OpenAI is reportedly exploring a move into consumer health tools, including a personal health assistant or health data aggregator.
Sources close to the company told Business Insider that the AI giant is weighing several opportunities as it pushes into healthcare, a sector where tech giants including Google, Amazon and Microsoft have struggled to gain traction.
The move would mark one of OpenAI’s boldest steps beyond AI infrastructure and into industry-specific software.
Recent hires reflect the company’s ambitions.
OpenAI appointed Nate Gross, co-founder of public healthtech company Doximity, to lead its healthcare strategy in June.
Two months later, it brought on Instagram’s Ashley Alexander as its vice president of health products.
ChatGPT has around 800 million weekly active users, many of whom come with medical questions.
Greg Yap, a partner at Menlo Ventures, said: “Consumers have historically gone to Google to ask their health questions, and it’s clear that they’re now starting to shift those questions over to LLMs to capture that knowledge base through a more conversational discovery process.
“I think OpenAI has a tremendous opportunity in that sector.”
Several investors said they believe OpenAI could tackle a problem that has tripped up big tech for years: the personal health record.
Health data privacy rules and financial incentives keep patient data scattered across different healthcare providers. The idea of a personal health record is to pull that information into one place, owned and managed by the patient.
Microsoft’s HealthVault launched in 2007 but closed in 2019 after failing to gain user traction, largely because it required patients to manually upload their health records.
Google’s 2008 health record project ended in 2012, only for the company to begin work on an electronic health records search tool that later came under regulatory scrutiny over how it accessed and handled patient data.
Apple still offers a Health Records feature on iPhones, but requires hospitals to sign data-sharing agreements for patients to connect their records.
“Apple’s health record, and any of them that rely on us to log into every portal, download and manually share data, that’s friction that keeps people from getting value from their own health data,” Yap said.
“AI suffers from that friction just like anyone else. You can’t personalise information if you don’t have the data.”
Blake Wu, a partner at NEA, said: “Amazon’s a great company, but they’ve been one foot in healthcare, one foot out. Microsoft, kind of the same way.
“We haven’t seen that same type of behaviour with OpenAI and Anthropic. It’s been pedal all the way down, aggressive, let’s look at everything, let’s talk with everyone.
“So I’d say I view them much more as a serious potential threat.”
OpenAI is already working with pharmaceutical companies including Eli Lilly and Sanofi on drug discovery and development, as well as with healthtech companies such as Penda Health on AI-powered clinical decision support.
