Sierra and Stellarus: Advancing a new model for AI-powered healthcare member experience
Editors’ note: This post features Bret Taylor, Co-founder of Sierra and Vanessa Colella, President and CEO of Stellarus.
Healthcare organizations face a persistent challenge: delivering higher-quality, more personalized experiences while managing rising costs, and operational strain. AI is beginning to shift that equation, which is why Sierra is partnering with Stellarus to help health plans deploy AI agents responsibly, effectively, and at scale.
Sierra's AI platform is designed to understand complex, nuanced conversations between members and their health plans. Stellarus brings trusted healthcare domain expertise, deep insights into health plan needs and the data and orchestration layers required to deploy AI safely in health plan member-facing environments.
A powerful example of this collaboration is the work underway with Sierra, Stellarus, and Blue Shield of California, a nonprofit health plan within the Ascendiun family of companies. Six months ago, for a large national employer, Blue Shield worked with Stellarus to launch an AI voice agent built on Sierra. The agent is designed to handle a wide range of member inquiries from benefit questions to coverage details, providing accurate, plan-specific answers 24/7, without hold times.
The results illustrate what’s possible when advanced AI and healthcare expertise work in concert. Across thousands of member interactions, the AI agent delivers a Customer Satisfaction score of 4.4 (out of 5), demonstrating that AI can meet high expectations for trust, clarity, and quality when deployed thoughtfully.
"We built Sierra to handle the most complex, high-stakes conversations across any industry—and healthcare is proving to be one of the most transformative," said Bret Taylor, CEO and co-founder of Sierra. “Our work with Blue Shield of California shows what's possible when conversational AI truly understands context and nuance. Our partnership with Stellarus is helping health plans realize that potential faster by bringing the healthcare-specific expertise and infrastructure that accelerates deployment."
“Health plans struggle to realize value from AI not because the technology isn’t ready, but because their current infrastructure makes change difficult. Stellarus removes that friction with a flexible data and orchestration layer and partnering with Sierra allows us to deploy AI faster and more safely, without custom rewrites or operational disruption,” said Vanessa Colella, President & CEO of Stellarus.
Looking ahead, Sierra and Stellarus are expanding beyond reactive support toward more proactive AI-driven engagement, anticipating member needs, guiding next steps, and further reducing friction across the healthcare journey. Together, Sierra and Stellarus are delivering a proven, repeatable model for AI in health plans—one that prioritizes trust, improves outcomes, and provides better, more human member experiences at scale.
