When care begins at the chat box
The biggest takeaway from JPM last week wasn’t a blockbuster deal or surprise headline. It was the momentum spurred as OpenAI announced both ChatGPT Health (for consumers) and ChatGPT for Healthcare (for enterprises), not long before Anthropic announced Claude for Healthcare. AI chatbots have quickly gained ground as a default starting point for health questions, with OpenAI reporting over 40M daily users turning to ChatGPT for healthcare-related questions. This development begs the question—if this is where people begin, what is the front door to care now?
Before even stepping foot (or clicking into) a clinician’s office, patients are already looking to chatbots to help them form opinions about symptoms or learn about potential treatment options. These engagement patterns raise the stakes for health systems, pharma, and other incumbents that don’t yet have a real strategy for patient acquisition and information delivery beyond traditional channels. As access is being rewired in real time, organizations need to define their plans for integration. How can incumbents connect into LLM-first, digital care ecosystems? What care models become possible if patients are better oriented to their condition(s) and choices? We’ll be watching to see how the system evolves to meet patients where they are in a new era of information and empowerment.
Headlines
OpenAI Acquires Health-Care Technology Startup Torch For $60M
ChatGPT for Health lands “unified medical memory” expertise in acquihire CNBC
Hippocratic AI Acquires Grove AI
Companies join forces to build life sciences agentic AI platform Fierce Healthcare
Trump Releases Health Care Plan Amid Pressure Over Affordability
Prescription drug prices are the primary target of new proposals STAT
Lilly, Nvidia Tag On Partnership With New AI Co-Innovation Lab, $1B Investment
Real world lab data to train AI models is a key focus Fierce Healthcare
Recent Funding
- VieCure, intelligent software platform for oncology care, raises $43M to accelerate expansion
- Medical imaging data platform Flywheel closes on $27.5M
- RISA Labs, AI operating system for oncology workflows nabs $11.1M
- Carna Health raises $8M to expand global access to its chronic kidney care platform
- Xella Health, focused on virtual care and precision health for women, locks down $3.7M