Microsoft is ramping up its investment in healthcare-focused artificial intelligence as it charts a path toward AI independence and looks beyond its high-profile partnership with OpenAI.
According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft plans a major upgrade to its Copilot chatbot, incorporating trusted medical information through a new licensing deal with Harvard Medical School’s publishing arm. The goal: provide users with more accurate, accessible health advice, and position Microsoft as a credible leader in the AI healthcare space.
Dominic King, VP of Health at Microsoft AI, said the company’s strategy centers on delivering “trustworthy health information” that’s tailored to a range of literacy levels and demographics. Harvard Health Publishing will supply the vetted content, but financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The move comes amid Microsoft’s broader efforts to diversify its AI portfolio. Although the tech giant maintains a multibillion-dollar stake in OpenAI and continues to integrate GPT models into its products, Microsoft is steadily investing in its own in-house models. This includes hiring top researchers from Google DeepMind and expanding its internal AI teams under the leadership of Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI and co-founder of DeepMind.
In June, Microsoft made waves by unveiling an AI diagnostic tool it claimed outperformed human doctors in certain clinical evaluations—at a fraction of the cost. Healthcare, it seems, has become a proving ground for Microsoft’s ambitions to control its own AI future.
Still, there’s a gap to close. Microsoft’s Copilot app has amassed around 95 million downloads, compared to over one billion for OpenAI’s ChatGPT, according to Sensor Tower. Microsoft currently relies on OpenAI’s models to power most of Copilot’s responses. But engineers have been testing a homegrown alternative since August, and Microsoft is also exploring the use of Anthropic’s Claude models across some 365 applications.
As competition intensifies in the AI arms race, Microsoft’s foray into healthcare marks both a tactical and reputational shift—one that may help the company assert its independence from OpenAI while gaining trust in one of the most sensitive and regulated sectors of the tech landscape.
The post Microsoft Doubles Down on Healthcare AI in Strategic Shift Away from OpenAI Dependence appeared first on Real News Now.
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