Microsoft Unveils Copilot Health, a Free AI Tool That Can Access Medical Data

IBL News | New York

Microsoft unveiled Copilot Health, a free AI health tool in the Copilot app that can access medical records and health data (with the user’s consent) and provide personalized advice about conditions or symptoms, informed by the user’s disease history, test results, medications, doctors’ visit notes, and biometric data recorded by wearable devices, such as Apple Watch and Fitbit. The company said that this service could especially benefit those managing chronic medical conditions.

Imported data is encrypted and firewalled from the rest of the app to address privacy concerns. It plugs into information from more than 50,000 U.S. hospitals and provider organizations, including lab results from those institutions or through Function Health.

Data is pulled by vendor HealthEx, which adheres to the federal initiative known as TEFCA, a nationwide framework for accessing health records. The data is then streamed into Copilot Health. Microsoft said users can manage and delete their information.

“Data privacy 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,” Microsoft AI Chief Executive Mustafa Suleyman said.

For users who don’t plug in their personal data, the AI concierge doctor tool can provide more generalized answers.

Eventually, Microsoft plans to charge users for the feature.

Healthcare is becoming more competitive in the AI world, with Microsoft trailing competitors such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.

Microsoft has been building its AI health capabilities, trying to achieve “medical superintelligence,” an AI capable of providing high-quality insights across medical disciplines.