An interview with Espen Fretheim Loeng, Director of Sales and Marketing at Stenoly.
AI-powered clinical documentation tools are exploding across the healthcare landscape, but few have scaled as quickly or as thoughtfully as Stenoly. With more than 1,000 clinics already using the platform and saving clinicians hours of paperwork a day, the Norwegian startup is drawing attention for its sharp focus on accuracy, privacy, and practical usefulness.
We sat down with Espen Fretheim Loeng, Stenoly’s Director of Sales and Marketing, to discuss why the team built Stenoly, how they’ve navigated the demanding healthcare market, and where AI-assisted medicine is headed next.
What inspired you and the founding team to launch Stenoly, and why focus on an AI-powered documentation tool?
The original vision came from co-founder Dyar Al-Ashtari, who grew up with parents who are doctors. He saw firsthand how heavy the documentation burden was for clinicians every day. Pairing that experience with his talent for building digital products created the early foundation for Stenoly.
Dyar later brought in Espen and co-founder Erling to help turn the concept into a scalable company. “The moment he told us about Stenoly, we immediately loved the idea,” Espen said. “This was a clear, global problem, and AI was the perfect solution.”
The team recognized an opportunity to drastically reduce documentation time, improve accuracy, and integrate seamlessly into clinicians’ existing workflows.
How do you balance clinical accuracy, data security, and user-friendliness in an automated transcription and summarization system?
According to Espen, all three pillars must work in tandem, or the product simply won’t work.
Clinical accuracy is maintained through constant validation with real clinicians, not just engineers. Weekly testing cycles compare Stenoly’s output with clinician-written documentation, allowing immediate retraining or adjustments.
Data security is treated as a foundational requirement. Stenoly uses end-to-end encryption, strict access controls, and GDPR/HIPAA-aligned protections. The company also limits data retention and avoids storing anything unnecessary.
User-friendliness is achieved through continuous observation of actual clinical workflows. “The only way to get it right,” Espen says, “is to watch clinicians work, talk to them daily, and simplify relentlessly.”
Security remains non-negotiable no matter what.
What challenges, regulatory or market-related, have you faced since launching, and how did you overcome them?
Healthcare comes with two immediate hurdles: strict regulations and a skeptical customer base.
On the regulatory side, Stenoly had to demonstrate that AI could safely handle sensitive medical data across multiple regions. With a privacy expert and a lawyer on the founding team, compliance was baked in from day one. Painful early work, Espen says, but well worth it.
On the market side, the team battled clinician skepticism because many had been burned by AI products that overpromised and underdelivered. Stenoly’s solution was transparency and real-world proof, including a free 2-week trial with no credit card required.
With many competitors flooding the AI documentation space, Stenoly’s strategy is to avoid corner-cutting and rely on higher-quality models, because healthcare is not where “the budget option” wins. Espen says the payoff is clear: when clinicians complete the trial, Stenoly wins 8 out of 10 conversions.
With over 1,000 clinics using Stenoly, how do you validate time savings and maintain performance at scale?
Stenoly tracks several quantitative and qualitative metrics:
- Documentation minutes saved per consult, based on timing studies and user data
- Reduction in after-hours charting, a critical indicator of real-world impact
- Usage frequency and adoption metrics
- User satisfaction and clinician well-being
Their goal is simple: clinicians should go home on time, without a stack of unfinished notes. Performance improvements come from continuously learning from their expanding user base and treating Stenoly as an evolving product, not a finished one.
Where do you see Stenoly in the next 3–5 years, and how will you scale while preserving security and quality?
Espen envisions Stenoly becoming a natural part of clinical workflows worldwide. In the near term, the team is focused on expanding across Europe, adapting to each healthcare system’s language, regulations, and clinical practices.
As the company grows, the commitment to quality and privacy will remain absolute. “In healthcare, quality and privacy aren’t features,” Espen says. “They’re the foundation.”
He’s also excited about the evolution of support for clinical reasoning. Stenoly already offers “AI assessments” that can surface possible diagnoses or risk factors based on the conversation. Research from Microsoft and the U.S. National Library of Medicine shows that combined clinician-AI collaboration can outperform either alone, pointing to a future in which AI serves as a highly reliable second opinion.
Scaling, therefore, means being careful, regional, and user-driven—never sacrificing trust for speed.
What ethical principles guide your handling of medical data and AI-assisted decision-making?
Stenoly operates on a guiding principle: people first.
“If there’s ever a trade-off between what’s profitable and what’s right for patient care,” Espen says, “we choose patient care.”
Key ethical commitments include:
- No monetization or mining of patient data
- No storage of raw audio
- Automatic deletion of notes after processing
- Strict limitations on accessing any patient data
- Clinician control over every final note
Importantly, Stenoly positions itself as an assistant, not a decision-maker. All AI suggestions are optional, transparent, and grounded in established medical guidelines, never “black-box hunches.”
What truly distinguishes Stenoly from other AI transcription or journaling tools on the market?
Espen points to several differentiators:
- Clinician voice recognition: Stenoly is the world’s first ambient scribe that can distinguish the clinician from the patient, preventing dangerous mix-ups.
- Deep customization: Every element, from templates to phrasing, can be fully tailored. Stenoly even offers hands-on setup for nontechnical users.
- AI Assessments: Optional clinical insights, differential diagnoses, and risk flags presented transparently and separately from clinician statements.
- Medication interaction alerts: Real-time warnings (e.g., Ibuprofen + Warfarin) that improve patient safety.
- Rapid improvement cycle: Close relationships with clinicians, discounted feedback partnerships, and a culture of shipping updates within days.
The result? A tool clinicians rely on daily, designed around real-world needs, not theoretical ones.
Stenoly’s rapid rise reflects something bigger happening across healthcare: clinicians are desperate for tools that genuinely reduce workload without compromising accuracy or privacy. Stenoly’s approach—practical, clinician-led, security-first—positions it not just as another AI startup, but as a partner in the future of clinical care.
Spencer Hulse is the Editorial Director at Grit Daily. He is responsible for overseeing other editors and writers, day-to-day operations, and covering breaking news.
