By Sebastian Herrera
Microsoft is betting on healthcare as a path to become more competitive in artificial intelligence. The company's biggest push yet: a new tool it describes as an AI concierge doctor -- one that can access your medical records and health data, with your consent.
The company on Thursday unveiled Copilot Health, a feature within the Copilot app that lets the chatbot dispense personalized healthcare advice informed by the user's disease history, test results, medications, doctors' visit notes and biometric data as recorded by wearable devices.
Health data imported into the feature will be encrypted and firewalled from the rest of the app to address the privacy concerns of handing over one's medical records to a generative AI platform, Microsoft AI Chief Executive Mustafa Suleyman said in an interview.
"It's something that Microsoft is uniquely placed to do with our scale, with our regulatory experience, with the kind of trust and confidence that people have in our security and the history that we have as a mature, stable player," Suleyman said.
The software giant is counting on the new health service to drive engagement for Copilot and attract new users to its app, which trails competitors such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. Microsoft plans to eventually charge users for the feature, which is first launching in the U.S. in a phased rollout.
In focusing the general consumer version of Copilot on healthcare, Microsoft is following user behavior: The most common category of questions asked on the mobile app is health, the company said.
The new tool, which appears as a tab within the Copilot app, allows users to connect their hospital and lab data, as well as data from wearables such as Apple Watch and Fitbit, to receive personalized answers to inquiries about conditions or symptoms. For users who don't plug in their personal data, the tool can provide more generalized answers.
The service could especially benefit those managing chronic medical conditions, executives said. The tool can plug into information from more than 50,000 U.S. hospitals and provider organizations, including lab results from those institutions or through Function Health.
Once users authenticate their identity through the identification service Clear, their data is pulled by vendor HealthEx, which adheres to the federal initiative known as Tefca, a nationwide framework for accessing health records. The data is then streamed into Copilot Health. Microsoft said users can manage and delete their information, and any data and conversations are kept separate from the general Copilot chat on the app using encryption and strict access controls.
Microsoft has gradually been building its AI health capabilities with the goal of reaching "medical superintelligence," which Suleyman defines as AI that can provide high-quality insights across medical disciplines.
The company last year showed off a tool it developed that it said could diagnose disease with a significantly higher accuracy rate than a group of doctors and do so at a fraction of the cost. In the fall, it showcased a new collaboration with Harvard Medical School to respond to queries about healthcare topics within Copilot.
Suleyman and Microsoft are striving to build unique expertise in the ultracompetitive world of generative AI. Its Copilot brand has faced several challenges, including confusing brand positioning and interoperability problems that have frustrated users, The Wall Street Journal reported in February. The health tool is part of Microsoft's consumer version of Copilot. The company also has an enterprise version for business customers.
Competitors are working on their own healthcare initiatives. OpenAI, which has supplied AI models Microsoft has relied on to power Copilot, this year launched a similar health tool.
Microsoft has advantages in its deep experience in healthcare and its history of managing data for governments and major global institutions, Suleyman said. The company's team of in-house clinicians helped develop the tool alongside its engineers, and a panel of more than 230 physicians are providing medical expertise and safety feedback.
Given the sensitivities around healthcare, the company is taking a "deliberate, slightly slower, more meticulous approach" to the vertical than to other topic areas, Suleyman said.
Microsoft is working toward tech independence from longtime partner OpenAI, building its own models even as it relies on the startup and its rival Anthropic to power various AI tools.
Write to Sebastian Herrera at sebastian.herrera@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 12, 2026 09:00 ET (13:00 GMT)
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