After dropping hints earlier this week, OpenAI has officially launched ChatGPT Health, designed to address health, disease and treatment-related questions with the utmost care and responsibility. The company wants you to use this ChatGPT extension as your personal AI-powered healthcare assistant.
According to OpenAI, more than 40 million people use ChatGPT every day to get health-related advice, such as creating an exercise plan, getting help with dietary changes, understanding the side effects of certain medications, recognizing the symptoms of various diseases, and finding the right treatment method.
Designed to support, not replace, professional medical care
Instead of answering all of these questions on the All-Star homepage, ChatGPT wants you to ask them in the new Health section. “Health is meant to support medical care, not replace it,” OpenAI writes in its official press release, suggesting the company is cautious about its claims and promises for the new tool.
When you ask the tool a health-related question, it routes the query through a curated pipeline that sources its information from authoritative medical content, uses conservative language, and includes advanced security checks. The company says it has worked with “more than 260 physicians” to understand how to address health-related questions.
You can also use it to upload your medical records or connect fitness tracking apps like Apple Health to provide more personalized (and accurate) suggestions. For example, you can ask Health about your cholesterol or blood sugar trends and pull information from either the uploaded documents or a connected app to provide the required answer.
Additionally, you can use the tool to understand your blood or physical test results, prepare for appointments with your doctor (highlight important symptoms and create an easy-to-share list), and even compare insurance plans based on your health habits.
The company also promises more privacy in the healthcare sector and says that conversations there will not be used to train AI models. Currently, ChatGPT Health is not available to all users. Instead, the company puts you on a waiting list and lets you know when you can access it.
“Users with ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus and Pro plans outside the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the United Kingdom are eligible” to join the waiting list. In the long term, OpenAI could deepen integration with health systems, insurers and other wellness tools.
