Health2Tech Austin, August 26, 2026

Mini Kahlon, PhD, is the Austin-based co-founder and CEO of Beheld Health, a company built on a contrarian bet: as AI automates more of healthcare, science-backed human connection will become more valuable, not less.

Managing chronic conditions and maternal health requires medical expertise. But it also requires something healthcare was never designed to deliver at scale: trusted relationships that reach people in their daily lives, where the real work of health happens. Beheld builds that missing layer – consistent, human relationships that act as a form of care in their own right – and is gaining traction with health plans and care delivery organizations accountable for outcomes and cost. Crucially for risk-bearing networks, these relationships capture a missing asset: a longitudinal conversational record of life outside the clinic. Beheld uses AI to parse this dialogue, surfacing symptoms, behavior changes, and emerging risks long before they ever show up in claims or clinical records. The model is grounded in peer-reviewed research published in JAMA and other leading journals, demonstrating clinically meaningful improvements in glycemic control alongside substantial reductions in depression and loneliness. Beheld is now translating that evidence into real-world programs with health plans and clinical networks across Medicaid and Medicare.

A neuroscientist by training, Mini has spent her career translating science and technology into real-world impact. At UT Austin, she served as Founding Vice Dean of Dell Medical School, helping build its community-focused model, and led the clinical trials that became Beheld’s evidence base. Previously, as Executive Director and CIO of UCSF’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute, she built infrastructure to move innovation into practice across technology, new services, and models of care.