San Francisco — The competition to bring artificial intelligence into the medical field intensified this week as Anthropic unveiled a new suite of healthcare tools on Sunday, just four days after rival OpenAI launched its own dedicated health platform.
The back-to-back announcements, timed to coincide with the start of the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, signal a major shift in how tech giants envision the future of medicine. Both companies are racing to solve two of the industry’s biggest challenges: the administrative burden on doctors and the fragmented nature of patient data.
Anthropic’s Push for Clinical Clarity
On Sunday, Anthropic introduced “Claude for Healthcare,” a set of features designed to help both patients and medical professionals. A key component of the launch is a partnership with HealthEx, a platform that allows users to securely connect their medical records from over 50,000 provider organizations.
Using Anthropic’s AI model, Claude, subscribers can now consolidate scattered medical history—such as lab results, prescriptions, and doctor’s notes—into a single, searchable conversation.
“Patients often feel isolated when dealing with complex healthcare systems,” said Eric Kauderer-Abrams, Anthropic’s head of life sciences. He described the new tool as a “coordinator” that can help users make sense of their data.
Beyond consumer tools, Anthropic is targeting the administrative side of medicine. The company released new capabilities for healthcare organizations to automate tasks like prior authorization and medical billing. By focusing on these backend processes, Anthropic aims to reduce the paperwork that contributes to physician burnout.
OpenAI’s “ChatGPT Health” Focuses on Wellness
Anthropic’s move follows OpenAI’s Wednesday launch of “ChatGPT Health,” a standalone experience within its popular chatbot. OpenAI’s offering focuses heavily on the consumer, allowing users to sync data from wearable devices and apps like Apple Health, MyFitnessPal, and Peloton.
OpenAI reported that its users already ask 230 million health-related questions per week. The company aims to use AI to address the shortcomings of the current healthcare system by helping users interpret daily wellness data and prepare for doctor visits.
Different Approaches to a Common Goal
While both companies are entering the same market, their strategies show clear differences:
- OpenAI is leveraging its massive consumer base to become a personal health coach, integrating lifestyle data from wearables.
- Anthropic is emphasizing its “safety-first” reputation to court enterprise clients and handle complex clinical records.
Privacy and Safety Concerns
As AI moves deeper into sensitive medical territory, privacy remains a top concern. Both companies have stated that data used in their healthcare tools will be encrypted and, by default, not used to train their future AI models.
These safeguards are critical as the industry faces scrutiny regarding AI safety. The launches come amidst a broader conversation about digital safety, highlighted by recent legal settlements regarding content safeguards in the tech industry.
