Key takeaways:
- OpenAI Sam Altman and media pundit Arianna Huffington are launching an AI-powered personal health coach that will give users ultra-personalized health recommendations.
- The app will give nudges and recommendations to get people to adopt good habits in microsteps.
- The companies did not disclose how much the app will cost.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and media pundit Arianna Huffington are banding together to launch a personal health coach app powered by AI that is designed to give ultra-customized recommendations.
Called Thrive AI Health, the AI coach will come in the form of a mobile app or integrated into enterprise products. While today’s digital coaches offer fairly generic recommendations like reminding one to take a pill or signaling that bedtime approaches, Thrive AI seeks to go deeper.
“The AI health coach will make possible very precise recommendations tailored to each person: swap your third afternoon soda with water and lemon; go on a 10-minute walk with your child after you pick them up from school at 3:15 p.m.; start your wind-down routine at 10 p.m. since you have to get up at 6 a.m. the next morning to make your flight,” Altman and Huffington jointly wrote in an op-ed in Time.
The AI model behind the app will be trained on the user’s personal biometrics, lab results and medical data – information the user allows it to use. It will learn the user’s preferences and patterns in five areas: sleep, food, exercise, socialization and stress management.
Behaviors play a “significant” role in people’s health, and “by adopting healthier habits in these five behaviors, people can make dramatic improvements in health outcomes,” the companies said in a statement.
The AI model also will be trained on peer-reviewed scientific principles and the behavior change methodology of Thrive Global, which Huffington founded and leads as CEO. Core to this methodology is the idea of microsteps, or incremental changes in behavior to improve physical and mental health for the long run.
“Change your habits and you quite literally change your life,” Huffington wrote in her company’s blog post. “But as most people have learned, unlearning bad habits and learning new ones is challenging.” Taking microsteps is supposed to make new habits stick because the changes as small and manageable.
The OpenAI Startup Fund and Thrive Global are the lead investors in Thrive AI Health, with the Alice L. Walton Foundation (of the Walmart family) as a strategic investor.
Thrive AI Health’s new CEO is DeCarlos Love, who led sensors, AI and ML algorithms at Google as well as health and fitness experiences across its devices and platforms.
The companies did not disclose the pricing for the app.
