final question hangs in the air, a challenge and an inspiration to us all:

“Why not imagine the day that bird never shows up? No first time. Never. That is my dream.”

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