Strategic Analysis of Recent Health LLM Development

2026/01/13

Overview

Last week, both ChatGPT and Claude announced new product features related to health and healthcare applications. In OpenAI’s article, they note that “over 230 million people globally ask health and wellness related questions on ChatGPT every week.” Developing this feature aims to improve the user experience by “understanding health information and context” through integration with third-party platforms like Apple Health, and by “keeping your health information protected and secure” through an isolated space for health-related conversations and memories.

The third-party data to be integrated includes:

Questions

  1. What is the strategic purpose behind ChatGPT’s development of health and healthcare features? This health strategy is both user-centric (address a huge existing use case with richer, personalized support) and business-centric (expand ChatGPT into high-value healthcare workflows and markets).
  2. Why did ChatGPT partner with Apple, MyFitnessPal, and others first, rather than device companies like Oura, Whoop or Google Fitbit? This may be due to a conflict of interest, as these companies already operate subscription-based health analysis services—a conflict that is likely to persist.
  3. Why Google has / needs a Health LLM and why Apple doesn’t?
  4. What is Google likely to do in the future? It’s interesting to note that Google supported an open ecosystem in the mobile OS era when competing with Apple, but in the health OS era, it is likely to continue developing its own Health LLM models and applications with Fitbit. Meanwhile, OpenAI is taking a more open approach by collaborating with other partners in the ecosystem.
  5. What is the impact for Health OS startups? It’s certainly not good news. That’s why choosing the right direction is so crucial. As a startup founder, you want to enter a field with a promising future, but you also want to avoid areas so obvious that large players will quickly recognize the value and compete.
  6. What is the impact for Oura and Whoop? For vertical domain players, they are likely to continue to survive. For example, Oura in the sleep scenario and Whoop in the athlete scenario. However, it will be more difficult for them to expand further into daily health or even medical applications. The resources in terms of funding and talent are simply incomparable.

References