Microsoft Debuts AI Tool to Analyze Users’ Medical Records

Microsoft is continuing its push into the healthcare field with its new Copilot Health offering.

The service is a separate space within the company’s Copilot artificial intelligence tool that can make sense of a user’s information and offer personalized health insights, according to a Thursday (March 12) press release.

“Copilot Health doesn’t replace your doctor,” the release said. “It makes every minute you have with them count more. You arrive prepared, with the right questions, the right context, and the confidence that comes from better understanding your own body.”

The tool combines users’ health records, wearable data, and health history into a single place, then employs intelligence to turn them “into a coherent story,” according to the release.

“Where the connection between your broken sleep and the reasons why become visible,” the release said. “Where you stop scrolling symptoms at midnight and start having better informed conversations.”

Copilot Health will be made available “through a careful, phased rollout,” with a waitlist for the tool opening Thursday, according to the release.

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said health data imported into the feature will be encrypted and firewalled from the rest of the app to address the privacy concerns related to sharing users’ medical records with a generative AI platform, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

“It’s something that Microsoft is uniquely placed to do with our scale, with our regulatory experience, with the kind of trust and confidence that people have in our security and the history that we have as a mature, stable player,” Suleyman said, per the report.

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “How AI Becomes the Place Consumers Start Everything” found that consumers are comfortable turning to AI tools for healthcare information.

AI “increasingly acts as a first step instead of a supplemental tool,” with frequent AI users saying they start tasks “inside AI platforms rather than search engines or apps … behavior spans learning, planning, financial tasks, and health-related inquiries,” PYMNTS reported Jan. 6.

This behavioral change was reflected in a report from OpenAI, which found that 55% of Americans use the company’s ChatGPT to understand symptoms, 48% to decipher medical terminology, and 44% to find out about treatment options.

“These are foundational steps in the healthcare journey, shaping how patients prepare for appointments and decide when to seek professional care,” PYMNTS reported.

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