As demand for medical care continues to grow, artificial intelligence is becoming the front door to healthcare as AI assistants are available instantly and translate medical terminology into plain terms.
Microsoft debuted Copilot Health on Thursday as an AI assistant for consumers that can review medical records, help them prepare for doctor appointments and offer personalized insights based on their health data.
The new Health feature is a separate, secure space within Copilot, Microsoft’s AI assistant. It brings together health records, wearable data and health history. Microsoft is testing Copilot Health with a select group of users with plans to make the new feature available through a phased rollout. There is a waitlist for consumers to get access to it before it is released more broadly.
There is a growing mismatch between demand for healthcare and its constrained supply. In many areas of the U.S., there is a shortage of clinicians and long wait times for medical appointments, creating barriers to healthcare access.
Consumers are turning to AI as a first stop for healthcare, demonstrated by how many people go online to use publicly available chatbots to ask health-related questions.
Microsoft handles more than 50 million health questions a day across its AI consumer products, including Bing and Copilot, noted Dominic King, M.D., Ph.D., vice president of health at Microsoft AI.
Last fall, the tech giant unveiled a new “Copilot for health” feature that can answer users health-related questions. Building on that, Microsoft has ramped up its efforts in consumer AI with the new Copilot Health tool designed to give individuals knowledge and information to make better health decisions, Microsoft executives said in a blog post.
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Copilot Health’s medical intelligence is built on information from credible health organizations across 50 countries and verified by Microsoft’s clinical team using principles independently established by the National Academy of Medicine, Microsoft executives said. Responses include clear citations with easy links to source material, alongside expert‑written answer cards from Harvard Health.
Beyond answering general health-related questions, Copilot Health is designed to help consumers make sense of the health information they already have.
“We recognize that a true health companion that could be very helpful for consumers and patients requires more than just general answers,” King said.
Through Copilot Health, users can create a comprehensive health profile that incorporates their medical records, including medication lists, visit summaries and test results, from more than 50,000 U.S. hospitals and provider organizations as well as health data from over 50 wearable devices including Apple HealthKit, Oura and Fitbit. Microsoft works with health tech company HealthEx to bring in patient medical records. Users of Copilot Health also can incorporate comprehensive lab test results from Function.
“We truly believe we’re on the path to medical superintelligence that brings together both the wide-ranging knowledge of a family doctor or general physician as well as the deep domain expertise of a specialist. AI is now able to provide both breadth of expertise, but also able to do really deep work where it’s necessary,” said King, who previously practiced medicine as a general surgeon and then moved over to lead technology with stints at Google DeepMind, Google Health and UnitedHealth Group.
Copilot Health users can integrate medical records through individual health portals. Copilot Health also supports more modern data-sharing approaches that lean on digital identity verification to bring in health records, as facilitated by HealthEx.
Copilot Health is not designed to replace physicians, Microsoft executives contend, but opens up access to healthcare at the time when it’s needed.
“What offering here is not a substitute for medical advice. We’re not giving definitive diagnosis or definitive treatment plans. We’re giving a lot of support around those areas,” King said.
Copilot Health uses AI to make sense of patterns in the health data, surfacing more proactive and actionable insights. As an example, during a demo of Copilot Health using synthetic data, a user named Margaret, who has diabetes and a history of high blood pressure, asked the AI assistant to analyze sleep patterns based on wearable data. Copilot Health provided insights that Margaret was not getting enough sleep, and in particular not enough deep sleep, which potentially raises cardiovascular risks.
Using conversational AI, Copilot Health then asked follow-up questions, prompting the user to provide more information about when the sleep problems started.
“It doesn’t just present information and leave you to deal with that on your own,’ King noted.
Microsoft designed Copilot Health to demonstrate reasoning to draw insights from previous conversations, medical records, vital signs from digital health tools, lab results and wearables data. This enables Copilot Health to answer more comprehensive questions such as ‘What do you consider my main health challenges and what questions should I bring up with my doctor?’
Based on the same user, Margaret, Copilot Health flagged key health challenges, including a recent heart attack, poorly controlled diabetes, based on her lab results, along with high blood pressure, based on wearables data and high cholesterol based on lab test results, as well as sleep problems.
“We’re very excited about the opportunity to provide this kind of intelligence and these insights to our users. I think we’re on the cusp of technology that can really reshape how our care is currently being delivered,” King said.
Copilot Health also helps users to find a doctor that accepts their insurance by connecting to real‑time U.S. provider directories to search for clinicians by specialty, location, languages spoken and insurance coverage.
Microsoft designed Copilot Health with access, privacy and safety controls in mind to protect users’ sensitive health information, company executives said.
Data in Copilot Health is protected with industry leading safeguards, including encryption at rest and in transit, strict access controls and the ability for users to manage and delete information when they choose, Microsoft executives wrote in the blog post.
The information in Copilot Health is not used for model training.
Microsoft also built the models to ensure a high level of accuracy with clinical reasoning as well as safety. Copilot Health is developed with the company’s internal clinical team and informed by an external panel of over 230 physicians from more than 24 countries, who contribute medical expertise, safety feedback and real‑world perspective.
The new Copilot Health AI assistant comes as AI companies are increasingly focused on healthcare. Two months ago, OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT Health, a feature that connects its artificial intelligence chatbot with users’ medical records and wellness apps for more personalized answers to medical questions. Amazon expanded access to its Health AI assistant on its website and app.
“2026 feels like an important year for consumer health, and there are a lot more solutions available out there,” King said.
But, he contends that Microsoft’s work on consumer-facing health AI is distinctive based on several factors.
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“The safety and security of what we’re doing is critical and essential, and Microsoft, we think, is incredibly well-placed. We have a lot of trust. We work with many health systems. We have taken active decisions, for example, around separating this data and any health conversations from the rest of what happens within Copilot,” he noted.
“We’re launching with what we consider to be the broadest set of connectors so more access to wearable devices. We spent a lot of time making the ability to get access to your medical records as smooth and easy as possible. While there are other systems that provide that facility, generally, they can be quite clunky and difficult to access,” he added.
Microsoft’s work on Copilot Health has been informed by a team of physicians, King said, and the AI team has spent time getting feedback from a diverse set of users. The company collaborated with organizations like the AARP, who serve the interests of 38 million older Americans, and the National Health Council, representing over 180 patient advocacy groups.
“We’re very focused on building a comprehensive and patient- and consumer-centered product, rather than a general service that does healthcare as well as everything else,” he noted.
Consumers are turning to AI for information about health symptoms, conditions and treatments, according to Microsoft’s recent analysis of health-related conversations on Copilot.
Looking at more than 500,000 de-identified health-related conversations on Copilot just in January, Microsoft found that in nearly 1 in 5 conversations, people describe their own symptoms, get help interpreting their own test results or managing their own conditions. The research found an uptick in questions related to understanding medical symptoms at night, suggesting that people turn to AI when they cannot easily reach a medical professional.
“We have had the opportunity to show [Copilot Health] to a number of leading physicians and major health systems in the U.S., and feedback from those sessions has been that people really recognize that is the future, giving consumers more control over their healthcare, more insights and the ability to manage their own conditions and spot patterns earlier,” King said. “There is a general recognition that we need to do this properly, safely and have the quality and safety bars in place but that this represents a new part of how care is going to be delivered, not just in the future, but really in the near term.”
