OpenAI acquires health tech startup Torch for $100M to power ChatGPT Health with unified records

OpenAI buys tiny health records startup Torch for, reportedly, $100M | TechCrunch

OpenAI announced it has acquired a tiny startup called Torch for an undisclosed sum. An unnamed sourced told the Information that OpenAI paid $100 million worth of equity for the startup. Torch's four-person team is joining OpenAI, both companies said. Torch was working on an app that combined all of a person's medical information for AI use from a range sources such as doctor visits, lab tests, wearables and other portals, including consumer wellness tests and the like. The Torch team called their tech "a medical memory for AI, unifying scattered records into a context engine." The Torch team met when they worked at Forward Health, Torch co-founder Ilya Abyzov said in a post on X. Forward was known for its AI powered doctor's offices. It abruptly shut down in late 2024 after raising over $400 million. This acqui-hire means a different fate. The team and its tech will be part of OpenAI's newly announced ChatGPT Health, a service for people using the chatbot to analyze and manage their health.

OpenAI acquires health-care technology startup Torch

Torch was building a "unified medical memory" for artificial intelligence that aimed to bring a patient's health data, which is typically siloed and stored across a number of different vendors and formats, into one place. Torch's employees will join OpenAI as part of the deal, the companies said. OpenAI and Torch did not disclose the terms of the acquisition. "I can't imagine a better next chapter than to now get to put our technology and ideas in the hands of the hundreds of millions of people who already use ChatGPT for health questions every week," Torch CEO Ilya Abyzov wrote in a post on X.

OpenAI acquires health tech company Torch

Why it matters: Large AI companies are showing more interest in monetizing health care workflows. Zoom in: The deal was valued at $100 million in equity, per The Information, citing a person with knowledge of the acquisition. Catch up quick: Last week, OpenAI announced ChatGPT Health, which will allow users to upload their medical records from wellness apps like Apple Health, Function and MyFitnessPal to ChatGPT. * OpenAI says the service is designed to support, not replace, medical care. It is not intended for diagnosis or treatment. * Instead, it can help users with tasks such as understanding test results or getting advice on dieting and exercise. Zoom out: OpenAI competitor Anthropic added features to its model for health care and life science customers on Monday.

OpenAI buys health-tech Torch for $100m

OpenAI said that it will bring Torch together with its latest foray into healthcare, ChatGPT Health. OpenAI acquires US start-up Torch for more than $100m, doubling down on its pivot towards healthcare. Founded less than a year ago, Torch is an app that unifies scattered health records, combining that with a large language model to help users analyse and understand their medical information. "We designed Torch to be a unified medical memory for AI, bringing every bit of data about you from hospitals, labs, wearables and consumer testing companies into one place," Torch co-founder Ilya Abyzov said on X. Announcing the acquisition, OpenAI said that it will bring Torch together with its latest foray into healthcare, ChatGPT Health. The dedicated service on ChatGPT acts much like what Torch offers - a way for users to upload their health records and converse with the chatbot to understand test results, prepare for appointments, and seek information on diet and workouts. OpenAI has committed to making ChatGPT Health private, promising that the data uploaded and conversations had on the service will not be fed into the general-purpose ChatGPT, nor will they be used to train any of OpenAI's foundational models. According to the AI giant, more than 230m people use ChatGPT for health and wellness-related questions weekly. "I can't imagine a better next chapter than to now get to put our technology and ideas in the hands of the hundreds of millions of people who already use ChatGPT for health questions every week," Abyzov added. He co-founded the company alongside James Hamlin and Eugene Huang - Abyzov's employees from his previous venture Forward. Abyzov co-founded the health-tech Forward in 2016, offering a direct-to-consumer "healthcare system". The company abruptly shut down business in 2024. The Information reported at the time that nearly 200 employees lost their jobs as a result. In comments online, Abyzov said, "This isn't the way we guessed it would happen, but making Torch a part of OpenAI means the mission we started at Forward is closer than ever." Torch's leadership and workforce are set to join OpenAI. Earlier this week, Anthropic launched its own 'Claude for Healthcare', a dedicated set of tools under Claude for medical queries. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

