SAN FRANCISCO, CA — January 28, 2026 — Leads & Copy — Future Communities Institute (FCI) has launched the Bay Area’s first AI-powered safety net program in partnership with Five Keys, ReImagine Freedom, and Akido Labs, Inc. (“Akido”). The program will use Akido’s AI-enabled care model to increase the capacity of street medicine teams, allow community health workers to provide more services, and deliver personalized care.
FCI will serve as the convener, launching first with Five Keys, ReImagine Freedom, and Akido Labs. Each partner will contribute to the program by caring for specific communities, working within key geographies, and sharing knowledge on delivering successful programs. FCI is co-designing an evaluation framework that prioritizes the expressed needs of each community and provides data reporting across partners. The initial program is marked by Akido’s integrated care model. This is part of an effort to bring together voices from technology, public health, policy and non-profits to meet the needs of the underserved and use technology to deliver personalized care.
Emma Mayerson, Executive Director of FCI, said it is imperative to rethink care models and forge partnerships to ensure that vulnerable communities receive vital services. She added that this care model has been successfully implemented across multiple healthcare environments and that FCI is proud to bring it to the Bay Area.
The San Francisco Bay Area saw a 6% year-over-year increase in homelessness, with approximately ⅔ of unhoused residents living on the streets, according to federal data. The Bay Area unhoused population has grown by more than 46% over the past decade. A 2023 San Francisco Fire Department report noted that 25% of all ambulance trips involve people experiencing homelessness. In addition to the increasing rates of homelessness, there are not enough medical providers to adequately care for these individuals, who are often living with complex medical and mental health conditions.
The new program will help thousands of people living on the streets access care before they need emergency services by partnering with local organizations. The program couples best practices in street medicine and enhanced care management (ECM) with Akido’s ScopeAI, an AI system capable of running a patient visit.
Akido empowers Community Health Workers (CHWs) to run the first AI-guided visit tailored for the safety net population. Scope AI guides the CHW to perform an in-depth medical visit, allowing them to engage meaningfully on complex diagnoses and gather the clinical information needed by providers to inform treatment decisions. With ScopeAI, Akido’s Street Medicine program can initiate patients on medically assisted treatment (MAT) for substance use disorders within four hours of initial contact, while the US average wait time for treatment is days.
ScopeAI is already in use across multiple specialties and has been trained on more than 10 million real patient cases and improved by feedback from Akido’s network of over 240 clinicians serving 500,000 patients. Today, ScopeAI supports patient visits in Akido’s Southern California clinics, with every recommendation reviewed and approved by a licensed provider.
Prashant Samant, co-founder and CEO of Akido, said that California is at the epicenter of the country’s homelessness crisis and that their AI brings healthcare services to some of the region’s most vulnerable neighbors. By addressing some of the healthcare issues facing the unhoused community, Samant said they can help set individuals up for broader success and be there with them for every step of their journey.
Future Communities Institute strengthens the social safety net through data-backed, human-centered solutions. FCI convenes organizations across government, healthcare, social services, and technology to drive collaborative impact.
ReImagine Freedom builds economic power by investing in the leadership and enterprises of women and gender-expansive people excluded from opportunity. Launched in 2023, ReImagine Freedom builds on more than three decades of work by the Young Women’s Freedom Center.
Five Keys Schools and Programs is a national leader in second-chance employment and justice-focused services, driven by a mission to lift individuals and families out of poverty by providing access to education, housing, employment, and the tools needed to achieve long-term stability.
Akido is a technology company that builds AI-powered doctors and delivers clinician-supervised care through its own multi-specialty provider network. Akido’s medical network, Akido Care, serves half a million patients across CA, RI and NY, offering primary and specialty care across 26 specialties. Founded in 2015 by Prashant Samant, Jared Goodner, and Sanjit Mahanti, the Company is expanding risk-bearing care models and scaling ScopeAI.
Source: Akido Labs
