Konica Minolta and deepc Partner to Make AI an Invisible Ally in Radiology

WAYNE, N.J. and MUNICH – January 13, 2026 – In a move set to reshape the landscape of diagnostic imaging, Konica Minolta Healthcare Americas, Inc. and AI infrastructure provider deepc have announced a strategic partnership. The collaboration will integrate deepc’s Healthcare AI Operating System, deepcOS®, directly into Konica Minolta’s widely used Exa® Platform, aiming to make powerful artificial intelligence tools a practical, seamless, and trusted part of daily clinical work for radiologists across North America.

This partnership arrives at a critical juncture for the field of radiology. Healthcare systems are grappling with a perfect storm of rising imaging volumes, a global shortage of specialist physicians, and increasing pressure on existing staff, leading to burnout and diagnostic delays. While AI has long been heralded as a potential solution, its adoption has been hampered by significant barriers, including complex IT integration projects, questions about clinical value, and workflows that force clinicians to toggle between disparate systems. The joint effort by Konica Minolta and deepc seeks to dismantle these hurdles by embedding AI so deeply into the existing workflow that it becomes an intuitive and indispensable background assistant.

A Solution to Radiology's Mounting Pressure

The challenges facing modern radiology departments are well-documented. As imaging technology becomes more powerful, the volume and complexity of data generated by CT, MRI, and X-ray scans continue to escalate. This data deluge places immense strain on radiologists, who are tasked with meticulously reviewing thousands of images daily under tight deadlines. The promise of AI has been to alleviate this burden by automating routine tasks and flagging potential abnormalities, but the reality has often fallen short.

Many healthcare organizations have found that implementing AI is anything but a simple “plug-and-play” process. It often requires significant IT resources to connect new AI software with legacy Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) and Radiology Information Systems (RIS). Furthermore, radiologists can be resistant to solutions that disrupt their established reading rhythm or require them to work across multiple, unfamiliar software interfaces. These challenges have created a gap between the theoretical potential of AI and its practical, day-to-day utility.

This partnership directly confronts these issues. By creating a single, unified environment within the Exa Platform—which encompasses Exa® PACS|RIS, Exa® Enterprise, and Exa® Teleradiology—the need for separate systems and complex, one-off integrations is eliminated. This allows radiology teams to access a library of AI tools without overhauling their IT infrastructure or their daily routines, turning the promise of AI into a tangible clinical asset.

The Power of Seamless Integration

The core of this collaboration is a shared philosophy: innovation should adapt to clinicians, not the other way around. The integration enables AI-generated insights to appear directly within the radiologist's familiar Exa viewing environment. This subtle but powerful shift transforms routine image review into a faster, more focused decision-making process. Instead of actively running a separate AI program, the radiologist is presented with relevant findings, such as study prioritizations for critical cases, directly within their workflow.

“At deepc, we focus on what happens after AI reaches the clinic,” said Alex King, Chief Revenue Officer at deepc. “By joining forces with Konica Minolta, we can bring validated, ready-to-use AI directly to Konica Minolta customers. Together, we are giving radiology teams the confidence to work smarter and the freedom to focus on what matters most: the patient in front of them.”

For hospital IT departments, the benefits are equally significant. The deepcOS® platform is a cloud-native solution that simplifies deployment and strengthens data security and compliance. Rather than managing contracts and technical integrations with dozens of individual AI vendors, institutions can access a curated and validated portfolio through a single point of connection. This lowers the technical burden and provides a scalable foundation for expanding AI capabilities in the future.

“At Konica Minolta, our Healthcare IT AI strategy is to provide our customers with a single source and single platform to utilize the power of AI-enabled insights,” stated Kevin Chlopecki, COO of Konica Minolta HCIT. “The Exa Platform integrates with deepcOS, providing radiologists a unified, seamless experience. We’re thrilled to partner with deepc to bring the value of an integrated AI platform to our shared customers.”

Navigating a Competitive AI Landscape

The move by Konica Minolta and deepc enters a competitive but fragmented market for enterprise-level AI in radiology. Several companies, including Aidoc with its aiOS™ platform and major imaging vendors like Siemens Healthineers, GE HealthCare, and Philips, are also vying to become the central nervous system for AI in hospitals. These platforms similarly aim to simplify AI adoption by offering access to a marketplace of algorithms through a unified interface.

However, this partnership's strategy appears to differentiate itself on two key fronts: deepc’s rigorous, vendor-neutral validation process and its native integration into Konica Minolta’s established Exa ecosystem. Unlike a closed system that favors a specific vendor’s tools, deepcOS® provides access to a broad, vendor-neutral portfolio of more than 80 regulatory-cleared AI solutions. Each algorithm is rigorously tested by deepc on independent and local datasets to certify its performance, robustness, and compliance before it is made available to hospitals. This provides a layer of trust and quality assurance that individual institutions may struggle to achieve on their own.

By embedding this validated, open ecosystem directly into the Exa Platform, the partners are betting that the path of least resistance will win. Radiologists and IT teams already familiar with Konica Minolta’s systems gain access to a world of AI without the friction of a new platform, positioning this collaboration as a practical and powerful enabler in a crowded field.

Redefining the Future of Diagnostic Workflows

Ultimately, the long-term impact of such deep AI integration extends beyond immediate efficiency gains. It points toward a fundamental evolution in the role of the radiologist. By automating repetitive tasks and providing a reliable “second read,” AI frees clinicians to focus on complex cases, collaborate more effectively with other specialists, and dedicate more time to patient-facing consultation. The radiologist’s role is set to evolve from a high-volume image interpreter to a diagnostic data strategist, using AI as a partner to derive deeper insights.

This human-centric approach is critical for ensuring that technology empowers, rather than replaces, clinical expertise. For patients, the benefits are clear and direct: AI-assisted workflows can lead to significantly faster report turnaround times, earlier detection of critical conditions, and more confident, accurate diagnoses.

As healthcare continues to seek solutions that reduce complexity while measurably improving outcomes, the partnership between Konica Minolta and deepc offers a compelling model for the future. It represents a shift away from AI as a novel gadget and toward AI as a quiet, reliable, and fully integrated utility, working in the service of doctors and their patients. This collaboration is not just another integration; it is a foundation for the next era of clinically proven, accessible, and truly useful AI in medical imaging.