Elevance Health
Designing the AI-Augmented Future of Health Advocacy
A 5-week AI design sprint that produced Advocacy+, a human/AI hybrid advocacy service MVP for a Fortune 20 health insurer targeting a $4.2B market.
- My role
- Guide & Relationship Lead — originated the multi-sprint program this work belonged to
- Timeline
- Feb – Mar 2026 · 5-week sprint
- Status
- Pilot planned for 2026
- People
- IDEO sprint team across research, service design, and AI prototyping
- Elevance Health product, growth, and advocacy leadership
The challenge
How might agentic AI substantially reduce costs for payers, improve consumer experiences, and drive margin and revenue growth? Elevance Health asked us to answer that question for health advocacy — the human help members lean on when care gets complicated.
My role
I originated and guided the multi-sprint Growth Studio program this sprint belonged to, built on a relationship I developed with Elevance’s VP of Product & Growth Execution. On this sprint I served as guide and relationship lead.
The work
Research with 18 participants across four audience groups surfaced four building blocks of empathetic care: Small Moments of Care, Digging Deeper, Agency, and Facilitated Connection. The team designed Advocacy+ — a human/AI hybrid advocacy service — and delivered a 44-page MVP recommendation with a phased roadmap through 2030. High-fidelity prototypes were built directly in Elevance’s Sydney production design system, ready for engineering intake.
The impact
Elevance plans to pilot Advocacy+ in 2026. After the project closed, the VP of Product texted me directly to explore continued collaboration — the kind of signal that matters more than any deliverable.