Opinion
Disney and OpenAI open Pandora's box of AI
by Luca Fontana
ChatGPT could soon be analysing personal medical data for you
13.1.2026
Translation: machine translated
The AI company OpenAI is entering the healthcare sector. By acquiring a start-up, it wants to manage highly sensitive personal medical data - and ostensibly relieve the burden on the healthcare system.
AI should benefit humanity as a whole. According to OpenAI, the company behind the Large Language Model GPT, this is its mission. However, the company's lurch between commercialisation and non-profit organisation raises the question of what exactly OpenAI means by this.
The US AI giant is currently focussing on the always overburdened - and very lucrative - healthcare sector and presented «ChatGPT Health» a new healthcare service a few days ago. The chatbot is intended to provide people with well-founded answers to health-related questions, but so far only for selected groups in the USA.
OpenAI has now announced that it has acquired the young health tech start-up Torch. Torch is developing a health app that bundles medical data from various sources, such as laboratory values, medical findings and measurement data from fitness trackers. The idea behind it: People should receive a complete, comprehensible picture of their own health data. The app is intended to represent a «medical memory» in which data is linked together and nothing is lost.
OpenAI invests in a platform for managing health data
OpenAI reportedly spent 60 million US dollars on the deal. A further 40 million dollars will be spent on motivating the start-up's four employees to switch to OpenAI. Compared to other takeovers in the tech sector, this is a negligible price - especially if Torch already has a large pool of highly sensitive, personal health data in its luggage. However, there is no information on this.
The fact that OpenAI is investing in the healthcare sector comes as no surprise. According to an in-house report from January 2026, more than five per cent of all global questions to ChatGPT contain medical content. That's more than 40 million every day. The Torch app already uses OpenAI models and its architecture allows OpenAI to develop its own platform for the personalised analysis of health information.
OpenAI has already stated in its takeover announcement that it will link the collected data «with ChatGPT Health as a new way of understanding and managing one's own health». It is not known exactly what this might look like and how OpenAI intends to prevent its AI from providing false or even dangerous information. OpenAI only updated the usage guidelines for ChatGPT at the end of last year. According to this, the chatbot may no longer be used for medical consultations if no specialist is present. However, this step is more likely to protect itself.
How will OpenAI handle the data?
OpenAI emphasises that the data will be processed in accordance with the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The rules are stricter in the EU.
It remains unclear how the data is migrated from Torch and what consent is required for this. Critics warn of an increasing concentration of power in the healthcare sector and the danger of big tech penetrating too deeply into medical processes.
Despite these concerns, the acquisition marks a turning point: Torch will no longer be a small start-up, but part of a global AI platform that aims to make healthcare knowledge accessible to millions. For OpenAI, it is another step on the way to making AI a central tool in healthcare - with all the opportunities and challenges that entails.
Header image: Shutterstock/subh_naskar
Feels just as comfortable in front of a gaming PC as she does in a hammock in the garden. Likes the Roman Empire, container ships and science fiction books. Focuses mostly on unearthing news stories about IT and smart products.
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