The OpenAI Startup Fund and Thrive Global, the venture capital fund run by Huffington Post founder Ariana Huffington, announced Monday the creation of a new company, Thrive AI Health, that will build a new type of highly personalized artificial intelligence coach.

Thrive AI Health will aim to provide hyper-personalized advice on health and wellness to individuals based on their everyday lives including sleep, nutrition, fitness, stress management and “connection.”  According to a press release shared by Thrive Global, the objective of the AI coach is to help people adopt healthier habits surrounding these five behaviors because “behavior accounts for a significant share of health outcomes than medical care or our genes.” Thus people can make dramatic improvements in overall wellness.

OpenAI and Thrive Global did not reveal any details about the investment deal or how much venture capital was committed.

DeCarlos Love, a product developer who most recently worked for Google LLC, will helm the company as chief executive. At Google, Love led sensors, AI and machine learning algorithms across devices and platforms, including Fitbit by Google Fitness, Pixel Watch and Wear OS. Before Google, he held product roles at Apple Inc. and fitness wearable company Athos.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Huffington wrote in an op-ed in TIME, saying that although AI has been touted as a way to save time and energy through greater productivity, it also has a place in our society for bringing about better health outcomes for people. This route has yet to be fully explored and it’s about time that effective systems are put in the hands of consumers, they believe.

“AI could go well beyond efficiency and optimization to something much more fundamental: improving both our health spans and our lifespans. Because health is also what happens between doctor visits,” Altman and Huffington wrote. “In the same way the New Deal built out physical infrastructure to transform the country, AI will serve as part of the critical infrastructure of a much more effective health care system that supports everyday people’s health in an ongoing way.”

Thrive AI Health intends to use generative AI to deliver personalized behavior change advice to its users and act as a tool for prevention and optimizing treatment for disease using personal context. Not only will it act as using insights into everyday behavior by guiding directly, but it will also work to nudge users gently toward healthier lifestyles.

According to Thrive Global, the Coach will be trained using the latest peer-reviewed science on behavioral health, biometrics, lab and other medical data, alongside relevant user personal preferences and goals surrounding the five key daily behaviors. It will use these to help produce its insights and recommendations.

“Recent advancements in artificial intelligence present an unprecedented opportunity to make behavior change much more powerful and sustainable,” said Love. “AI has shown a remarkable ability to assimilate large datasets, extract actionable insights, recognize patterns and deliver personalized recommendations. However, despite these technological advances, the current landscape of large language models still falls short of delivering a truly comprehensive and effective personalized behavior change and coaching experience. Thrive AI Health Coach is the product to solve the limitations of current AI and LLM-based solutions by providing personalized, proactive and data-driven coaching across the five daily behaviors.”

Thrive AI Health’s vision is remarkable in its scope, as the company aims to reduce the trend lines for chronic diseases, including diabetes and cardiovascular illnesses. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the U.S. alone about 90% of the country’s $4.5 trillion in healthcare spending goes to the treatment of chronic illness and mental health conditions. As both of these conditions can be prevented or controlled through behavior, the presence of a persistent AI assistant capable of day-to-day coaching could help alleviate a great deal of pain and suffering for millions of Americans.

To make this mission possible, Thrive AI Health has established research partnerships with academic institutions and medical centers that will bring the AI coach to their communities. These include Stanford Medicine, the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine and the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute at West Virginia University.

Dr. Ali Rezai, director of the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, said he’s looking forward to working with Thrive Global on this new AI-powered venture.

“For the last five years, the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute has partnered with Thrive Global, conducting clinical research studies involving over 3,000 participants linking our Human Operating System and AI-driven real-time digital health insights with Thrive Global’s behavior change methodology, microsteps and content,” said Rezai.

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