Friday, November 28, 2025
Dr. Bhargav Patel Photo: Brown
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to explode into a multitrillion-dollar field dominated by America’s largest companies, the industry is showing signs of fraying, with business battles raging in federal court in Rhode Island.
The emerging legal battle involves Bhargav Patel, a child psychiatrist at Brown University School of Health, and an AI company that has a number of trade names but is sold as Sully.AI.
Patel is suing Sully.AI and several of its executives.
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According to the lawsuit filed this week, “Defendants’ business includes the development, marketing, and support of AI-powered medical software for physicians and hospitals domestically and internationally, including in Rhode Island, for the purpose of increasing physician efficiency and effectiveness.”
The company’s tagline is, “Sully is the most integrated superhuman team of AI employees in healthcare. Loved by healthcare organizations and platforms with over 100,000 providers.”
According to Patel’s lawsuit against the company and its management, “Plaintiff performed a wide range of duties that significantly enhanced Defendant’s business operations and profitability in a variety of roles, culminating in her appointment as Chief Medical Officer of Defendant Odigo, Inc. (real name Sully.ai). Despite these contributions, Defendant failed to compensate her for several months of work, was misclassified as an independent contractor for a period of time, and ultimately terminated her employment after Plaintiff raised concerns that… and in clear violation of applicable law, including the requirements of HIPAA. ”
Sully.AI is a foreign company registered in Delaware and headquartered in California.
Recruitment — “Win-Win”
According to Patel’s complaint, “When Defendants hired Patel, Defendant Omar and Defendant Ahmed Nasser (“Nasser”), Defendants’ Chief Operating Officer and President, promised Patel that Defendants would create a “win-win” scenario in which Patel would be compensated fairly.” On or about March 8, 2024, Defendant Nasser sent Patel the following message: As you wish, we find the best people in the world working in this field and allow them to choose what they want to work on… We are open to offering all kinds of compensation based on your effort/time. ”
“Defendants hired Patel on or about March 11, 2024. On or about March 29, 2024, Defendants provided Patel with access to the Company’s Slack platform, which is used exclusively for work-related communications,” the complaint alleges.
Additionally, “Plaintiff worked an average of approximately 5 to 10 hours per week for Defendant from March to November 2024, designing advertisements and scripts that helped Defendant book over 500 meetings, and taking advantage of his credibility as a physician at Brown University.” provided a platform for numerous tasks, including but not limited to gathering testimonials for the website, designing templates for psychiatric notes, consulting on defendants’ medical exams, and providing marketing and social services. We provide media advice and secure clinic memberships totaling over $15,000 per year.”
Compensation and stock options
According to the complaint, “After diligently performing these duties without any compensation for approximately eight months, Patel discussed Defendants’ failure to compensate him with Defendants Omar and Nasser and sought fair compensation. As a result, on or about November 22, 2024, Defendants hired him as their medical director and began compensating Patel as an independent contractor at the rate of $5,000 per month without benefits.”
“However, the defendants did not compensate Patel at all for all work performed between or about March 11, 2024 and November 21, 2024. Thereafter, on or about January 31, 2025, Defendants began compensating Patel as a W-2 employee, and plaintiff was paid $5,000 per month, plus health benefits and stock grants worth approximately $30,000,” the lawsuit states.
promotion
“Patel’s outstanding performance has also resulted in his promotion to Chief Medical Officer on or about July 22, 2025. This promotion includes a salary increase to $14,000 per month and approximately $250,000 in the form of approximately 79,029 restricted stock shares. During the same period, Patel helped hire a much-needed technical director, about whom Defendants Omar and Nasser were very excited.”
false claims
The relationship begins to fall apart when Mr. Patel claims that management provided misleading information to close the sale.
According to the complaint, the scenario unfolded as follows.
Then, on or about August 4, 2025, Plaintiff participated in a call with Defendant Nasser and a prospective customer at a hospital to which Defendant was trying to sell an AI radiologist.
Patel was told that the product was essentially a ChatGPT wrapper, but over the phone, Nasser claimed that the defendants were using an FDA-approved AI model.
When a hospital representative responded that their own research had failed to discover the existence of an FDA-approved AI radiologist model, Nasser became upset and abruptly hung up.
Shortly after the call, Patel complained to Nasser that it was criminal and misleading to represent a product as FDA-approved when it is not.
Patel also expressed similar concerns to Defendants’ research director, Amit Kumtekar (“Kumtekar”), and a sales team member named Rohan.
Patel expressed similar concerns to co-founder Henry Duong, saying, “I think we should be a little more careful about these things. We don’t want to expose ourselves to legal liability when it comes to compliance and FDA approval.”
The episode set off a chain of events that ultimately led to the company firing Patel. He has raised federal compliance concerns and claims to be a whistleblower.
GoLocal reached out to the company for comment, but had not received a response at the time of publication.
The six civil suits seek back wages and damages, among other claims.
