OpenAI has opened up a new health feature to a much wider audience. According to the company's own blog, "Health in ChatGPT" now lets eligible U.S. users securely connect their medical records and Apple Health data to get more personalized insights and better understand their health.
TechCrunch reports that the feature is being made available to all U.S. users, and that people can plug in personal data from services like Apple Health, Function, and MyFitnessPal.
OpenAI is not being shy about the ambitions here. The Verge reports that the rollout landed on Thursday and came with "big claims." During a briefing, Ashley Alexander, OpenAI's vice president of health product, said the company's models "are now capable of" more than before, according to The Verge's account of the event.
The timing, however, has drawn scrutiny. According to a headline from SFGATE, OpenAI released the health bot just one day after a man alleged that ChatGPT "almost killed him." That juxtaposition — a major push into personal health guidance arriving alongside a serious safety allegation — is the tension running through the coverage.
The sources here do not detail the specifics of the man's allegation or OpenAI's response to it, so those questions remain open.
Why it matters: as AI chatbots move from answering general questions to handling sensitive medical records and offering health insights to millions of people, the stakes of getting an answer wrong rise sharply — making the gap between a company's confident claims and reported safety concerns something worth watching closely.