An Apple Inc. AI doctor a day…
The iPhone maker, which has cautiously proceeded rolling out artificial intelligence (AI) features, is reportedly moving full stream ahead on an AI agent to “replicate” physicians to monitor data and make recommendations in the company’s biggest health care push to date.
Apple’s Project Mulberry consists of an AI agent and revamped Health app that could be released as early as the iOS 19.4 update scheduled for spring or summer 2026, according to a Bloomberg report on Sunday. Apple’s goal of putting a “medical lab on your wrist,” the report said, would underscore its greatest contribution to society, which is health care, according to CEO Tim Cook.
The reworked Health app would gather data from iPhone, Apple Watch, and earbuds and feed that data to an AI agent to produce tailor-made recommendations based on the user’s current health.
Physicians are training Apple’s AI agent, Bloomberg reported, and Apple is looking to hire specialists in sleep, nutrition, physical therapy, mental health, and cardiology to create video content for the revamped Health app. Additionally, the app will focus on food tracking.
As part of its health care campaign — NVIDIA Corp., Amazon.com Inc., and Alphabet Inc.’s Google have already plunged into the increasingly lucrative market — Apple plans to open a facility in the San Francisco Bay area where doctors will make videos for the new offering, which has the tentative title of Health+, Bloomberg said.
Apple is also dabbling with the concept of using iPhone’s rear camera to monitor users’ workouts and give pointers to improve their technique through the AI agent.
The company’s storied ambitions in health care date back more than a decade. It has reportedly toiled for 15 years on a noninvasive glucose monitor that could be used on the Apple Watch, and inform its users if they’re prediabetic. The report said the project has hit key milestones, but it is still years from bringing the service to market.
Health care is considered an extremely fertile landing space for AI, as more Americans lean on the technology and the medical profession deals with a shortage of doctors and other specialists nationwide. The marriage of data and AI apps is an ideal use case, Big Tech companies acknowledged in their pursuit of a trillion-dollar market.
Indeed, Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates recently predicted on NBC’s “The Tonight Show” that advances in AI will significantly reduce people’s roles in medicine and education in less than 10 years.
“You’re seeing the medicine industry advanced not just by pharmaceutical giants but Big Tech. Apple is being super pragmatic in making its technology useful to health care,” ForSight Robotics President Joseph Nathan said in an interview. Nathan, who is a physician, is developing robotics for eye surgery.