OpenAI Acquires Torch to Expand ChatGPT Health Capabilities | AIM

Reports suggest that OpenAI paid about $100 million in equity for the startup. OpenAI has acquired Torch, the team of which will join the company to work on health and wellness features for ChatGPT, Torch co-founder Ilya Abyzov said in a post on January 13. Founded in 2024, Torch is led by founder and CEO Abyzov, who previously co-founded Forward Health. The startup's other co-founders include Eugene Huang, James Hamlin and Ryan Oman. An unnamed person familiar with the matter told The Information that OpenAI paid about $100 million in equity for the startup. Both companies said Torch's four-person team is moving to OpenAI. Abyzov said the team will work to "build ChatGPT Health into the best AI tool in the world for health and wellness." Torch was built as a system to aggregate personal medical data from hospitals, laboratories, wearables and consumer health services into a single platform. "We designed Torch to be a unified medical memory for AI, bringing every bit of data about you from hospitals, labs, wearables, and consumer testing companies into one place," Abyzov said. He said the product was developed with beta users and that feedback highlighted its role in helping people better understand their health. Abyzov said the decision to join OpenAI was driven by the scale of ChatGPT's user base. "I can't imagine a better next chapter than to now get to put our technology and ideas in the hands of the hundreds of millions of people who already use ChatGPT for health questions every week," he wrote. He also addressed concerns around data handling. "We wouldn't have taken it on if we didn't think that OpenAI cared as much as we do about privacy, safety, collaboration with physicians, and building something at an extremely high level of craft and consumer polish," Abyzov said. The Torch team previously worked together at Forward, where they aimed to build large-scale healthcare services. "This isn't the way we guessed it would happen, but making Torch a part of OpenAI means the mission we started at Forward is closer than ever," Abyzov said. Explaining the broader vision, Torch, in a blog post, said that fragmented health data limits the usefulness of AI in medicine. "AI can't help you if your health data is scattered across four hospitals, two labs, seven apps and three web portals," the company said.

OpenAI buys Torch to bring unified medical data into ChatGPT Health - SiliconANGLE

OpenAI buys Torch to bring unified medical data into ChatGPT Health OpenAI Group PBC announced today that it had acquired Torch Health Inc., a healthcare technology startup focused on unifying personal medical data, as the artificial intelligence company moves to expand its efforts in health-related applications. The price of the acquisition was not officially disclosed and reports vary as to how much was paid. The Information claims that the acquisition was "about $100 million," while CNBC pegs the price at "roughly $60 million," Founded in 2024, Torch offers an AI-powered health app that is designed to aggregate fragmented medical information from multiple sources, including healthcare providers, diagnostic labs and personal health data. Torch consolidates medical data such as lab results, prescriptions, diagnoses and treatment histories into a single, normalized view with an aim to reduce record fragmentation that can leave patients and clinicians working with incomplete or outdated information. The app can also capture and organize unstructured health information that is often lost or underutilized, such as recordings or summaries of doctor visits, care instructions and contextual notes to preserve the data alongside clinical records to help maintain continuity across appointments and providers. Under the hood, Torch uses AI to make the aggregated information more accessible and useful, including the ability to summarize complex medical data, identify patterns over time and present information in a format that is easier for users to understand. In a post on X, OpenAI said that bringing together Torch with ChatGPT Health "opens up a new way to understand and manage your health." The deal aligns with OpenAI's broader push to make ChatGPT more useful in specialized domains by allowing it to work with structured, user-authorized data, rather than relying solely on general-purpose models and conversational inputs. The deal also comes less than a week since OpenAI previewed ChatGPT Health, a new service that, once fully launched, will support a wide range of healthcare-related prompts. The service promises to allow users to explain lab results, put together an exercise plan and recommend questions to ask during a medical appointment. The acquisition of Torch can only help in the ChatGPT Health endeavor by giving OpenAI technology and expertise aimed at safely connecting AI systems with personal health records. The acquisition also suggests that OpenAI is positioning itself to play a larger role in consumer-facing health tools while also laying groundwork for future partnerships with healthcare providers and platforms. "We started Torch to build a medical memory for AI, unifying scattered records into a context engine that helps you see the full picture, connect the dots and make sure nothing important gets lost in the noise again," Torch's founders said on its website. "Now, we're joining OpenAI to realize that vision at a bigger scale than we could have ever achieved on our own."

