ETtech Explainer: What OpenAI’s new ‘health’ feature means for its second-largest user market, India

OpenAI has created a standalone interface on ChatGPT called ‘Health’ for medical queries, personal health data, and fitness tracking, enabling users to refer to reports, share records and integrate information from popular wellness platforms in one place.

The addition shows how health advice and information-seeking have emerged as a major reason people turn to conversational AI, with usage continuing to grow across markets such as India. The feature is being presented as a helper, not a medical expert. OpenAI says it is meant to assist users in understanding reports, preparing questions for doctors, and keeping track of overall wellbeing, rather than offering diagnoses or treatment.

Will understanding lab reports and medical documents now be easier?


Traditionally, making sense of lab reports means a lot of anxious Googling or rushing to doctors' clinics. According to OpenAI, ‘Health’ will help users in summarizing the document in plain language, translating medical jargon, highlighting what looks out of range, and suggesting a short, practical list of questions to ask a doctor.

But medical professionals warn that while such tools can offer clarity, they cannot replace clinical judgment.

“If you want to interpret one test report, that’s fine. But medical decisions are based on multiple variables and priorities — when there are multiple tests and conditions, you have to link them together, and that’s something a tool like ChatGPT can’t reliably do,” said Dr Rajiv Kovil, a Mumbai-based consultant diabetologist.

Does this raise the bar for Indian startups building AI-led healthcare tools?

For startups, this shifts the emphasis from simply explaining routine test reports like complete blood count, thyroid or lipid panels, and towards strengths that are much harder to copy, such as trust, integration into clinical workflows, measurable health outcomes, and strong distribution across doctors, hospitals, diagnostic labs, employers and insurers.

“Foundation models will keep extending into more verticals, and health is likely the first. For a couple of years there will be turbulence because the big horizontal platforms will offer what vertical apps offer and often free. The wrappers will suffer; the ones with real IP, data and clinical depth will survive and even gain,” said Jaspreet Bindra, Founder and Author, AI&Beyond, Tech Whisperer Ltd.

So, as general-purpose AI platforms start bundling health features, the competitive edge for Indian startups will increasingly come from their model’s credibility and clinical validation.

OpenAI is not alone in pushing AI into healthcare. Anthropic has also introduced a healthcare-focused version of its Claude chatbot, built for use by hospitals, insurers and patients in regulated medical settings. This shows the rising competition among large AI platforms to gain a foothold in specialised healthcare applications. The move comes just two days after OpenAI unveiled its health feature.

“The opportunity for healthcare startups is precisely this, how do they build trust among consumers — faster and sooner — because that’s the real moat,” said Dilip Kumar, who leads health investments at Rainmatter Health.

How safe is it to share medical data with an AI platform?

A wave of tech companies is moving into healthcare, betting that better AI can spot patterns in personal health data and turn them into more tailored guidance. But the same shift also heightens anxiety around privacy and safety, because these systems would be handling deeply sensitive medical information and nudging users on high-stakes health decisions.

“The only health product that has really worked at scale is Apple Health, and a big reason is trust—Apple has built its brand around privacy, so people are more willing to share sensitive data there. Most others haven’t worked because people simply don’t trust them with their personal health records,” Bindra added.