Swoop’s Commitment to Innovation: A Winning Formula for Healthcare Marketing
At Swoop, innovation isn’t just a buzzword. It’s the lifeblood of our company culture. We know we need to continuously evolve and become a better version of ourselves. Yet, we also need to remain laser focused on building the right things and running an efficient business.
As VP of Product, I joined our executive team to build a culture where we’re excited to create new things together every day. For the past eight months, I’ve enjoyed running Swoop’s AI Innovation contest. I have been working directly with the contestants and witnessed first-hand how Swoop is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.
In my last blog about Swoop Piper, I shared that AI innovation begins with finding and empowering internal champions to follow their curiosity. The contest challenged Swoopers to innovate and work together to solve important problems. By organizing this contest, we’ve seen individual creativity expand, improved organizational AI literacy, increased collaboration, and ideas evolve into the backbone of Swoop’s future.
The contest showcases our employees’ ingenuity, creativity, and drive. The teams included members from across the company, from engineering to marketing, HR, operations and sales. It was wonderful to see how dedicated all Swoopers are to solving the most complex industry issues while learning new skills. The challenges these projects take on range from understanding the adherence of patient communities to streamlining internal processes, and creating onboarding buddies for new hires.
Before we unveil the winners, I wanted to share the process, and what I’ve learned as we turn these ideas into concrete tools. These lessons offer a blueprint for how any organization can approach AI innovation.
Laser-focused on real impact
Everyone at Swoop needs to understand AI technology, its limitations and impacts on our business. Understanding when to use AI – and when not to – enables us to make better decisions and support our clients on their innovation journey. Our teams can be more grounded in reality and prioritize the most impactful initiatives for Swoop and the industry.
The goal is always to generate value, coming up with ideas that drive growth at Swoop. Yet, it’s important that new ideas are relevant for Swoop. This requires an ability to juggle exploration and focus. Two forces that can be contradictory. Exploring new ways to use AI to create by building new things and tackling the biggest bottlenecks, we also need to ensure these are the right problems for Swoop to solve today. With this contest, and everything we do at Swoop, we look for real impact and not just buzzwords.
Innovation can come from anywhere in an organization from an intern to a CEO. It was important to create a space where everyone at the company could bring their perspective to the table and help solve problems. The contest also enabled individuals to learn from each other and consider different viewpoints while working on AI solutions.
We reviewed the initial 25 submitted ideas with a critical eye, wanting to innovate yet remaining focused. We decided to filter out a few, while combining and refocusing others. After these updates, 14 ideas were pitched to Swoop’s leadership team.
The judges panel Co-founder and CEO Ron Elwell, Co-founder and CTO Simeon Simeonov, and President Scott Rines brought a wealth of experience in launching products, founding companies, and growing businesses. Our leaders are committed to continuous improvement of Swoop and supported our contestants with resources and guidance. Ron, Sim, and Scott advanced the projects that would impact our business the most to our final round.
These projects promised to enhance Swoop’s capabilities. The 14 teams refined their business cases and learned the nuance of using AI models through trial and error. After writing detailed product briefs, each team got the opportunity to pitch their idea to leadership. Seven final groups of contestants moved on after the pitches and refined their ideas through market research and prototype creation.
The winning teams
| Team Goose | Vice President Account Management Sara Costello and Senior Directors of Sales Beth Driscoll and Garland Page | Audience segment overlap analysis tool |
| Hallucination Nation | Director of Engineering Greg Lu and Principal Product Manger Javier Ezcurra | Segment and real world data analyst GenAI interface |
| Velocity | SVP of Sales – HCP Dorrit Trate and Principal Data Scientist Eddie Zahrebelski | AI tool to drive growth and empower sales with benchmarking analysis |
| Catbot Team | Vice President Client Success Kevin Elwell, Senior Directors of Sales Alexis Crain and Alise Gray, Director Sales Arianna Miskel | Segment recommendation tool for RFPs |
| Jurassic Start | Vice President Human Resources Lauren Buczkiewicz and Product Operations Manager Nikki Sherman | Onboarding buddy for all new hires |
| Team BMW | Senior Director Product Management Matt Antolin and Senior Software Engineer Ben Gladwell | GenAI to classify community members |
| The Weight | Director Account Management Olivia Sawyers, Senior Director Sales Stephanie Valessares, Senior Director Advanced TV Sales Jordan Schanen, and Director of Sales Claire Walsh | Audience Quality (AQ) roll up and recommendation system |
The direction of all seven ideas have shown so much promise that we are executing all of these ideas. They will have a big impact on Swoop’s internal processes and client-facing offerings.
Celebrating MTLC CTO of the Year: Sim
The AI contest wouldn’t be possible without a thriving workplace culture. Our leadership team fosters outstanding performance and a willingness to share expertise.
It’s an honor to be part of Sim’s team as he designs and implements cultural infrastructures that support innovation and growth. His recent recognition as the Mass Technology Leadership Council’s 2025 CTO of the Year reflects his meaningful impact on Swoop’s technical teams and beyond.
Sim is leading us to build the future of patient engagement and shaping the industry to advance better health outcomes for all.
Who will be the ultimate winner?
The biggest winners will be Swoop partners and clients. As the quality of our products will improve significantly and will continue to provide first in class omnichannel offerings. In the long run, everyone at Swoop will also benefit from the contest outcomes: we will have new offerings, improved processes and more tech-savvy colleagues.
All seven teams will take home prize money and see their ideas integrated into Swoop. Together, we’ll continue to create a company driven by innovation, collaboration, and a shared passion for making a difference in healthcare.
