Dr ChatGPT is here. What does it mean for users and healthtech?

ChatGPT Health is an extension of the existing chatbot, offering a dedicated space for health, while the latter aims to automate workflows for healthcare organizations, a niche where Indian healthtech firms are attracting investor interest.

These products are likely to disrupt the patient care landscape in India and impact startups working on the same solutions.

So what does this really mean? Mint explains.

What’s up?

ChatGPT Health allows users to enter their medical records and lab tests, ask health questions, integrate wearable health devices and wellness apps, and even track their GLP-1 usage. The tool helps users understand lab results, prepare for doctor appointments, and design diet and exercise plans.

There is a waitlist and the service is available to users with ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus and Pro plans outside the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

ChatGPT for Healthcare, on the other hand, offers high-quality answers and relevant medical research to help clinicians and researchers diagnose patients faster. It also targets organizations for administrative use cases with products such as shared templates for common tasks such as drafting discharge summaries, patient instructions, clinical letters, and prior authorization support.

ChatGPT for Healthcare is already available at some leading US institutions, including Boston Children’s Hospital, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Stanford Medicine Children’s Health, and the University of California, San Francisco.

How will this affect patients?

In fact, using ChatGPT for health is not a new phenomenon. Health is one of the most common ways people use the chatbot, OpenAI said in a blog post. More than 230 million people ask questions about health and wellness every week.

But clinicians and researchers have warned of risks of bias when using AI systems for health advice, particularly around mental health, eating disorders or drug use guidance.

But clinicians and researchers have warned of risks of bias when using AI systems for health advice, particularly around mental health, eating disorders or drug use guidance.

A few years ago, until AI became a go-to tool, doctors were growing tired of people consulting Google or WebMD and then approaching them with their minds made up. The transition is simple, instead of searching on Google, they will now just use ChatGPT.

To be clear, most companies in the healthtech space offer services for health triage, not diagnosis, and say so in their terms and conditions and in the chatbot interfaces patients use. OpenAI says as much in its blog post: “Healthcare is designed to supplement, not replace, medical care. It is not intended to diagnose or treat.”

There are also concerns about data privacy. ChatGPT says Health is “built as a private domain with additional protections for sensitive health information” and that information uploaded to the health domain will not be used to train models.

But experts have repeatedly warned users against handing over private and sensitive data to AI companies without reading detailed information and silent changes to policies.

Who are the other players in the industry?

Many health tech companies in the US and India have raised money to solve some of the problems OpenAI has solved with ChatGPT Health.

Many companies in India have chosen to become vertical solution providers. Companies are targeting specific parts of the patient lifecycle to either make them more efficient or redefine the interaction between patients and doctors.

Eka Care, backed by Hummingbird Ventures, 3one4 Capital and Speciale Invest, aims to create electronic medical records for patients, allowing doctors in India to access their history without having to deal with paperwork.

Course.ai specializes in using AI to automate the interpretation of radiology exams for early detection of lung cancer, tuberculosis, and stroke, but it also has another product called AIRA that acts as a transcription bot. Similarly, Jivi.ai uses an AI agent to initially identify symptoms before connecting patients to a doctor, and also provides lab reporting, x-ray evaluations, and more.

Health-related transcription companies in the US raised huge amounts of money last year. Ambience Healthcare raised $243 million from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Oak HC/FT. Similarly, Abridge raised $300 million in Series E led by a16z and Khosla Ventures; Elise AI also raised $250 million in a round from a16z with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners and Sapphire Ventures. Nable raised $70 million in June 2025 to expand its AI for clinician workflows; Heidi Health raised $65 million Series B from Point72 Private Investments.

Especially in both the US and India, most of these companies are B2B, while in India, very few target the consumer segment. Experts say the main reason for this is that it is difficult to make money in the Indian or US market. Particularly in India, reaching consumers in a segment that is reactive rather than proactive requires dealing with the price-sensitive nature of the market. Profit pools remain in corporate interventions, whether it be sales of software to hospitals, private diagnostics or insurance.

What does this mean for users and the industry?

Despite OpenAI’s warnings, ChatGPT was already a source of medical advice for many people before the launch of ChatGPT Health. However, with this product, the company actually says “we have resolved any possible problems, go ahead and use our products for your health.”

Although doctors in India warn that patients adapt ChatGPT to their own symptoms, there is still a high level of trust in the drug. Consumers prefer to talk to doctors face to face or over the phone. It may take some time for ChatGPT Health to make meaningful headway in India.

Additionally, medicine in India and, by extension, the symptoms of diseases and illnesses will manifest very differently than in the rest of the world.

Doctors have expressed concerns about misdiagnoses, patients self-diagnosing using artificial intelligence or delays in seeking medical help. OpenAI says on its blog that ChatGPT health is designed to help users navigate medical care, not replace it.

As for the enterprise side, OpenAI is entering a new sector and exploring another way to reduce risks in revenue streams. But for most B2B companies in the healthtech space, this is a warning that a larger player could take their vertical solution and do it better.

Some major US healthtech startups, such as Abridge, Ambience, and Elise, are already using the OpenAI API to power their workflows and technology ecosystems.

OpenAI for Healthcare also includes access to underlying models built for healthcare workflows, making much of the work startups do on their own obsolete.

While many B2B healthtech companies already use OpenAI’s APIs for their workflows, the company’s entry into the healthcare industry will mean that startups will increasingly need to consider how their products stand out while offering better pricing, more efficient solutions, and differentiation on underlying IP.

Fundamentally, whether early-stage or late-stage, startups will need to rethink how they approach issues around medical prioritization, nutrition, fitness training, rehabilitation, and mental health.