At this level, it is protected to assume you have used a chatbot like ChatGPT or Gemini. Apart from asking normal questions or getting lengthy texts summarized, you may need requested a well being query, too. Perhaps you have been making an attempt to determine if a symptom was value worrying about, or make sense of lab outcomes, typically late at evening when a physician is not accessible.
OpenAI’s January 2026 report discovered that greater than 5% of all ChatGPT messages globally are about well being care, and greater than 40 million weekly energetic customers worldwide ask well being care questions on daily basis.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s father or mother firm, in 2025 filed a lawsuit towards OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in coaching and working its AI techniques.)
In January 2026, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Well being to flip that behavior right into a devoted characteristic. This “health-focused expertise” inside ChatGPT is designed to provide help to perceive medical data and put together for actual conversations with clinicians.
It’s not a prognosis or therapy instrument.
So what precisely is ChatGPT Well being, and how does it differ from asking a chatbot a random well being query? Let’s double-click the new Well being tab in ChatGPT.
What is ChatGPT Well being?
ChatGPT Well being is not a separate app like its AI browser, Atlas. It lives inside ChatGPT as a devoted house or tab, specializing in health-related questions, paperwork and workflows.
The Well being tab in ChatGPT.
In its launch notice, OpenAI says it labored with greater than 260 physicians who’ve practiced in 60 nations and dozens of specialties over two years, reviewing health-related mannequin responses greater than 600,000 occasions. In consequence, it does not reply something that sounds medical in the identical open-ended manner as a traditional chat. As a substitute, it responds extra cautiously, with stricter limits on how data is defined and clearer prompts to search skilled care.
ChatGPT Well being is obtainable on the net and in the cellular app. You do not want to obtain something or enroll outdoors ChatGPT itself. Entry is dependent upon location and rollout stage, however you possibly can be part of the waitlist.
As of early 2026, it’s accessible in the US, Canada, Australia, components of Asia and Latin America, the place ChatGPT already helps well being options. It is not presently accessible in the EU and the European Financial Space, the UK, China and Russia. OpenAI has mentioned availability will broaden, however timelines range by area due to native laws and well being information guidelines.
How ChatGPT Well being works
ChatGPT Well being makes use of the identical underlying massive language fashions (LLMs) as ChatGPT. You ask a query, and the mannequin generates a response. The distinction with Well being is context, grounding and constraints.
Alex Kotlar, founding father of Bystro AI, a genetics-focused LLM platform for well being insights, instructed CNET that OpenAI did not construct a brand new foundational well being mannequin.
“They have not created a mannequin that all of a sudden understands medical information a lot better. It is nonetheless ChatGPT, simply linked to your medical information,” Kotlar mentioned.
Well being attracts from the information you select to sync, however it may possibly’t entry it until you explicitly grant permission. Apart from medical information, you possibly can join apps comparable to Apple Well being, lab outcomes from Operate and meals logs from MyFitnessPal. You may also hyperlink Weight Watchers for GLP-1 meal concepts, Instacart to flip meal plans into purchasing lists and Peloton for exercise suggestions. This enables the AI to present customized insights based mostly in your historical past, fairly than generic recommendation.
These conversations now observe stricter guidelines round tone, sourcing and response type, which OpenAI says it exams utilizing its analysis framework, HealthBench. It makes use of physician-written rubrics to grade mannequin responses throughout 5,000 simulated well being conversations, making use of greater than 48,000 particular standards to assess high quality and security.
You can add paperwork to Well being, use voice command and do every thing you’d usually do in common chat. If you happen to’re reviewing a number of check outcomes or prepping for a specialist go to, Well being can hold observe of what you’ve already shared and assist set up data over time.
OpenAI suggests utilizing it to assessment lab outcomes, set up questions earlier than an appointment, translate medical language into plain English and summarize lengthy paperwork like discharge notes or insurance coverage explanations.
OpenAI is express that the instrument is supposed to help conversations with well being care professionals, not shortcut them. It could’t order exams, prescribe medicine or affirm a prognosis. If you happen to deal with it like a physician, you are utilizing it incorrectly.
However Dr. Saurabh Gombar, scientific teacher at Stanford Well being Care and chief medical officer at Atropos Well being, instructed CNET, “I believe making ready and schooling itself really already crosses a boundary into being medical recommendation.”
Well being retains conversations, linked apps, information and Well being-specific reminiscence separated out of your foremost chats, so well being particulars don’t circulate again into the remainder of ChatGPT. Nevertheless, Well being can use reminiscence from common chats. Say you talked about a current transfer or way of life change, like turning into vegan. Well being can draw on that context to make the dialog extra related.
It could additionally observe patterns over time. If you happen to join Apple Well being, you possibly can ask about sleep tendencies, exercise patterns or different metrics, then use that abstract to speak to your physician.
ChatGPT Well being and ChatGPT for well being care usually are not the identical
ChatGPT Well being is a shopper characteristic for private wellness. OpenAI’s Assist Heart says HIPAA does not apply to shopper well being merchandise like Well being. HIPAA is the Well being Insurance coverage Portability and Accountability Act, which federally protects a affected person’s delicate well being data from being disclosed with out their consent.
