Two weeks ago, I was in Manhattan spending a full day at my longevity clinic.
It’s something I do every couple of years. Full body scans. Advanced blood work. Heart testing. Cancer screening. The kind of preventative testing that simply wasn’t available to most people a decade ago.
And every time I go through the process, I leave with the same thought:
The future of healthcare won't be about treating disease after it appears.
It will be about finding problems before they become problems.
That is why a surprising announcement last week immediately caught my attention.
The Next Healthcare Revolution May Have Nothing to Do With Drugs
Most investors know Midjourney as the company behind some of the most impressive AI-generated images on the planet.
Last week, it announced something that caught nearly everyone by surprise.
It is entering healthcare.
And not in a small way.
Midjourney unveiled a new division called Midjourney Medical along with a prototype full-body ultrasonic scanner that aims to create a detailed 3D map of the human body in roughly 60 seconds. The technology uses thousands of ultrasound sensors, advanced computing power, and AI-driven imaging techniques to potentially make preventative health screening faster, cheaper, and far more accessible.
If this sounds like science fiction, you are not alone.
But I think investors should pay very close attention.
Because while the headlines are focused on the futuristic scanner itself, I believe the bigger story is what this says about the future of healthcare. The timing of this announcement couldn’t have been more interesting for me personally.
Why a Fragmented System Makes This Bigger Than It Looks
After spending a day at my longevity clinic earlier this month, I was reminded just how fragmented healthcare still is. One test checks your heart. Another checks for cancer risk. Another measures body composition. Another evaluates blood biomarkers.
It takes time. It takes money. And in many cases, it requires access to specialized clinics that most people don’t have.
Midjourney’s vision is ambitious because it aims to make advanced screening dramatically faster, cheaper, and more accessible. Whether this exact technology succeeds or not is almost beside the point.
The larger trend is already underway.
Healthcare is shifting from reactive medicine to preventative medicine.
And just like we’ve seen in AI, robotics, and autonomous systems, investors who identify these trends early could have an opportunity to benefit long before they become mainstream.
From Reactive to Preventative
For decades, healthcare has largely been reactive.
You feel sick. You go to the doctor. You get tested. You get treated.
The next generation of healthcare will be preventative.
Imagine a world where detailed scans become as routine as getting your teeth cleaned. Where subtle changes in muscle mass, organ health, blood flow, and body composition can be tracked over time long before symptoms appear.
That is the vision Midjourney is pursuing.
The company ultimately hopes to deploy tens of thousands of scanners around the world and perform hundreds of millions, if not billions, of scans annually.
Whether Midjourney achieves that goal remains to be seen.
But history tells us something important.
When a new technology makes information dramatically cheaper and easier to obtain, adoption often follows faster than most people expect.
Think about what happened with DNA sequencing.
The cost of sequencing a human genome has collapsed over the last two decades. What was once available only to researchers is now increasingly accessible to consumers.
Medical imaging could be heading down a similar path.
The Supplier Behind the Scanner
Shares of Butterfly Network (BFLY) surged after investors realized the company is supplying key ultrasound-on-chip technology used in the Midjourney Scanner. Midjourney licensed Butterfly’s technology in a deal that included upfront payments, annual licensing fees, and milestone-based compensation.
This is exactly the type of investment theme I love to uncover.
Most investors focus on the flashy consumer-facing company.
I look for the picks-and-shovels suppliers.
The companies providing the critical technology that enables the entire ecosystem.
It reminds me of what we’ve seen in artificial intelligence.
While everyone talks about ChatGPT, Gemini, or Midjourney, some of the biggest winners have been the companies supplying the chips, networking equipment, power infrastructure, and data center hardware behind the scenes.
Healthcare may be entering a similar phase.
And it extends far beyond Butterfly Network.
Companies focused on early cancer detection, liquid biopsies, AI-powered diagnostics, genomic sequencing, personalized medicine, and preventative testing could be some of the biggest beneficiaries over the next decade.
Of course, there are still questions.
The Skeptic's Case
Many medical experts point out that ultrasound is not a replacement for MRI, CT scans, colonoscopies, or other diagnostic tools. The technology is still early, and regulatory approvals will be required before it can be used broadly for medical diagnosis.
Those concerns are valid.
But investors often make their biggest gains by identifying trends before they become obvious.
And what I see here is not simply a new scanner.
I see another example of AI moving beyond software and entering the physical world.
AI is already transforming how we write, search, create images, generate videos, and develop software.
The next frontier may be helping us better understand the human body itself.
That is a trend worth watching closely.
Because if preventative medicine becomes the standard rather than the exception, the investment opportunities could be enormous.
And as we’ve seen countless times before, the biggest winners are often the companies enabling the revolution before the rest of Wall Street realizes it has begun.
To your future success,
Matt McCall
Founder, NXT Wave Research
