The Wellness Edition | Issue 26 | April 7, 2026
You probably think you have time on this one.
Most wellness business owners I talk to still treat AI like something that’s coming. A future conversation. Something to get to after the next lease renewal, the next hire, the next quarter.
It’s not coming. According to the AMA’s 2026 Physician Survey on Augmented Intelligence, 81% of physicians now use AI in some capacity. That’s more than double the rate from 2023, when it was 38%. The average doctor is using AI for 2.3 different tasks. And over three-quarters say it improves their ability to care for patients.
This isn’t early adoption. This is the new baseline.
And if you run a wellness practice that hasn’t started, you’re not behind the curve. You’re behind the people who are already using the curve to take your patients.
What the Numbers Actually Look Like on the Ground
A chiropractic practice in Carrollwood with two providers brought on an AI documentation tool four months ago. Before that, each provider spent roughly 45 minutes a day on clinical notes after their last patient. Now it takes twelve. That’s over an hour of freed-up time per day across the practice. They used it to add three patient slots per week per provider without extending hours. Six more patients a week. At their average reimbursement, that’s roughly $31,000 in new annual revenue. The tool costs $99 a month.
A dental group in Brandon is using AI to predict which patients are most likely to cancel or no-show, then automatically sends targeted outreach to fill those gaps before they appear on the schedule. Their no-show rate dropped from 18% to 11% in one quarter. Seven percent doesn’t sound dramatic until you do the math on what seven percent of your daily schedule is worth across a year.
A mental health practice near USF is running AI-powered intake forms that pre-screen patients and match them to the right provider before the first appointment. Wait times for new patients dropped from 14 days to 6. Faster intake means faster revenue. It also means the practice fills its space more efficiently, which changes the real estate math entirely.
Where Each Wellness Vertical Stands Right Now
Not every segment of the wellness industry is moving at the same speed. That matters, because the gap between the leaders and the laggards is already showing up in financial performance, lease negotiations, and property decisions.
Med spas and medical aesthetics: About 40% have adopted some form of AI, mostly in marketing personalization and patient communication. Zenoti, Pabau, and Boulevard are the platforms driving this. The 60% that haven’t started are increasingly competing against practices with AI-powered rebooking rates above 90%. That’s a patient retention gap that compounds every month.
Physical therapy and rehabilitation: Adoption is accelerating, driven mostly by documentation tools. Ambient AI scribes like Freed and Abridge are cutting note-writing time by 30 minutes per provider per day. Multi-location PT groups are also leading on AI-driven site selection for expansion, because their margins are thinner and a bad location is harder to absorb.
Mental health and behavioral health: Among the fastest adopters. AI-powered therapy companions, automated intake matching, and virtual triage tools are reshaping the category. Grow Therapy’s AI care companion and platforms like Headway are bridging the gap between scheduled sessions and real-time patient support. This category is attracting significant venture capital, which means these tenants are well-funded and expanding.
Dental and orthodontics: AI diagnostic imaging is the entry point here. Pearl, Overjet, and VideaHealth are FDA-cleared and gaining traction. Revenue cycle AI is the next wave. Dental is a strong CRE tenant category because of high build-out costs (patients don’t leave easily), and AI adoption is making the better practices even stickier.
Chiropractic, IV therapy, massage, and fitness: Trailing in adoption. Most are still using basic scheduling software without AI features. This is the highest-risk group from a competitive standpoint, because the wellness verticals above them are pulling ahead in patient experience and operational efficiency. The good news: the entry cost is low. A $99/month AI scribe or a scheduling upgrade can close a meaningful portion of the gap quickly.
Why This Should Matter to Every Property Owner and Investor Reading This
If you own a building with wellness tenants, you might think their AI adoption is their problem. It isn’t. It’s yours.
A tenant running AI-powered scheduling, documentation, billing, and marketing generates more predictable revenue per square foot. Their cash flow is smoother. Their staff costs are lower relative to revenue. Their patient retention is measurably higher. When that tenant’s lease comes up for renewal, they have options. Other landlords want them. Lenders will back them. They’re a credit-quality tenant in a market that desperately needs credit-quality tenants.
