ChatGPT May Soon Be Able to Read Your Apple Health Data
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A hidden icon in the latest ChatGPT app hints that OpenAI could be working on adding integration with Apple Health, potentially allowing the chatbot to read your health and fitness data to add context to your wellness AI discussions.
According to Joe Rossignol at MacRumors, the latest version of ChatGPT for iPhone includes an image of the Apple Health icon hidden within the app’s code. This isn’t yet exposed anywhere in the user interface, but its presence suggests the company is working on letting ChatGPT connect to Apple’s HealthKit frameworks to tap into Health categories such as activity, sleep, diet, breathing, and hearing.
With OpenAI’s recent push into inter-app connectivity, it’s not too surprising that Apple Health would be on the list. It already connects to over 30 different apps and services, including Dropbox, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Microsoft Teams, Notion, and Outlook, to name a few.
It’s unclear if OpenAI would be adding Health integration as part of its partnership with Apple, but it seems unlikely in light of Apple’s rumored work on its own AI-based “Health+” service, which is expected to launch sometime next year.
More likely, ChatGPT will just be taking advantage of the same HealthKit APIs that have been available to all developers for years. While most apps that use these features are fitness and workout tools that write data to the Health app, many also read data from it to provide their own health and fitness overviews. For example, an app like Withings might only be used to record weigh-ins, but it can also serve as an alternative to Apple Health, pulling in all the same data to present it in a different way and even offer guidance and recommendations.
ChatGPT would likely be a variation on that same theme, using the power of its AI models to analyze collected health data in unique ways. This could empower the chatbot to answer questions about how effectively a user’s workout regimen is progressing, or whether they should be concerned about trends in their sleep and diet — all without having to manually feed in the details.
While the idea of attaching an AI chatbot to your personal health data may be cause for alarm, it’s also very likely ChatGPT will have to follow the same rules as any other health app. That means not only asking for permission to access your health data, but letting you exercise the same granular control over what it can and can’t read. For instance, you could choose to expose workouts to ChatGPT without giving it access to things like heart rate, blood oxygen, or sleep cycles. Apple is quite diligent when it comes to privacy, and nowhere more so than when it comes to your health data.
There’s no word on when this will launch — or even any guarantee that it ever will — but it seems to be in line with OpenAI’s current ecosystem expansion strategy to help set ChatGPT apart from rivals like Google’s Gemini. It’s also likely that it wants to beat Apple to the punch by offering its own GPT-5-based health coaching before the rumored Health+ service debuts next year.
