ChatGPT Takes Major Step Into Health and Wellness
Millions of users around the world consult ChatGPT each day for a variety of questions, but they'll be able to look for an even greater degree of clarity when it comes to medical and wellness inquiries.
On Wednesday, OpenAI announced ChatGPT Health, which will allow users to securely upload their medical records and data from various wellness apps. The company has stressed that ChatGPT Health is not intended to replace medical care, but that it will add relevance to responses that can now be tailored to users' individual health concerns.
Fidji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of applications, said on Substack that the initiative is "another step toward turning ChatGPT into a personal super-assistant that can support you with information and tools to achieve your goals across any part of your life."
ChatGPT Evolves Into A Health Tool
ChatGPT Health will have its own separate space within ChatGPT itself, storing any sensitive health information away from other, unrelated chats. The information provided will not flow into chats that are not pertinent to health-related conversations, and OpenAI says that it will not be used to train its models for future use.
The company says that various wellness apps will connect to ChatGPT Health, including Apple Health, MyFitnessPal, Weight Watchers and Function.
OpenAI's move into the health and wellness spaces comes after CEO Sam Altman's declaration that health care was an area of strong improvement with the release of the GPT-5 chatbot model.
ChatGPT Health will initially be available to a small group of users, who will be able to test the feature in order to offer feedback and potential changes or refinements. If all goes well, the feature will then expand for more users.
A Feature Built on User Data and Feedback
"Health is one of the most common ways people use ChatGPT today," OpenAI said in its formal announcement of ChatGPT Health on Wednesday.
"Based on our de-identified analysis of conversations, over 230 million people globally ask health and wellness related questions on ChatGPT everyweek." The company says that ChatGPT Health will streamline those questions in order to better prepare users for conversations with health professionals.
OpenAI states that its goal is to help users "navigate everyday questions and understand patterns over time," giving them the tools to explain and discuss complex medical issues both inside and outside their times of need.
In the area of security, OpenAI says that "additional, layered protections" are coming to the app to further encrypt and protect sensitive health information, and that users can enroll in multi-factor authentication for an additional level of security.