Technology Makers as De Facto Work Designers in American Healthcare

Artificial intelligence (AI) usually enters organizations as a tool whose work-design implications appear only after implementation. This study shifts the analytic starting point upstream to examine how healthcare AI “makers,” through market-facing narratives, frame AI as suitable for adoption in a regulated, professionally governed field. We ask how technology makers construct and legitimate work-design scripts before organizational implementation. We then analyze public-facing materials from 100 U.S. healthcare AI firms (2023–2026)—including vision statements, product descriptions, and white papers—alongside 19 healthcare trade-journal articles (2023–2025) quoting hospital executives and physician leaders. Using reflexive thematic analysis, we identify three recurring design logics that makers use to frame AI as adoptable: efficiency , which simplifies complexity and boosts productivity; safety , which establishes quality control and risk management; and precision , which ensures accuracy through human oversight. Makers operationalize these logics through three adoption scripts: turnkey solutions that promise rapid deployment and interoperability, configurable solutions that frame bounded rule-setting as a route to governability, and customizable solutions that emphasize partnership and validation for contextual fit. Trade-journal discourse provides demand-side triangulation by framing responsible adoption in governance terms. By showing how technology makers’ scripts direct work organization before implementation even begins, the study advances a theory of upstream work design centered on the marketing of novel technology.