The best-performing wellness tenants I see are the ones who pair AI operations with a real patient acquisition strategy. AI handles the scheduling, the documentation, the rebooking. But someone still has to build the patient pipeline, especially in a new market. That’s a different skill set.
If you’re an operator opening a second location or entering a new market, I’d recommend connecting with Ebony Langston at The Patient Experience Strategist. She works specifically with wellness businesses on patient acquisition and experience strategy. AI makes your operations smarter. Ebony makes sure the patients show up.
The tenant who hasn’t adopted AI is a different story. Higher no-show rates, more billing errors, less efficient operations, slower ramp-up in new locations. That tenant is more likely to struggle with rent increases, more likely to request concessions, more likely to churn.
If you’re evaluating prospective tenants for a wellness-positioned property, start asking about their technology stack. It tells you more about their financial health than a P&L from twelve months ago.
And if you’re an investor evaluating healthcare real estate acquisitions, the AI adoption rate of the tenant mix should be part of your underwriting. A property anchored by AI-forward wellness tenants—mental health, medical aesthetics, multi-location PT—is a fundamentally different asset than one anchored by practices that haven’t modernized. The rent roll looks similar on paper. The five-year trajectory does not.
My Take
I remember what it was like to evaluate a new market for a healthcare practice before any of these tools existed. We’d pull census data manually. Run drive-time analyses with whatever GIS software the company had licensed that year. Study payer mix reports that were already six months old by the time we got them. Make a decision and hope the data held.
The practices making those same decisions today have access to real-time foot traffic data, AI-scored site feasibility reports, predictive patient volume modeling, and competitor intelligence that updates weekly. For $69 a month in some cases. The information advantage that used to separate a health system with a planning department from a solo practitioner with a gut feeling has largely collapsed.
That’s good news for operators. It means smarter decisions, fewer expensive mistakes, and faster expansion timelines.
It’s also good news for the brokers and advisors willing to learn the tools. Because the conversation I’m having with clients isn’t “here’s a list of available spaces.” It’s “here’s what the data says about which of these spaces will actually work for your business.” Different conversation. Different value.
Tool of the Week: CoStar AI
CoStar Group is one of the leaders in commercial real estate data, and they’re going all-in on AI. Their Smart Search feature, launched in October 2025, uses natural language processing so you can search for properties the way you’d describe them to a colleague instead of filling out filter forms. Their Homes AI platform, launched in February 2026, brings AI-powered search to residential. LoopNet integration is coming.
Why it matters: when the dominant data platform in CRE builds its entire product roadmap around AI, that’s a signal about where the industry is going. If you’re a wellness operator looking for space or an investor evaluating properties, the tools you’re using to find and analyze deals are about to get dramatically smarter. Pay attention.
Tampa Bay Market Intel
Tampa Bay’s top CRE deals generated $1.46 billion in 2025. The largest healthcare transaction was BayCare Health System’s acquisition of an office park, reinforcing what the data already shows: healthcare is the anchor buyer in this market. For wellness operators, the question is straightforward. Are you part of this wave, or watching it from a leased suite with a landlord who doesn’t return your calls?
Your Move
Where does your practice sit on the AI adoption curve? If you’re in the 81% already using AI, are you using it for one task or five? If you haven’t started, the entry point is lower than you think. $99 a month gets you an AI documentation tool that pays for itself in the first week.
If you want help figuring out where to start, or how AI adoption connects to your real estate strategy, book a Q2 strategy session:
Your situation. Your data. A clear plan. Your move.
Until next week,
Leigh A. Brower
Fractional Chief Real Estate Officer
The Next Gen Dev | The Wellness Edition
The Next Gen Dev - Wellness Edition is your weekly briefing on the strategies and frameworks that separate wellness businesses building the future from those stuck in the past.
