Amidst OpenAI’s master plan to take over the universe, today’s prize goes to whoever had healthcare on their bingo card. OpenAI announced that it will create a forked ChatGPT environment that’s purpose-built for healthcare queries and chatbot-centric conversations. This is the beginning of something bigger.
But before going into broader implications, what is ChatGPT’s health silo? It will offer a specific place for users to ask healthcare questions, which means a more focused UX and discreet AI training. According to OpenAI, this was demand-driven, as ChatGPT fields 230 million health-related queries per week.
The part about discreet AI training is important for an area as high-stakes and privacy-sensitive as healthcare. Starting with the former, the cost of getting answers wrong is elevated in healthcare. A more focused and purpose-built AI engine lets it segment language models for better specificity and accuracy.
As for the privacy angle, one of OpenAI’s stated intentions behind the new healthcare-focused GPT is to keep your health info separated from your other queries. ChatGPT prides itself on having a memory and building a profile of users. (e.g., you own a dog), which can then inform its future suggestions.
That’s a feature… but with health info, it could quickly become a bug. For example, when car shopping, ChatGPT may suggest a model with good suspension and a smooth ride, based on the fact that you had hemoroids last year (apologies for the visuals). That breaks the “don’t be creepy” credo of online media.
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Market-Shifting Impact
But beyond the user experience and rationale behind the new health GPT, our minds go somewhere else: implications for a revenue model, especially for local search & commerce. It’s no secret that OpenAI will likely monetize itself through some form of sponsorship or affiliate revenue (more on that in a bit).
If that’s indeed on the roadmap, it’s fairly obvious to see how this new healthcare direction could unlock a big vertical and thus an expanded addressable market of advertisers. It’s also an immensely high-value advertising vertical, despite some looming MAHA-driven regulations around pharmaceutical advertising.
Back to the part about implications for local search, healthcare is a sizable revenue source when considering the wide world of health-oriented professional services. Doctors, dentists, chiropractors, and several other headings are competitive keyword marketplaces in paid local search and SEO.
ChatGPT’s operational scale could ignite sizable market-shifting impact in terms of introducing more supply (user impressions) to the market. In paid search, that could put downward pressure on Google CPCs, given that they run on supply/demand dynamics and scarcity in high-value markets.
As for how that materializes in terms of ChatGPT’s revenue model, it’s still purely speculation. There are some clues, such as Sam Altman’s feelings on the bias-inducing tendencies of paid search. So we’ll likely see something that’s more along the lines of cost-per-action or affiliate revenue. We’ll be watching.
