Not Just for Medical Inquiries: AI Healthcare Is Becoming the Next Gold Mine

TradingKey - Artificial Intelligence is Reshaping the Healthcare Industry.

From assistants to decision engines, from information extraction to personalized interventions, AI is penetrating the entire process of human health management at an unprecedented speed. With leading tech companies such as Apple, Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic sequentially releasing AI healthcare-related tools and platforms, healthcare is becoming the vertical field with the densest AI integration and the most certain commercial prospects, following search engines and office software.

This is not only a systemic change driven by technology but also represents a new round of investment opportunities for long-term value revaluation.

AI Giants Reconstruct the "Digital Health" Ecosystem

OpenAI officially launched a new feature called ChatGPT Health last Wednesday, enabling users to connect health records and third-party health applications to its AI dialogue system. This unprecedented attempt marks the AI startup's full entry into the healthcare sector, intending to build ChatGPT into a "universal health assistant" for daily life.

Notably, OpenAI emphasized that ChatGPT Health is positioned not as a medical diagnostic tool but as a health aid for general users, allowing people to track their physical condition, understand health trends, and answer common questions about diet, sleep, and activity while not in a clinical setting. The goal is to become a "health interpreter" that helps users more clearly understand and manage their own health data.

Following closely behind, another AI unicorn, Anthropic, also announced its entry into the healthcare track this week. According to Bloomberg, the company, with a valuation already reaching $350 billion, recently launched Claude Medical, a new service compliant with HIPAA privacy rules, , which supports hospitals, medical institutions, researchers, and consumers in processing sensitive health data.

The medical features launched by Anthropic this time cover database integration, enhanced biological research capabilities, and data interoperability with platforms such as Apple Health and Function Health.

The company stated that the service adheres to strict privacy standards and will not use medical data to train AI models; the medical answers generated are cited from authoritative literature such as PubMed and the NPI Registry, ensuring information compliance and reliability.

In addition, tech giant Apple is also picking up the pace; according to sources familiar with the matter, Apple will also launch a deeply reconstructed Health App in the upcoming iOS 26.4 update. . This update will not only feature a redesigned interface but will also include AI interactive agents, diet monitoring functions, and health guidance video content in the style of Fitness+. Its overall strategy is clearly intended to compete head-on with mainstream health service platforms on the market, such as MyFitnessPal and Noom.

Whether it is OpenAI's semantic empowerment, Anthropic's compliance control, or Apple's ecosystem closed-loop built through terminal hardware, they all reflect a common trend: AI healthcare has transitioned from the exploration stage to product implementation and is becoming the next core battlefield for competition among large-model company ecosystems.

Cloud + Large Models: The "Digital Foundation" of AI Healthcare

If the consumer-facing products of the giants are the "surface," then the competition in underlying infrastructure is the "core."

Google is leveraging its AI lab, DeepMind, to further systematize and platformize the "medical brain" it has cultivated for years. By reaching a ten-year strategic partnership with the Mayo Clinic, Google continues to deepen the linkage between clinical scenarios, research data, and security architecture.

By the end of 2025, Google completed the deep infusion of Gemini 3 technology, officially launching the Med-Gemini model for the medical vertical and releasing the open-source medical imaging model MedGemma.

These two products not only achieved leading results in medical licensing simulation tests but were also integrated into the unified Vertex AI for Health platform, realizing a one-stop closed-loop service from consultation search and image recognition to medical paper summaries. This makes Google not only a leader in model capabilities but also an important builder of the medical AI productivity toolchain.

In contrast, Amazon has chosen a "service-driven" path. As the world's largest cloud platform provider, AWS does not directly develop consumer-facing medical products but instead focuses on building an "AI technical foundation" widely trusted by hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and insurance institutions.

Through deep cooperation with medical information technology giants such as 3M, Cerner, and Omada Health, AWS encapsulates its AI capabilities into development tools, API interfaces, and service platforms, providing the traditional healthcare ecosystem with solutions that are both compliant and scalable.

