Should You Trust ChatGPT With Your Health?

More than 300 million people use ChatGPT for health and wellness questions each week. OpenAI’s Karan Singhal thinks that’s only the beginning: the longer-term goal is AI that can help people navigate their health proactively, while making trustworthy medical intelligence dramatically more accessible. Karan joins a16z Partner Jay Rughani to explain why OpenAI trains healthcare expertise directly into its general-purpose frontier models, how it works with hundreds of medical experts to evaluate safety and disagreement, and why the company sees AI as a complement to doctors rather than a replacement for medical care. They also discuss integrations with Epic, AI copilots for clinicians, and what happens as personal agents begin navigating appointments, health records, and other fragmented parts of the healthcare system. Looking further ahead, Karan makes the case that the cost of medical intelligence could continue to fall dramatically, allowing AI to act as a safety net for patients and clinicians, surface insights from years of health data, and potentially accelerate the discovery and validation of new treatments. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:00 The story of Nathan Labenz's son 07:57 A doctor in your pocket 14:20 Teaching AI who it's talking to 19:44 Medical consensus and its 5–17 year lag 28:03 The mental health problem 30:59 Information vs actual care 38:21 A "move 37" for health 43:39 Driving down the cost of care 50:27 Procedural care and what's next Resources: Follow Karan Singhal on X: https://x.com/thekaransinghal Follow Jay Rughani on X: https://x.com/JayRughani Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see http://a16z.com/disclosures.

Jay RughanihostKaran Singhalguest

Oct 20, 202655mWatch on YouTube ↗

EPISODE INFO

Released: October 20, 2026
Duration: 55m
Channel: a16z
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

More than 300 million people use ChatGPT for health and wellness questions each week. OpenAI’s Karan Singhal thinks that’s only the beginning: the longer-term goal is AI that can help people navigate their health proactively, while making trustworthy medical intelligence dramatically more accessible. Karan joins a16z Partner Jay Rughani to explain why OpenAI trains healthcare expertise directly into its general-purpose frontier models, how it works with hundreds of medical experts to evaluate safety and disagreement, and why the company sees AI as a complement to doctors rather than a replacement for medical care. They also discuss integrations with Epic, AI copilots for clinicians, and what happens as personal agents begin navigating appointments, health records, and other fragmented parts of the healthcare system. Looking further ahead, Karan makes the case that the cost of medical intelligence could continue to fall dramatically, allowing AI to act as a safety net for patients and clinicians, surface insights from years of health data, and potentially accelerate the discovery and validation of new treatments. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:00 The story of Nathan Labenz's son 07:57 A doctor in your pocket 14:20 Teaching AI who it's talking to 19:44 Medical consensus and its 5–17 year lag 28:03 The mental health problem 30:59 Information vs actual care 38:21 A "move 37" for health 43:39 Driving down the cost of care 50:27 Procedural care and what's next Resources: Follow Karan Singhal on X: https://x.com/thekaransinghal Follow Jay Rughani on X: https://x.com/JayRughani Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see http://a16z.com/disclosures.

SPEAKERS

Jay Rughani
host
Partner at a16z focused on healthcare and biotechnology investments.
Karan Singhal
guest
Leads health AI research at OpenAI.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of a16z, featuring Jay Rughani and Karan Singhal, Should You Trust ChatGPT With Your Health? explores how OpenAI plans to make health advice trustworthy, cheap, and usable OpenAI reports hundreds of millions of weekly ChatGPT users ask health questions, largely to fill access gaps between scarce, short clinician visits and fragmented follow-up needs.

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