[Sam Altman and Arianna Huffington. Photos: Getty Images]
The company, dubbed Thrive AI Health, is expected to use AI to make suggestions about sleeping, eating, and exercising, with the aim of helping people boost their wellness outcomes.
The OpenAI Startup Fund and Arianna Huffington’s wellness company Thrive Global are launching a joint venture called Thrive AI Health. The goal is “to build a customized, hyper-personalized AI health coach,” the partners announced in a Time magazine op-ed Sunday evening.
The goal is in part to democratize wellness-centric lifestyles currently enjoyed by people who can afford their own personal trainers and chefs, Huffington and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman wrote in the piece.
“A staggering 129 million Americans have at least one major chronic disease — and 90 percent of our $4.1 trillion in annual health care spending goes toward treating these physical and mental-health conditions,” the duo said. “But there are solutions, because health outcomes are shaped by more than just medical care or genes. Behavior change can be a miracle drug.”
Those behaviors are easier than ever to change, Huffington and Altman continued, thanks to the promise of hyper-personalized AI that can hopefully bolster key daily behaviors such as sleeping, eating, and moving. Thrive AI Health aims to do exactly that, with “real-time nudges and recommendations,” they said.
“It will learn your preferences and patterns,” the Time piece promises: “What conditions allow you to get quality sleep; which foods you love and don’t love; how and when you’re most likely to walk, move, and stretch; and the most effective ways you can reduce stress.”
The idea of using AI to guide lifestyle and health outcomes is an increasingly trendy one, especially as smart watches and other wearable technologies offer more real-time data about people’s bodies. Google said earlier this year that it was working on adding personalized AI insights to the Fitbit app, and reporting by The New York Times previously indicated that the tech giant is developing AI life coaches. Apple is reportedly building similar products, and the Apple Watch already keeps tabs on how active its wearer is and can nudge them to stand up, for example. The Whoop — a wearable and accompanying app used by the likes of LeBron James and Michael Phelps — also offers an AI health coach built atop OpenAI software.
Thrive AI Health, the latest entrant into the space, is being jointly funded by Thrive Global and the OpenAI Startup Fund, according to the Time announcement, and will be trained on peer-reviewed research as well as users’ personal medical data, when permitted. Coaching will be available through both a mobile app and Thrive Global’s enterprise wellness software.
OpenAI, the artificial intelligence powerhouse behind much of the recent boom in generative AI software, is not actually an investor in the OpenAI Startup Fund, according to the fund’s website, but OpenAI partners such as Microsoft are. The Alice L. Walton Foundation — a charity run by the eponymous Walmart heiress — will also serve as a strategic investor in Thrive AI Health, according to a press release.
“Recent advancements in artificial intelligence present an unprecedented opportunity to make behavior change much more powerful and sustainable,” said DeCarlos Love, a former Google product lead who will serve as the new company’s inaugural chief executive, in a statement.