The AI Daily Brief: Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis
How People Are Using AI for Health
09 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of AI's impact on health?
Today on the AI Daily Brief, how people are using AI for health, and before that in the headlines, wouldn't be another year in AI without billions of dollars in fundraising. The AI Daily Brief is a daily podcast and video about the most important news and discussions in AI. All right, friends, quick notes before we dive in.
First of all, thank you to today's sponsors, Optimizely, Zencoder, Robots and Pencils, and Superintelligent. To get an ad-free version of the show, which starts at three bucks a month, go to patreon.com slash ai-dailybrief, or you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts. If you're interested in sponsoring the show, you can send us a note at sponsors at ai-dailybrief.ai.
And while you're at AIDailyBrief.ai, you also might notice something interesting. Here in our list of options, there is a new option called AI Strategy Compass Join the Beta. Long-time listeners will have heard me talk frequently about Superintelligent, a platform that helps companies figure out what AI to use and where.
But now we're taking what we do in a hands-on and research-intensive way and turning it into a platform that is effectively a power tool for AI strategists. So if you are someone who is responsible for AI transformation and AI adoption in your company, I want you to join this beta. I've only got a very small number of slots for this first wave.
So again, if you are an AI strategist, anyone who's responsible for AI transformation and adoption, go to AIdailybrief.ai slash compass, or just click on number five on AIdailybrief.ai, fill out the form, and we will be in touch very soon. Now with that out of the way, let's get to today's episode.
Welcome back to the AI Daily Brief Headlines Edition, all the daily AI news you need in around five minutes. We kick off today with a slate of fundraising stories. 2026 appears to be every bit as active as 2025 was when it comes to massive amounts of private capital flowing into AI startup leaders. The first news is that Anthropic is raising $10 billion at a $350 billion valuation.
Now, Anthropic raising a bunch more money is not at all a surprise. Throughout the course of 2025, we saw their revenue accelerating at a rate even faster than OpenAI. Just yesterday, the entire episode was about how enamored of Claude Code and Opus 4.5 everyone is. So a big investment round was always in the cards.
At the same time, doubling your valuation from just four months ago, it is a serious sign of strength. According to the Wall Street Journal, the round will be led by Coatu and Singapore Sovereign Wealth Fund, GIC. CNBC confirms that a term sheet has been signed with the round expected to close in the coming weeks.
Now, one of the interesting questions is what this suggests for IPO prospects this year. One of, not the only, but certainly one of the questions when it comes to whether Anthropic or OpenAI will decide to go public this year is just how much capital remains available to them in the private markets.
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Chapter 2: How are people using ChatGPT for healthcare inquiries?
He points out that the $7.5 million in revenue that they've commanded so far is new revenue in a category that previously didn't exist. The real story, however, he says, is the flywheel they built. 35 million users show up to play a game. Two anonymous AI responses pick your favorite. Those users generate 60 million conversations per month.
That data becomes the most trusted benchmark in the industry. OpenAI, Google, and XAI all need their models on that leaderboard, so they pay to get evaluated. The harder question, he says, is whether this holds. Ultimately, though, he points out, evaluation just became a billion-dollar category. Now, it's not just private investors who are excited about AI right now.
Google has surpassed Apple to become the second most valuable company in the world. Wednesday's market action saw Google stock rise by 2.5% to reach a $3.9 trillion market cap, overtaking Apple for the first time since 2019. The flip was emblematic of how the two tech giants are navigating the AI era.
Google used 2024 and 2025 to get fit, overhauling their AI org and releasing several groundbreaking models to catch up to the state of the art. Apple, on the other hand, suffered huge attrition in their AI staff, saw the resignation of their AI lead, and still haven't released the Apple intelligence features they showcased back in 2024.
Looking ahead, the question will be whether Google can make a run at NVIDIA to become the most valuable company in the world. They'll need another 18% gain to close that gap, but some analysts think that's likely. Canaccord analyst Maria Ripps maintained her buy rating on a Wednesday note and lifted her price target to reflect a further 21% gain.
While Google executed well in 2025, they still have a ton of catalysts to roll out in this new year as well. They're launching their TPU chips as an external product for the first time, which presents challenges but also huge opportunities. But there's also other things like their Waymo division hitting an inflection point as AI-enabled self-driving cars reach maturation.
Some folks, including me in my 2026 predictions, think that this year Google will catch up and overtake the juggernaut that is NVIDIA. Today, Google surpassed Apple to become the second biggest company in the world. Only a matter of time until they are number one. When, not if.
If they stay on the trajectory they are on, I agree wholeheartedly, but for now, that is going to do it for today's AI Daily Brief headlines. Next up, the main episode. Most marketing teams aren't short on ideas, but what they are short on is time. And that's exactly what Optimizely Opal gives you back, with AI agents that handle real marketing workflows.
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Chapter 3: What healthcare challenges does AI aim to address?
