General medicine is being massively disrupted
What happens to the economics of the healthcare industry when routine care is delegated to AI?
About 1 billion messages (or >5% ) of global ChatGPT weekly volume is healthcare-related. 1 in 4 users ask it weekly for medical advice.
Patients are bypassing human medical advice, using AI to navigate insurance, triage their own symptoms. Not for complex diagnoses, but for the 24/7 questions and routine concerns that don’t warrant a $50 copay.
What this means: The “bread and butter” of general medicine like routine care, refills, simple diagnostics, is being massively disrupted.
Doctronic, an AI doctor startup in Utah is the first domino: authorized to prescribe medication without a human in the loop.
Does this also fundamentally change the economics of the healthcare business? It goes from medical liability (human error) to product liability (software defect).
Telemedicine was projected to hit $455B globally by 2030. But AI-native care could push that number significantly higher.
Source: OpenAI Healthcare as an ally