Cathie Wood (bio below) and her ARK Invest team have released the 2025 edition of their much-anticipated Big Ideas report, an annual tradition that coincides with another major event—the Chinese New Year. This year, as the world welcomes the Year of the Snake, a symbol of adaptability. ARK’s report underscores how disruptive technologies are converging to reshape industries, economies, and daily life. With a comprehensive 148-page analysis (link below), ARK presents a vision of the future where AI, blockchain, robotics, energy storage, and biotech advancements redefine global productivity and innovation at an unprecedented scale. Wood’s predictions suggest that these transformations will rival historical economic shifts, from the agricultural revolution to the industrial and scientific breakthroughs of the past.
Though our focus is on healthcare, health data, AI and Crypto Tokens, we will give a quick overview of her key predictions and comments, that are all related to the graphic they used and represented above. She links them all around “neural networks”.
A key theme of this year’s report is the rise of AI agents. We have drilled down on that innovation many times in our blogs, check back if you like. She believes AI Agents will revolutionize web searches, commerce, and software as a service (SaaS). The financial landscape is also shifting, with Bitcoin surpassing $100K, stablecoins outpacing traditional credit networks, and decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms achieving peak trading efficiency.
She describes autonomous ride-hail services, drones, and robotrucks are dramatically lowering transportation and supply chain costs. AI’s rising energy demands are pushing the adoption of nuclear power over renewables, while advancements in humanoid robotics promise to boost small business productivity. Space exploration is also becoming more cost-effective, with reusable rockets driving down satellite expenses and expanding global coverage.
Cathy Wood on Healthcare and AI
In healthcare, she discusses the falling costs in multiomic (explained better as the combination of genome, proteome, transcriptome, epigenome, metabolome, and microbiome) sequencing are accelerating disease detection, targeted drug development, and organ-on-chip technology.
“The Five”
The Report has another excellent slide that sets the “Five Innovation Platforms Are Catalyzing Accelerated Growth”. ARK emphasizes that these disruptive technologies are not only reshaping individual industries but converging to trigger a global GDP inflection point. AI, public blockchains, smart contracts, energy storage, robotics, and biotechnology are merging in ways that could outpace previous technological revolutions. Wood argues that while the U.S. economy is growing faster than any other high-income nation, its advancements in health, happiness, and quality of life lag behind. Market domination by disruptive innovation is not just about economic opportunity—it’s about fundamentally improving human well-being. As ARK’s research says, those who embrace these technological shifts today are poised to lead the transformation of tomorrow’s world.
Cathie Wood on CNBC- “we are today where we were when it came to the internet in the early to mid-90s.” Hear it for yourself (link below), We pegged it last week as probably late 90s, but she is the technology expert, so I will accept her even more bullish scenario. She also said “The most underappreciated application of AI is health care”;
Bringing It All Home
We cannot talk about the breadth and depth of most of the Ark’s Report (not our expertise), but we also see a convergence of technology in healthcare, and consumers taking control of their data and lives, beyond the amazing progress in multiomic. We do see connections that others can’t see or choose not to see, because it would be too disruptive. Just think about the shift from Pony Express to Telegraph, to send messages.
Healthcare, outside of diagnostics, is always a lagger in the use of technology, and frankly, we can look back recently at the Electronic Health Record (EHR) was not the change agent we in the industry expected. It was envisioned to make physician life easier and improve healthcare outcomes, but in part due to government regulation and mandates, it has for sure increased physician burn-out. Are we better off?
As we note below, there is unbelievable data in the Consumers EHR, but that data is locked up, and even for genetics, available only for specialized cases. There are a large majority of American’s that cannot see all their health records in one place, where AI can help and assist in improving their lives. Today, we have over 500 different EHRs in the USA. AI can empower and transform the Consumer interaction with all their providers and even their payors (when services are denied). We can do that today, faster, better and cheaper than ever before.
About HealthScoreAI ™
Healthcare is at a tipping point, and HealthScoreAI is positioning to revolutionize the industry by giving consumers control over their health data and unlocking its immense value. U.S. healthcare annual spending has exceeded $5 trillion with little improvement in outcomes. Despite advances, technology has failed to reduce costs or improve care. Meanwhile, 3,000 exabytes of consumer health data remain trapped in fragmented USA systems, leaving consumers and doctors without a complete picture of care.
HealthScoreAI seeks to provide a unique solution, acting as a data surrogate for consumers and offering an unbiased holistic view of their health. By monetizing de-identified data, HealthScoreAI seeks to share revenue with consumers, potentially creating a new $100 billion market value opportunity. With near-universal EHR adoption in the USA, and advances in technology, now is the perfect time to capitalize on the data available, practical use of AI and the empowering of consumers, in particular the 13,000 tech savvy baby boomers turning 65 every single day and entering the Medicare system for the first time. Our team, with deep healthcare and tech expertise, holds U.S. patents and a proven track record of scaling companies and leading them to IPO.
About The Author:
Noel J. Guillama-Alvarez
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nguillama/
+1-561-904-9477, Ext 355
*Cathie Wood is the founder, CEO, and Chief Investment Officer of ARK Invest, an investment management firm specializing in disruptive innovation. She launched ARK Invest in 2014 with a focus on high-growth sectors such as artificial intelligence, robotics, DNA sequencing, blockchain technology, and energy storage. Known for her bold investment strategies and long-term vision, Wood gained prominence for her early and aggressive bets on Tesla, Bitcoin, and other emerging technologies. Prior to founding ARK, she held leadership roles at Alliance Bernstein and Jennison Associates, where she built a reputation for identifying transformative trends in the market. A vocal advocate for innovation-driven investing, Wood’s insights and ARK’s research reports continue to shape conversations about the future of technology and finance.
https://www.ark-invest.com/big-ideas-2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNeOHBfMHiI
