| For as long as I’ve been reporting, I’ve been tracking tech companies’ fascination with healthcare. |
| There are good reasons for it. Patients aren’t having great experiences, the market is only growing ($5.3 trillion and counting) and tech has the potential to address some of the biggest problems healthcare has. |
| Last week, AI research lab Midjourney, known for its ability to generate images and videos, became the latest to jump into healthcare, launching Midjourney Medical. The vision: Build ultrasound-based whole-body imaging machines that can run in Midjourney medical spas, the first of which it plans to open by the end of 2027. It’s Midjourney’s first foray outside of its core business and its first push into building hardware. (To be sure, the company is still working on its scanner, so there's no data yet on how well its specific machine works.) |
| By 2031, Midjourney said, it’s aiming to have more than 50,000 scanners available. It’s a level of ambition — and speed — that I’m not sure I’ve seen from the tech companies I’ve covered in the past. |
| “One of the overarching themes of the 21st century will be the expanding reach of intelligence and what we choose to do with it. We talk to artificial intelligences every day — and increasingly we talk to them about our health,” Midjourney wrote in a post accompanying the announcement. |
| Midjourney, which doesn’t have investors, has been working with Butterfly Network and its chip-based ultrasound technology. Butterfly CEO Joseph DeVivo has been watching the online discussion around whether the scanners will actually make people healthier ever since Midjourney unveiled the news last week at an event in San
Francisco. |
| “When I hear that this technology debate versus how the medical community feels, I think everybody's right. Unfortunately, it's just what variable are you solving for?” DeVivo told me. |
| That is, if you’re just changing the variable of making images as they are now more accessible to consumers, it makes sense to be up in arms. But DeVivo expects more changes to happen. |
| “I don't think one variable changes. I think a lot of things are going to happen between now and 2029,” DeVivo said. “I think AI is going to be extraordinarily capable. I think the system is going to be more and more capable.” |
| In health tech, I’m used to hearing about a new way of bringing healthcare services to consumers (the most relevant example, of course, being preventive whole-body MRIs). This is one of the rare moments where it feels entirely… new. Of course, that means we’ll have to see how well it works — Midjourney says it will start by offering body composition maps, then work with the FDA for regulatory clearances. |
| We haven’t had a chance to talk to Midjourney just yet — maybe one day soon! In the meantime, we’ll be following along to see what evidence comes out of this new hardware concept and whether it’ll live up to the high goals it set for itself. |
| - Lydia |