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That's robotsandpencils.com slash AI Daily Brief. Today's episode is brought to you by But now we want to empower the folks inside your team who are responsible for that transformation with an even more direct platform. Our forthcoming AI Strategy Compass tool is ready to start to be tested.
This is a power tool for anyone who is responsible for AI adoption or AI transformation inside their companies. It's going to allow you to do a lot of the things that we do at Superintelligent, but in a much more automated, self-managed way and with a totally different cost structure.
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Chapter 4: How does ChatGPT Health enhance user experience?
If you are interested in checking it out, go to ai-dailybrief.ai slash compass, fill out the form, and we will be in touch soon.
Welcome back to the AI Daily Brief. ChatGPT has introduced ChatGPT Health, and this is both surprising and not surprising all at once. It's surprising in the sense that there has seemed at times in the past to be questions around how OpenAI wanted to handle people using ChatGPT in this way.
It has appeared that the company has had concerns around people looking to ChatGPT as an alternative to their GP or doctor and the potential legal implications for that type of use, but clearly something has shifted and they are ready to lean in.
Now why it's not surprising is that this has seemed like a very big use case for some time and recent data that the company shared made it clear just how big a use case it is. Earlier in the week, OpenAI released a report called AI as a Healthcare Ally, How Americans are Navigating the System with ChatGPT.
In that report, they shared that over 40 million weekly active users globally prompt about healthcare every single day. One in four weekly active users prompt about healthcare each week, which for those doing the math is over 200 million users. Overall, more than 5% of all chat GPT messages globally are about healthcare. And so what are they asking?
55% are using chat GPT to check or explore symptoms, basically what we used to do with WebMD. 52% are using it to ask questions at any time of day. In other words, get fast information when you have a concern rather than having to wait for when your doctor is available. 48% are using it to understand medical terms or instructions, given that medicine is in many cases a literal different language.
and 44% are using it to learn about treatment options. OpenAI shares the truism that, as they put it, the healthcare system in the US is a long-standing and worsening pain point for many. And outside of that high-level data, there's even more interesting indications of just how powerful and in what ways AI can be a healthcare assistant.
Based on anonymized ChatGPT message data, OpenAI found that nearly 2 million messages a week focus on health insurance specifically. That includes everything from comparing plans and understanding prices to handling claims and billing. In underserved communities, users send an average of nearly 600,000 healthcare-related messages each week.
It also appears that outside-of-regular-hours thing really matters, as 7 in 10 health conversations in ChatGPT happen outside of the normal hours that a clinic would be available. According to an OpenAI survey, 3 in 5 US adults report having used AI tools for health or healthcare issues in the past three months. And it actually really does seem like it's solving a problem.
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Chapter 5: What specific features does ChatGPT Health offer?
But it can make a near-term contribution by helping people in underserved areas interpret information, prepare for care, and navigate gaps in access, while helping rare clinicians reclaim time and reduce burnout. Now, speaking of healthcare professionals, the report also talks about how they're using AI.
They found that between 2023 and 2024, the percentage of American physicians who reported using AI for at least one use case jumped from 38 to 66%, and that survey data shows that 46% of U.S. nurses use AI at least once a week.
The report closes with some ideas around how we could safely expand the use of AI in healthcare, including ideas like opening and securely connecting the world's medical data to speed up scientific discovery, supporting workers' transitions into new healthcare professions that will be created and expanded by AI, and clarifying the regulatory pathway for AI medical devices for consumer use.
So all of this came out on Monday of this week, pretty clearly setting up what happened next, which was the launch on Wednesday of ChatGPT Health. OpenAI's CEO of applications, Fiji Simo, wrote, She expanded on this in a larger blog post called What AI Can Do for a Broken System.
She started with a personal story of being in a hospital for a kidney stone and a secondary infection that had developed. After the resident in charge prescribed the usual antibiotic for that kind of infection, Fiji asked for a couple minutes before it was administered.
She wrote, Because I've been dealing with a chronic illness for years, I had already uploaded a lot of my health records into ChatGPT.
She said that the resident was relieved and was glad Fiji had caught it, and when Fiji asked why it wasn't caught by someone at the hospital instead, the resident explained that she only has five minutes per patient when making rounds, and health records aren't organized in a way that would make that sort of risk clearer.
Fiji goes on to argue that within the context of four key problems with the healthcare system today, AI potentially has a role to play in addressing each one. The first is the problem she had just described, which is doctors not having enough bandwidth. AI has the potential to absorb much more information and help medical professionals make better decisions.
It can also help that medical information be more understandable for the patients. The second problem, she writes, is that the healthcare system is fragmented, but health requires looking at the full picture. Once again, potentially AI could be in the repository for a much broader set of context.
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Chapter 6: How are healthcare professionals integrating AI tools?
And while ChatGPT can use context from non-health chats to improve a health conversation, it cannot go the other way. Health information and memories do not flow back into non-health chats, and non-health conversations can't access files, conversations, or memories created within health.
