An impressive 129 million Americans we have at least one serious chronic illness – and 90% of our $4.1 billion in annual healthcare spending goes toward treating these physical and mental health conditions. This financial and personal cost is only designed to grow.
We know this is unsustainable. But there are solutions, because health outcomes are shaped by more than just medical care or genes. Behavior change can be a miracle drug, both for preventing disease and optimizing disease treatment.
Yes, behavior change is difficult. But through hyper-personalization, it’s also something that AI is uniquely positioned to solve.
AI is already massively accelerating the rate of scientific progress in medicine – offering advances in drug development, diagnostics and increasing the rate of scientific progress around diseases such as cancer. In fact, OpenAI is partnering with Color Health on an AI co-pilot to help doctors with cancer screening and creating treatment plans after a doctor’s diagnosis.
But humans are more than medical profiles. Every aspect of our health is profoundly influenced by the five fundamental daily behaviors: sleep, eating, movement, stress management, and social connection. And AI, by using the power of hyper-personalization, can significantly improve these behaviors.
These are the ideas behind Thrive AI Health, the company that the OpenAI Startup Fund and Thrive Global are jointly funding to build a personalized, hyper-personalized AI health coach which will be available as a mobile app and also in Thrive Global enterprise products. You will be trained in the best peer-reviewed science as well as Thrive’s behavior change methodology-Including Microstepswhich are small daily acts that cumulatively lead to healthier habits. And you will also be trained in the personal biometric, laboratory and other medical data you have chosen to share with him. It will learn your preferences and patterns across the five behaviors: what conditions allow you to get quality sleep; what foods you love and don’t love; as and when you’re most likely to walk, move, and stretch; and the most effective ways to reduce stress. Combine this with a superhuman long-term memory and you have a fully integrated AI personal coach that offers unique suggestions and recommendations in real time, allowing you to take action on your daily behaviors to improve your health.
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Consider what it’s like to be a busy diabetes professional. You may be struggling to control your blood sugar levels, often missing meals and exercise due to a hectic schedule. A personalized AI health coach, trained on your medical data and daily routines, can provide timely reminders to take your medications, suggest quick, healthy meal options, and encourage you to take short exercise breaks.
Most health recommendations right now, while important, are generic: your patient portal might send you an automatic reminder to get a flu shot or mammogram, or your smartwatch might send you a signal to breathe or stay standing. The AI health coach will make very precise recommendations adapted to each person possible: exchange your third soft drink of the afternoon for water and lemon; go for a 10-minute walk with your child after picking them up from school at 3:15 p.m.; start your relaxation routine at 10pm, as you will have to wake up at 6am the next morning to catch your flight.
Using AI in this way would also amplify and democratize the benefits of improving life-saving daily habits and address growing health inequalities. Those with the most resources are already in the power to change behavior, with access to trainers, chefs and life coaches. But since chronic diseases — like diabetes and cardiovascular disease — are unevenly distributed across demographic groups, a hyper-personalized AI health coach would help make healthy behavior changes easier and more accessible. For example, you can recommend a healthy and inexpensive recipe that can be prepared quickly with just a few ingredients to replace a fast-food dinner.
Health is also what happens between doctor appointments. In the same way that the New Deal built physical infrastructure to transform the country, AI will serve as part of the critical infrastructure of a much more effective healthcare system that supports the health of everyday people on an ongoing basis.
This would have an impact not only on our physical health, but also on our mental and emotional health. When we’re exhausted and stressed, we’re more likely to choose options like endless scrolling or emotional eating, which may give us a quick hit of dopamine but won’t make us healthy or happy in the long run. With personalized suggestions and real-time recommendations across all five behaviors – helping us improve sleep, reduce sugar and ultra-processed foods, move more during the day, reduce stress and increase connection – AI can help us stay in a stronger position for make better choices that nourish our mental health. It could also use our health information to make recommendations based on what motivates and inspires us.
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Much of the talk around AI has been about how much time it will save us and how productive it will make us. But AI could go far beyond efficiency and optimization to something much more fundamental: improving both our health and our life expectancy.
How our behaviors can be used to nurture our health and full humanity is a topic that has long interested both of us. Arianna has written several books on the subject. Throughout his career, and while building OpenAI, Sam learned the value of prioritizing these five fundamental behaviors, including getting enough sleep, eating well, exercising, spending time in nature, and meditating. This helped him deal with stress and anxiety and be better able to stay in the eye of the storm.
AI-based diagnostics have already reduced error rates and better results for patients. Now, by focusing AI on promoting healthy behaviors and taking advantage of its ability to process potentially several billion data points, we are putting in our hands a powerful tool for positive change, ensuring the technology works for us. of our well-being and not against it. Incentives are superpowers. And so far, they’ve mostly been used to provoke outrage and increase stress. But by creating new incentives, Thrive AI Health can make it possible for users’ personal data to be used for their own benefit, helping us all make better decisions and lead healthier lives.
With AI-driven personalized behavior change, we have the opportunity to finally reverse chronic disease trends. Achieving this vision requires collaboration. Policymakers need to create a regulatory environment that promotes AI innovation while safeguarding privacy. Healthcare providers need to integrate AI into their practices while ensuring these tools meet rigorous standards for safety and effectiveness. And individuals need to be fully empowered through AI coaching to better manage their daily health, with assurances that these technologies are reliable and that their personal health data will be treated responsibly. This collective effort, with robust privacy and security safeguards, can transform healthcare, benefiting millions of people around the world.
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