Copilot Health is Microsoft’s version of medical AI designed by doctors

Microsoft doesn’t want its AI to be your doctor. He wants you to be better prepared when you see them.

Katelyn Chedraoui Writer I

Katelyn is a writer at CNET who covers artificial intelligence, including chatbots and image and video generators. His work explores how new AI technologies are infiltrating our lives, shaping the content we consume on social media, and affecting the people behind the screens. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in media and journalism. You can reach her at kchedraoui@cnet.com.

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Microsoft is taking a major turn in the field of AI in health. The company announced Thursday the launch of Copilot Health, a new experience within its chatbot that will bring together all your medical records and portable data with AI designed to help you understand it all.

“We are truly on the cusp of building true medical superintelligence,” said Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI. “A system that can learn everything about you, all your health issues, from your wearable data, your electronic health records, and use it to provide support, information and intelligence at your fingertips.”

A recent Microsoft survey found that Copilot mobile users ask more questions about the health of the chatbot than any other topic. Copilot Health was designed to answer these questions. Microsoft’s health AI has been refined by its internal clinicians and an external panel of hundreds of clinicians in more than 24 countries. It uses the National Academy of Medicine framework to evaluate credible medical sources and information from Harvard Medical School through a 2025 licensing agreement.

Copilot Health is part of the standard consumer version of Copilot. But it’s a completely separate experience, designed this way to separate your health information from your regular chats. Because it was specifically trained for health questions, it should be more useful and accurate than the standard version of Copilot or another chatbot. ChatGPT introduced a similar experience earlier this year.

Your health information will not appear in standard Copilot responses, only in the new Health tab. You can delete your data at any time by simply turning off a setting – something so simple that it begs the question why all AI companies don’t make it so simple to delete your data.

Your information is not used to train Microsoft’s AI models, the company claims. But your medical information in AI tools like Copilot is not protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

The benefit of using Copilot Health is having one place for all your medical and health information, with trained AI to help answer your questions about it. You can connect data from your smartwatches and rings, as well as download your medical records. Through a third-party program called HealthEx, you can download files from multiple doctors’ offices, hospitals, and laboratories at the same time.

Copilot Health is not a doctor

If you choose to share your electronic health record, AI can make more informed recommendations and reference specific medical visit notes and lab results. But don’t use Copilot Health to replace a doctor. What AI can do is discuss your health concerns, help you prepare for your next appointments, and help you adopt healthier habits.

“Copilot Health is not intended to give you a definitive diagnosis or formal treatment plan, but it is certainly here to help you find the right answers,” said Dr. Dominic King, vice president of health at Microsoft AI. The former surgeon led the team that built Copilot Health.

For example, it can help you make a list of questions to ask your doctor, analyze lab results, and find a provider who accepts your insurance. Copilot Health can discuss your health concerns, such as understanding new symptoms, but it cannot diagnose or prescribe medications.

Microsoft is rolling out slowly, starting with adults (ages 18 and up) in the United States, with English as the only language. You can sign up now to join the Copilot Health waitlist.

There are some uses of AI in healthcare today, but they are disparate. Wearables are new AI-powered data insights and coaching. Some doctors use AI scribe tools to take notes during patient appointments. Administrative and insurance work also have their own AI tools, including around the processing of complaints (including refusal, in certain cases). The common thread is that no AI is without flaws and should never be used to make important decisions without human oversight.

For AI advocates, the bureaucratic and tangled web of the US healthcare system is the perfect place to prove that AI intervention can make a real difference. But AI in healthcare is like putting a bandage on a gunshot wound: a halfway measure that doesn’t solve the underlying problems.

It’s too early to tell whether Microsoft’s goal of medical superintelligence is viable. But for now, Copilot Health illustrates a more productive use of AI – more than fill the internet with slop.

“I think this is perhaps the most important and positive contribution that AI can make to the world,” Suleyman said. “And that’s extremely important to us.”