They also say that they built this in collaboration with more than 260 physicians who have practiced in 60 countries who have provided feedback on outputs over 600,000 times across 30 areas of focus. Now, right now, this is not generally available. You have to sign up for a waitlist. But people are already starting to weigh in.
Simon Smith of ClickHealth wrote, I work in life sciences and ChatGPT Health is a big deal. One, it will be available to all users, 900 million plus people. Two, it will be secured for health use, encrypted and isolated. Three, it will have key health app integrations and medical records. Four, it will be customizable with health-specific instructions.
And five, trusted 260 doctors have given feedback 600,000 times. He wrote, I personally use ChatGPT for health extensively. I have a health project and have uploaded loads of information into it, including genetic information. I also update biometrics in that project monthly, and having direct integration with Apple Health will be awesome.
Now, one of the things that people seem most excited about is the ability to correlate data from different sources. When Simon wrote, question for Fiji Simo or whoever is the product lead for ChatGPT Health, can I run custom analysis of Apple health data with charts?
Like, can I ask a question like, how do my daily steps correlate with how well I sleep and get a chart that cross-references the data? Fiji said, yes, you can definitely do this and then actually gave an example of a coworker asking exactly that. Simon reposted and said, I've tried to do biometric correlations in Apple health, but it's a pain in the butt.
Fiji replied to say, yes, we'll be able to run correlations right in ChatGPT Health. Very excited for this. And this correlation seems to be a big deal. Morgan Linton asks, curious if this can pull in data from whoop and function health and cross-reference. That's the main thing that's been missing for me is connecting blood test results with sleep exercise and heart rate data.
Another reaction, of course, as with any launch from OpenAI, is about all the startups that just became redundant. Dilip Kumar writes, I meet dozens of AI health startups every week and can tell you this is a big deal. Most of them will become redundant once this gets adoption. Your medical triaging, nutrition, fitness training, rehab, mental health, all in one place.
Or as Dr. Danish put it, 35 different digital health startups just died.
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Chapter 7: What are the privacy concerns surrounding AI in healthcare?
Another thread of commentary is about how this creates a new type of defensibility. Akash Gupta writes, this is a data moat play disguised as a feature launch. The numbers tell the story. He basically says, if so many people are already using ChatGPT for health, why build a special set of features? With the answer being, because right now those conversations are ephemeral.
Users upload a lab result, get an answer, and the context evaporates. OpenAI can't train on it, can't personalize future responses, can't build compounding value. Connect your EHR and Apple Health? Now every conversation has continuity. Your lipid panel from April, your statin prescription from May, your flu shot from last year.
All indexed, all searchable, all making the model more useful to you specifically. This creates a switching cost that's almost impossible to replicate. Google has search history. Meta has social graphs. OpenAI is building the health graph. Simon Smith again points out, And yet, of course, it is not all that hard to find critics. One strand of criticism continues to be that OpenAI is not focused.
Journalist Shaquille Hashim writes, My take from last summer that OpenAI is way too distracted to succeed continues to age beautifully. Timo Springer writes, It's no surprise that ChatGPT is struggling in losing market share. The product has become increasingly confusing for about 18 months. Features are launched and never touched again.
Core workflows such as projects and GPTs perform significantly worse than competition. Newer features such as apps are brought to market half-baked. ChatGPT urgently needs a cleanup and improvement of its core product. AI entrepreneur Ethan Ding, however, doesn't agree. He says this is a common take, but OpenAI's internal strategy is remarkably sound. AI products are all or nothing.
Good ones require no focus, see coding and chat GPT. No way to test without shipping to market. Keep shipping till you hit the next jackpot.
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Chapter 8: What future developments can we expect in AI healthcare?
Only jackpots can justify its valuation. Still, maybe the more obvious and potentially problematic critique is around privacy. Josh Long writes, So far, zero response from anyone at OpenAI regarding who at the company can decrypt and view your health data and for what purposes. That's concerning, to say the least. And the vague claims about privacy and security in the blog post aren't helpful.
Jonathan Shedler writes, you guys do what you want, but I'm a healthcare provider and there's no way I would upload my private medical data to an AI and no way in hell I would upload mental health information. I am completely sympathetic to that point of view, and I'm sure that there will be many people who feel that way, but as someone who has spent a long time
sitting around industries and projects that are convinced that people should care more about their privacy and data sovereignty than they actually do, I don't think there's any chance that in general, those types of concerns will stop people who want answers about their health from just uploading an utter boatload of information to this system, even if others think they shouldn't.
Now, obviously, I am someone for whom my major use cases around AI are all for work. However, this is one where I'm about to go sign up for this waitlist. I have vibe-coded numerous applications to try to tweak around highly specific health goals that I have, and I'm very excited to see it natively built into ChatGPT. For now, that is going to do it for today's AI Daily Brief.
Until next time, peace.
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