Microsoft announced a new Copilot feature that can access users’ private medical records and deliver “personalized health insights that you can act on,” joining other AI titans in the push toward “medical superintelligence” as the medical community voices concerns.
Key Takeaways
- The feature, called Copilot Health, works by combining health records, data from wearable devices like smart watches and health history provided by the user via AI.
- Copilot Health connects to real‑time U.S. provider directories so users can search for clinicians by specialty, location, languages spoken and insurance coverage.
- Microsoft has become the latest Big Tech firm foraying into AI for medical use, joining Google, OpenAI (which introduced ChatGPT Health in January) and Amazon, which launched Health AI assistant this week.
- It isn’t meant to “replace your doctor,” Microsoft said, but is more time-efficient.
- The service will be made available through a phased rollout, with a waitlist opening on Thursday.
Chief Critics
Physicians at top institutions have raised concerns about users relying on AI for medical advice. In a study published in “Nature Medicine” last month, researchers simulated real-world usage of AI chatbots for medical advice by presenting participants with health scenarios. After interacting with the bots, participants correctly identified the hypothetical condition only about one-third of the time. Just 43% chose the appropriate next step, such as whether to seek emergency care or remain at home. According to OpenAI, this has become a common usage, with more than 40 million people asking ChatGPT for health advice every day, accounting for more than 5% of all messages to the chatbot. “AI just isn’t ready to take on the role of the physician,” said author Dr. Rebecca Payne from the University of Oxford. Her co-author, Dr. Andrew Bean, added: “Doctors are trained to ask you questions about symptoms you might not have realized you should have mentioned… people don’t know what they are supposed to be telling the model.”
Big Number
50 million. That’s how many health-related questions Microsoft AI already responds to every day, according to the company.
Tangent
Elon Musk has repeatedly encouraged X users to use chatbot Grok for medical advice, despite it not having a dedicated health feature. In February, he posted, “Just take a picture of your medical data or upload the file to get a second opinion from Grok,” to which the chatbot itself pushed back by saying it’s not a medical professional and strongly recommending users not to share “sensitive info” in the replies.
This article was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
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