Individually, OpenAI affords “ChatGPT for Healthcare” for organizations that want controls designed for regulated scientific use and help for HIPAA compliance, together with Enterprise Affiliate Agreements (e.g., contracts between well being care suppliers and billing corporations).
If you happen to’re utilizing ChatGPT Well being, you are not getting into a hospital system, regardless that your medical information will be linked with the characteristic. You’re utilizing a shopper product with further protections that OpenAI controls. So do not assume “well being characteristic” robotically equals HIPAA.
Privateness and information controls
OpenAI says Well being provides additional protections on prime of ChatGPT’s current controls, together with “purpose-built encryption and isolation to hold well being conversations protected and compartmentalized.”
An OpenAI spokesperson instructed CNET that conversations and information in ChatGPT are encrypted at relaxation and in transit by default, and that Well being provides further layered protections due to the delicate nature of well being information. The spokesperson added that any worker entry to your Well being information can be restricted to security and safety operations, and that entry is extra restricted and purpose-limited than typical product information flows.
“When shoppers hear that one thing is encrypted, they typically assume that no person can see it. That is not likely the way it works. Encrypted at relaxation doesn’t suggest the firm itself cannot entry the information,” Kotlar mentioned.
You can disconnect apps, take away entry to medical information and delete Well being recollections. Dane Stuckey, OpenAI’s chief data safety officer, additionally says Well being conversations usually are not used to prepare its basis fashions by default.
Nonetheless, “extra protected than common chats” isn’t the identical as risk-free. Even sturdy safety cannot eradicate each threat tied to storing delicate well being data on-line. That is one purpose privateness specialists have urged customers to think twice earlier than importing full medical information into any AI instrument.
Limitations and security issues
ChatGPT Well being might help you perceive data, however it may possibly nonetheless get issues fallacious. There is a threat folks will take Well being’s solutions at face worth. In in the present day’s world, everybody needs solutions quick, and AI can sound convincing even when it must be cautious. Unsurprisingly, ECRI (a affected person security nonprofit) listed AI chatbots as the No. 1 well being expertise normal for 2026.
Hallucinations, the AI behavior of confidently producing incorrect particulars, matter way more in well being care than while you ask it to summarize a PDF. If a instrument fully fabricates a examine, misreads a lab worth or overstates what a symptom means, you would be severely endangering your well being.
“The largest hazard for shoppers is that until they’ve a medical background, they are going to have a tough time evaluating when it is saying one thing proper and when it is saying one thing fallacious,” Kotlar mentioned.
When requested to touch upon hallucination charges, the OpenAI spokesperson mentioned the fashions powering ChatGPT Well being have “dramatically diminished” hallucinations and different high-risk errors in difficult medical conversations. In accordance to OpenAI’s inside HealthBench evaluations, GPT-5 reduces hallucinations in troublesome well being situations by eightfold in contrast with earlier fashions, cuts errors in doubtlessly pressing conditions by greater than 50 occasions in contrast with GPT-4o and exhibits no detected failures in adjusting for world well being context.
The corporate additionally says its newer fashions are considerably extra probably to ask follow-up questions when unsure, which it argues lowers the threat of assured however incorrect responses.
“Corporations behind these instruments want to share that they’ve put these types of checks and balances in place or these benchmarks to be certain that the high quality of the reply is excessive,” Gombar tells CNET.
OpenAI says Well being isn’t supposed for prognosis or therapy and ought to help, not exchange, clinicians’ care.
Kotlar says well being care is advanced and extremely regulated, so instruments like this may be “nice, but in addition form of irresponsible at the identical time,” since rather a lot can nonetheless go fallacious.
Should you employ it?
Folks have been already utilizing ChatGPT for health-related questions even when it wasn’t the proper place to do it. As a result of Well being provides tighter guardrails for medical matters, it could be barely safer than a regular chat for that objective. Even physicians are utilizing AI extra in apply, and that use has practically doubled between 2023 and 2024, in accordance to the American Medical Affiliation, which surveyed simply over 1,100 physicians.
Gombar mentioned interactions between conventional well being care and AI are probably right here to keep, however provides, “there’s room for enchancment and for profit.” Many individuals do not have dependable entry to routine scientific care, and if LLMs can a minimum of assist triage whether or not somebody ought to see a doctor, that alone may very well be significant.
If you happen to’re cautious with the information you share, it may very well be helpful. You can use Well being to translate medical language or draft questions so you do not freeze in a 10-minute appointment. You may also ask it different low-risk questions on weight-reduction plan and train. Simply all the time confirm the data with respected sources or knowledgeable. By no means use it to self-diagnose, determine whether or not to take or cease medicine or interpret a severe symptom.
“Well being care isn’t like coding or writing,” Kotlar mentioned. “When it fails, it fails in methods which can be actually harmful for a human being.”
ChatGPT Well being might help you make sense of data, however it may possibly’t take duty on your well being. Like most AI instruments, its worth is dependent upon how properly you perceive its limits.
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