Its representative product, "HealthScribe," has already been deployed in multiple clinical institutions. Combined with the next-generation Nova Sonic voice model, it significantly improves the efficiency of medical record generation and physician documentation, reducing administrative work time by up to 75%.

It is not hard to see that the development of all current medical large models relies on two underlying conditions:

First, "Cloud Capabilities" : The massive computing and storage requirements need to be supported by underlying IaaS platforms such as AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure;

Second, "Large Model Capabilities" : Powerful natural language analysis, semantic reasoning, and information summarization capabilities similar to GPT are required to truly understand health data, read medical records, review images, and conduct high-quality interactions.

Investment in AI healthcare is not just a software concept but an ultimate contest of "platform foundation + scenario implementation."

Leading Companies in AI Healthcare Segments

If tech giants are building the basic foundation for AI healthcare by providing computing power, algorithms, and platform support, then those truly capable of realizing scenario closed-loops and taking the lead in commercialization are the segment leaders that have long been deeply rooted in their respective vertical fields.

In the field of surgical robotics, Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) continues to promote the fusion of AI technology with minimally invasive surgical scenarios. Its flagship product, the da Vinci system, has iterated to its third generation, achieving AI-assisted path navigation, intraoperative risk modeling, and image recognition functions, expanding from a surgical tool to the role of a "quasi-doctor."

In the direction of cutting-edge life sciences, CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP) has received FDA approval for the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing therapy launched jointly with Vertex, opening the door to the era of gene therapy. In this process, AI technology is used for protein structure modeling, pathological pathway screening, and drug response prediction, shortening research and development cycles and controlling costs.

In terms of consumer health management, Hims & Hers (HIMS) provides end-to-end digital health services to a wide range of household users through AI automated consultation, personalized prescription matching, and high-frequency health plan tracking. Its model connects multiple stages including purchase, diagnosis, medication, and behavioral intervention, making it a typical representative of AI empowering household health scenarios.

These companies are not developers of large AI models, but they naturally possess real clinical scenarios, structured data, and monetization channels, making them the first batch of practitioners where the commercial value of large models is being realized. From an investment perspective, they are scarce assets with "Alpha" potential beyond "Beta" allocation.

Harnessing New AI Healthcare Dividends via ETFs

For investors who wish to systematically participate in the AI healthcare theme but find it inconvenient to pick individual stocks, diversified allocation through relevant ETFs is a more robust and convenient method.

There are currently multiple ETF products on the market with clear themes and high coverage, with allocations spanning key sectors such as genetic engineering, medical equipment, and AI-enabled health platforms.

For example, ARK Genomic Revolution ETF (ARKG) Focusing on the frontier of medical technology, it primarily covers fields such as gene editing, biological computing, human omics, and AI-assisted drug discovery. Its constituents include representative companies such as CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP) and CareDx (CDNA).

Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLV) primarily focuses on the traditional healthcare sector, encompassing large pharmaceutical companies, insurance institutions, and mature medical device manufacturers. Although it is not a pure AI-themed ETF, these companies are enhancing operating efficiency and R&D productivity through AI, making them indirect beneficiaries.

Another one worth noting is HTAG (AI & Robotics Healthcare ETF) , which is one of the few vertical ETFs focused on AI healthcare scenarios. Its holdings include surgical robotics leader Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), digital health platform Hims & Hers (HIMS), telehealth and monitoring services firm MODV, and cardiovascular device company CVRX, covering the entire AI healthcare implementation chain from hardware to software and from operating rooms to consumer-facing services.

From large model-driven development to platform-level construction, and from the policy environment to terminal implementation, the entire AI healthcare industry chain is gradually maturing. For investors, rather than struggling to chase unproven newcomers, it may be wiser to build core positions around 'cloud + large model' foundational technology platforms, combined with segment leaders in specific scenarios to generate Alpha, or use ETFs to fully participate in the industry's growth dividends.

This is a paradigm shift in the healthcare industry and an industrial campaign for AI to move from the cloud to the real world. The tailwinds are here, the giants have moved, and the realization of dividends may be imminent.