Somewhere right now, a doctor is sitting between patient visits, opening an AI coding tool and trying to build their own medical workflows.
This would have sounded ridiculous even a year ago. It’s now surprisingly common, according to Igor Cuto, founder and CEO of Sofya.
“We’re seeing a movement towards doctors and health systems using AI to program themselves,” Couto said. Refresh Miami. “Doctors are doing vibe coding.”
Behind the meme-worthy term is a much larger change occurring across medicine. After years of skepticism about AI in medicine, doctors are now working hard to stand up for themselves.
With this change in attitude, the Miami-based startup is building programmable clinical intelligence. AI systems are designed to reason about medical decisions in real time, adapting to how specific hospitals and doctors actually practice medicine.
when Refresh Miami When I spoke to Couto last September, Sophia was still introducing the concept of a “medical second brain.” At the time, the idea sounded futuristic to many clinicians who were wary of delegating too much power to AI. Well, the story has changed.
“I think people are used to AI thinking with them,” Couto said. [pictured above]. “And more than just a personal assistant.”
The first big wave of AI in healthcare focused primarily on automation and documentation. Doctors quickly adopted AI scribes that saved them hours of paperwork. Hospitals have begun implementing AI tools for scheduling, claims management, and operational workflows.
But eventually, some doctors wanted to study it more deeply. This change led Sophia to focus more on clinical reasoning itself, especially in a complex specialty like oncology. The company recently completed a program through the Mayo Clinic platform to work on AI models for precision oncology with a focus on prostate cancer patients.
According to Cuto, Sofya is designed to build patient data and clinical guidelines into a reasoning system that helps doctors make difficult treatment decisions in real time.
The company is currently rolling out its technology to hospitals and clinics in Latin America, as well as beginning early adoption in the United States. One of our key partners is Hospital Israelta Albert Einstein, one of Brazil’s leading hospital systems, where Sofia is validating its clinical workflow.
In the United States, Sophia is also in talks with institutions such as the University of Miami and a hospital system in Texas.
Still, the most interesting part of Sophia’s evolution may be what the company learned from watching doctors try to build their own AI systems. Couto recalled a conversation he had with a doctor who was experimenting with AI coding tools to prototype custom workflows.
Although he understood the appeal, many of those projects quickly ran into problems with security, interoperability, and long-term maintenance. This realization led Sofya to rethink its platform.
Currently, Sophia is building something called a programmable clinical studio. This is an environment where hospitals and doctors can customize AI workflows on Sophia’s infrastructure without having to build everything from scratch.
The idea is that Miami’s health system could design workflows tailored to its own patient population, while experts could create inference models that could be deployed to clinics around the world.
“Instead of Sofya having a specialized workflow, we have a clinical studio environment,” Cuto says. “It’s like Claude Cord, but for doctors.”
For Couto, that collaborative approach also reflects what made Miami such an important location for the company’s growth.
“When I talk about Sophia, it’s never in the traditional cold demeanor of a VC,” he said. “People really want what you’re building to be fundamentally successful.”
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I’m a Miami-based technology researcher and writer with a passion for sharing stories about South Florida’s tech ecosystem. I especially enjoy learning about GovTech startups, cutting-edge applications of artificial intelligence, and innovators who are leveraging technology to transform society for the better. Pitches are always welcome via Twitter @rileywk or www.RileyKminer.com.