OpenAI Plans to Bolster ChatGPT Health With the Acquisition of Torch

* Torch was building a unified medical memory for AI use * OpenAI acquired Torch in a deal exceeding $100 million * The company recently unveiled ChatGPT Health OpenAI announced the acquisition of Torch, a healthtech startup, on Monday. The San Francisco-based artificial intelligence (AI) giant also stated that the technology will be used to improve ChatGPT Health, its healthcare-focused solution for end users. The acquisition is interesting since one of the Co-Founders of the startup has claimed that the deal cost the ChatGPT-maker north of $100 million (roughly Rs. 902.2 crore). Notably, OpenAI has been aggressively pushing into the healthcare sector since the start of the year 2026. OpenAI Acquires Torch In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), the official handle of OpenAI announced the acquisition of Torch, adding, "Bringing this together with ChatGPT Health opens up a new way to understand and manage your health." In addition to purchasing the startup, the AI giant is also onboarding the entire staff of Torch, which comprises four people. Interestingly, Torch is a nascent startup that was founded in 2025 and has not launched any product in the market. Describing what the team was building, Co-Founder Ilya Abyzov said in a post, "We designed Torch to be a unified medical memory for AI, bringing every bit of data about you from hospitals, labs, wearables, and consumer testing companies into one place." Based on this description, OpenAI will likely use the data (or memory) streamlining technology and integrate it in ChatGPT Health, so that when users upload multiple large documents, the chatbot can still respond to them without losing the context or making an error. But the question that remains is why the AI giant decided to pay more than $100 million (roughly Rs. 902.2 crore) for a technology that it could have developed in-house. Notably, the financials of the deal was revealed by Co-Founder Adrian Aoun in a LinkedIn post. "I can't imagine a better next chapter than to now get to put our technology and ideas in the hands of the hundreds of millions of people who already use ChatGPT for health questions every week," added Abyzov. Notably, OpenAI has also introduced an enterprise suite for healthcare institutions, ChatGPT for Healthcare. It comes with a dedicated GPT-5-powered AI platform and an OpenAI application programming interface (API) that will enable not only hospitals and doctors, but also developers working in the healthcare space to access AI for a wide range of tasks. It is not clear if Torch's tech stack will also be used for this offering.

OpenAI acquires healthcare startup Torch, deal pegged at $100 million

Torch is a small healthcare technology startup which focusses on unifying fragmented medical data such as lab results, medications, and doctor visit records, into a single, AI-readable system. OpenAI on Monday announced that it has acquired healthtech startup Torch as part of its strategic push into artificial intelligence (AI)-powered healthcare tools. The deal is valued at about $100 million in equity, according to media reports. Torch is a small healthcare technology startup that focusses on unifying fragmented medical data such as lab results, medications, and doctor visit records, into a single, AI-readable system. "Bringing this together with ChatGPT Health opens up a new way to understand and manage your health," ChatGPT said in a post on X. It is a relatively new startup with a team that previously worked together at Forward Health, a now-defunct AI-enabled healthcare provider. It was founded in 2024 by Ilya Abyzov and Eugene Huang. "The Torch team and I are joining OAI to help build ChatGPT Health into the best AI tool in the world for health and wellness," Abyzov shared in a post online. Torch built an app which aims to act as a "medical memory for AI", consolidating health information from disparate sources like wearables, labs, and clinical records into a unified engine. The Torch team, which is about four people, will join OpenAI to help develop and expand ChatGPT Health, a feature recently launched by the company that lets users connect and analyse their health records alongside ChatGPT. Also Read: Anthropic, OpenAI's healthcare push fans the flames of privacy unrest Integrating Torch's technology is expected to strengthen how ChatGPT Health can interpret and contextualise personal health data. This acquisition underscores AI companies' growing interest in specialized AI applications in healthcare, moving beyond general-purpose chatbots toward tools. Anthropic announced a similar feature over the weekend.

OpenAI agrees to buy AI healthcare startup in $100 million deal: Report

OpenAI continues to expand its ecosystem, with reports also pointing to upcoming UI changes in ChatGPT's mobile apps. OpenAI has agreed to acquire a small health tech startup called Torch. With the new acquisition, the ChatGPT maker will add its team and technology to move forward in the AI race of making healthcare tools more accessible and worthy. It must be noted that OpenAI did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, but a source cited by The Information said the acquisition was valued at around $100 million in equity. For the unversed, the Torch was founded by a four member team and had been developing a platform designed to bring together an individual's medical data from multiple sources, including clinical visits, lab results, wearable devices and consumer health services. The goal was to create a unified system that allows AI models to better understand and interpret a person's health history. The startup's founders previously worked together at Forward Health, the AI-driven primary care company that shut down in late 2024 despite raising more than $400 million in funding. Torch co-founder Ilya Abyzov said the team's shared experience at Forward laid the foundation for the product they later built. With the acquisition, Torch's employees will join OpenAI, and the technology will be integrated into the company's newly announced ChatGPT Health initiative. The service is aimed at users who want to use OpenAI's chatbot to track, analyse and manage health-related information, clearly implying that OpenAI is working into the health space. Once more, OpenAI's specifics and future plans are still unknown. Meanwhile, the company is reportedly working on a new update to the attachment menu on ChatGPT's mobile apps. With this modification, OpenAI may combine attachment options into a scrollable page that would take up a lot less screen space than the current menu. This will make Add Photos, Web Search, and other buttons more visible and easier to reach.