February 03, 2026
Should You Encourage Employees to Use OpenAI’s New ChatGPT Health App?
Last month, medical AI had a major shake-up in both the consumer and enterprise space. OpenAI launched its ChatGPT Health app, allowing users to upload their medical information for rapid insights into their health. Alongside this, it released ChatGPT for Healthcare, an app to assist medical professionals with their daily work. The AI company has also acquired a health-focused startup, Torch, for around $60 million to help power the data layer behind both of these tools. Shortly after, competitor Anthropic announced Claude for healthcare providers.
The rollout of ChatGPT Health is already underway. In its announcement on January 7th, OpenAI revealed it plans to “expand access and make Health available to all users on web and iOS in the coming weeks”. EEA, UK and Swiss users will have to wait, as regulatory concerns are being assessed. Regardless, millions will soon be able to upload not only their medical records, but their health information from a variety of sources, including Apple Health, Function, MyFitnessPal, Weight Watcher, AllTrails, Instacart, and Peloton.
Evidently the wheels are already in motion in terms of availability, but is it worth pausing before handing over your private medical information or encouraging others to do so and to what extent should we be relying on these AI chatbots?
The Benefits: A Doctor in Your Pocket
This is the big selling point. You can use the app to interpret symptoms, understand medical records, review lab results, and connect health data into a single place. It could provide a holistic diagnosis based on all aspects of your health, synthesising both mental and physical health data to deliver insights that could even prove to be lifesaving.
AI health tools may help employees better understand their health, ask more informed questions, and seek care earlier. There is also potential upside for clinicians. ChatGPT for healthcare could help reduce administrative burden and burnout by assisting medical professionals with documentation, image interpretation, and patient queries. With 76% of frontline workers reporting experiencing burnout in 2025, this could lead to effects of seismic proportions not just for healthcare workers but the positive knock-on effects for their patients too as they unlock more time and energy.
For employers, it could add another powerful tool to a growing ecosystem of AI wellbeing solutions already offered alongside private medical insurance, EAPs, and mental health apps. Given that supporting employees may be more effective than pay in retaining staff, the appeal is obvious.
Concerns: Privacy, Accuracy, and More
Privacy is one of the biggest grounds for objection. BBC News cited campaigners which are raising privacy concerns and there remains a question mark as to whether the new OpenAI feature and other will be made available within the UK. OpenAI claims it deletes health-related memories and allows users to opt for temporary chats, but its assurances may not be enough for more privacy-conscious users.
Your data may be safe now but there is the uncertainty of what the future will bring. It is possible that an insurer may one day gain access to OpenAI’s medical data and use it to inform their decision-making. Enter nightmare scenarios of people being denied insurance because they didn’t log enough runs this month via their RunKeeper app.
Accuracy and appropriate use are fundamentally important too. OpenAI is explicit that ChatGPT Health is designed to “support, not replace, care from clinicians”. That raises an awkward question, however. If it cannot diagnose or treat, how much reliance is appropriate? A key difference between ChatGPT Health and ChatGPT for Healthcare is that medical professionals at least have the knowledge to review the information an AI is giving them, whereas an ordinary Health app user may be more easily misled.
Next, even if you uncover medical insights which require attention or AI recommends an employee to see a specialist, it is not specially trained to also guide them through insurance coverage, provider networks, or outline the necessary costs. What good is information if you can’t act on it?
Responsible AI Management
ChatGPT Health and other related services clearly have real potential both in the long-term and short-term to positively impact the health of users. If you are happy to look past the potential pitfalls when it comes to privacy, then it could be an absolute game-changer for many, provided you can incorporate the crucial caveat that the advice may be partly or wholly inaccurate. Of course, any serious medical condition will still require doctors, and it is not yet clear, particularly in countries where healthcare is not free, such as the US, exactly how someone is going to achieve that.
Employers will also have the responsibility of ensuring their employees understand it to be an educational support tool. How do you get this message across and where exactly do you advise people to draw the line between information you should accept and question? This is clearly going to be another area where the responsibility around AI is hazy. Will OpenAI be accountable for its chatbot’s advice, would the training data sources be to blame, the company that recommended ChatGPT Health, or the user themselves?
US employees recently pointed to certain workplace changes creating more stress than progress and, without clearer guardrails and guidelines, some healthcare AI solutions may risk falling into this category too.
