An astounding 129 million Americans have at least one major chronic illness, and 90% of the $4.1 trillion in annual healthcare spending is spent treating these physical and mental health conditions. This economic and personal burden is expected to grow in the coming years.
We know this is unsustainable, but there is a solution, because health is not determined by medicine or genes alone: behavioral change can be a miracle drug in both preventing disease and optimizing treatment.
Yes, changing behavior is hard, but through hyper-personalization, AI is uniquely positioned to solve that problem.
AI is already significantly accelerating the pace of scientific advances in medicine, bringing about breakthroughs in drug development and diagnostics, and increasing the pace of scientific progress on diseases like cancer. In fact, OpenAI has partnered with Color Health to develop an AI co-pilot to assist doctors in cancer screening and developing treatment plans after a doctor’s diagnosis.
But humans are much more than just medical profiles. Every aspect of our health is deeply influenced by five fundamental daily behaviors: sleep, diet, exercise, stress management, and social connection. And AI, through the power of hyper-personalization, can dramatically improve these behaviors.
These are the ideas behind Thrive AI Health, which is co-funded by OpenAI Startup Fund and Thrive Global. The company is building a customized, hyper-personalized AI health coach that will be available as a mobile app and within Thrive Global’s enterprise products. The coach will be trained on the best peer-reviewed science and Thrive’s behavior change methodology, including microsteps – small, everyday actions that add up to healthier habits – and on the personal biometric, lab, and other medical data that users choose to share. The coach will learn users’ preferences and patterns across five behaviors: under what circumstances they get quality sleep, which foods they like and dislike, when and how they’re most likely to walk, move, and stretch, and what methods of stress reduction are most effective. Combine this with superhuman long-term memory and you have a fully integrated, personal AI coach that will provide you with real-time nudges and recommendations unique to you, empowering you to take everyday actions to improve your health.
Read more: Long wait times, short appointment times, high bills: U.S. health care is causing patient burnout
Consider what it’s like for a busy professional with diabetes. Their hectic schedule may cause them to neglect diet and exercise, making it difficult to keep their blood sugar under control. A personalized AI health coach, trained on their medical data and daily habits, can provide reminders to take their medication, suggest quick and healthy meal options, and encourage them to take short breaks for exercise.
Most health advice today, while important, is general: a patient portal might automatically remind you to get a flu shot or a mammogram, or a smartwatch might remind you to breathe or stand up. An AI health coach could enable highly accurate advice tailored to each individual: swap your third soda in the afternoon for water and lemon, take a 10-minute walk with your kid after picking them up from school at 3:15pm, start your relaxation routine at 10pm because you have to wake up at 6am to catch a flight the next morning.
Using AI in this way can also address widening health disparities, amplifying and democratizing the life-saving benefits of improving everyday habits. People with more resources already harness the power of behavior change with access to trainers, chefs, and life coaches. But because chronic conditions like diabetes and cardiovascular disease are unevenly distributed across demographics, a hyper-personalized AI health coach could help make healthy behavior change easier and more accessible. For example, instead of a fast-food dinner, they might recommend a healthy, inexpensive recipe that can be made quickly with few ingredients.
Health is also what happens between doctor’s visits, and just as the New Deal transformed the country by building the physical infrastructure, AI will serve as a critical infrastructure part of a much more effective healthcare system that continually supports people’s health every day.
This will impact not only our physical health, but also our mental and emotional health. When we are exhausted and stressed, we are more likely to choose choices like endless scrolling and emotional eating, which may give us a momentary dopamine hit but don’t deliver health or happiness in the long run. By providing personalized nudges and real-time recommendations across all five behaviors – improving sleep, reducing sugar and ultra-processed food intake, increasing daily exercise, reducing stress and strengthening connection – AI can be in a stronger position to help us make better choices to nurture our mental health. It can also use our health information to make recommendations based on what motivates and inspires us.
Read more: Your brain doesn’t want to exercise
Much of the discussion around AI focuses on how much time it will save us and how much it will increase our productivity. But it goes far beyond efficiency and optimization to something more fundamental: it has the potential to improve both our health and longevity.
How our actions can be used to cultivate health and humanity is a long-standing interest for both of us. Ariana has written several books on the subject. Throughout his career and while building OpenAI, Sam learned the value of prioritizing five fundamental actions: enough sleep, healthy eating, exercise, spending time in nature, and meditation. This improved his ability to deal with stress and anxiety and stay in the center of the hurricane.
AI-powered diagnostics are already reducing error rates and improving patient outcomes. Now, by focusing AI on promoting healthy behaviors and leveraging its potential to process billions of data points, we have a powerful tool to effect positive change, ensuring technology serves our health, rather than harms it. Incentives are superpowers. And until now, incentives have mostly been used to stoke anger and increase stress. But Thrive AI Health can create new incentives to use users’ personal data for their own benefit, empowering all of us to make better decisions and live healthier lives.
Personalized behavior change through AI offers an opportunity to finally reverse chronic disease trends. To realize this vision, we need to work together. Policymakers must create a regulatory environment that fosters AI innovation while protecting privacy. Healthcare providers must integrate AI into their practice while ensuring these tools meet rigorous standards for safety and effectiveness. And individuals need assurances through AI coaching that these technologies can be trusted and that their personal health data is handled responsibly, allowing them to better manage their daily health. This collaborative effort, with strong privacy and security protections, can transform healthcare and benefit millions of people around the world.
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