OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and media veteran Arianna Huffington are combining their passions for technology and health to launch an A.I. coach to assist those struggling with chronic disease. The new venture, called Thrive A.I. Health, is backed by Huffington’s wellness startup Thrive Global and the OpenAI Startup Fund, a venture capital fund associated with OpenAI but doesn’t receive funding from the A.I. company.
“So much of the conversation around A.I. has been about how much time it will save us and how productive it will make us,” said Altman and Huffington in a Time op-ed published July 7. “But A.I. could go well beyond efficiency and optimization to something much more fundamental: improving both our health spans and our lifespans.”
This isn’t the first time the tech world has attempted to integrate A.I. into health solutions. Google (GOOGL) recently unveiled plans to use large language models to analyze Fitbit data in order to provide health advice, while OpenAI earlier this month began working with the startup Color Health to use A.I. for cancer screenings and treatment.
Thrive A.I. Health is differentiated by its “hyper-personalized” A.I. health coach, which will be made available through a mobile app and Thrive Global products, as announced yesterday (July 8). Disease prevention and optimization is key for the nearly 130 million Americans suffering from a major chronic disease, said Altman and Huffington, who noted that 90 percent of the nation’s annual $4.1 trillion in health care spending went into treating these conditions.
The OpenAI Startup Fund, which had $175 million in commitments last year, has previously invested in health-focused A.I. startups like Ambiance Healthcare. The fund was launched in 2021 and temporarily led by Altman until May, when control was transferred to fund partner Ian Hathaway. Altman himself has a strong interest in wellness, according to the Time op-ed, which noted that he pursues activities like exercise and meditation to “deal with his stress and anxiety and be more able to stay in the eye of the hurricane.”
Huffington, meanwhile, is best known for co-founding the Huffington Post. She stepped away from the publication in 2016 to focus on Thrive Global, which utilizes media and technology for wellness solutions. Huffington has also explored health and wellness by authoring numerous books on the topic, including the 2016 The Sleep Revolution.
In addition to lead investments from Thrive Global and the OpenAI Startup Fund, which declined to disclose the amount of their funding,
Thrive A.I. Health counts Alice Walton, the heiress of the philanthropic foundation of Walmart, as a strategic investor. The Alice L. Walton School of Medicine will also act as a health partner alongside Stanford Medicine and the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute at West Virginia University. The new venture tapped DeCarlos Love, a former product manager at Google focused on health and fitness experiences, as its CEO.
Thrive A.I. Health will use biometric and lab data to learn personal preferences and patterns across the daily behaviors of sleep, food, walking, movement, stress management and social connection. By tapping into resources from OpenAI and Thrive Global, it plans to provide precise health recommendations tailored to each user that could range from nudging someone to swap a can of soda for lemon water to reminding them to take an afternoon walk.
Using A.I. to enact daily wellness changes is just the beginning, according to Altman and Huffington, who in their Time article compared the technology’s potential impact to Great Depression-era programs and reforms. “In the same way the New Deal built out physical infrastructure to transform the country, A.I. will serve as part of the critical infrastructure in a much more effective health care system that supports everyday people’s health in an ongoing way,” they said.
