OpenAI Acquires Health Data Startup Torch to Expand ChatGPT Health AI Capabilities

OpenAI has acquired Torch, a small healthcare technology startup focused on organizing personal medical data for artificial intelligence, marking another step in the company’s expansion into the health sector. The deal brings Torch’s technology and its four-person team into OpenAI, where they will contribute to the recently launched ChatGPT Health product.

Torch was building an app designed to combine a person’s medical information — including doctor visits, lab results, medication lists, wearable data, and consumer health tests — into a single, unified profile. The team described the product as a “medical memory for AI,” aimed at solving one of healthcare’s most persistent problems: health data scattered across hospitals, labs, apps, and portals that rarely connect with each other.

Financial terms were not officially disclosed, and reporting on the deal value varies. CNBCDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → cited a source familiar with the matter who put the price at roughly $60 million , while The InformationDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → reported, based on an unnamed source, that OpenAI paid around $100 million in equity . OpenAI and Torch have declined to confirm either figure, highlighting the uncertainty around the transaction’s exact size.

The deal appears to be structured as an acqui-hire, with Torch’s entire team joining OpenAI. Torch co-founder and CEO Ilya AbyzovDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → said the move would allow the technology to reach a much larger audience by integrating it into ChatGPT Health. The team previously worked together at Forward Health, an AI-powered primary care startup that shut down in late 2024.

This move comes as scrutiny grows around the use of AI in health-related settings, particularly around governance, transparency, and user safeguards. While OpenAI positions ChatGPT Health as a tool for organizing and understanding medical data, critics continue to question how far AI systems should go in mediating health and well-being.

Sources:
CNBC
TechCrunch
The Information
EarsternEye

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