Recent updates from OpenAI, Google, and other major players make one thing clear: the industry is doubling down on making AI more accessible, more useful, and more embedded in everyday decision-making. For consumers, this means faster answers and more intuitive experiences. For healthcare marketers, it signals another inflection point in an already complex digital landscape.
With more than 800 million weekly active users, ChatGPT is reshaping how people search for information, evaluate options, and form expectations across nearly every category of their lives. While healthcare remains a regulated outlier in many of these updates, this directional momentum matters. The behaviors being shaped today in retail, finance, and travel will inevitably influence how patients expect to engage with healthcare tomorrow.
Below, we break down three of the most meaningful updates we’ve seen so far in 2026 and what they mean for healthcare marketers and patients alike.
ads enter the chat: monetization comes to conversational AI
OpenAI’s announcement that advertisements will begin appearing in ChatGPT for free and Go users marks a pivotal moment in the evolution of AI platforms. While health, mental health, and political ads are currently excluded, the introduction of ads confirms what many suspected: conversational AI is becoming a scalable media environment.
What this means for healthcare marketers
Although healthcare organizations likely won't be able to advertise in ChatGPT anytime soon, this shift reinforces a larger theme: the patient journey is becoming more fragmented, more dynamic, and more influenced by nontraditional touchpoints. Patients are increasingly researching, comparing, and making decisions in environments that don’t look like traditional search engines or social feeds.
For healthcare marketers, the implication isn’t to chase every new platform, but to deepen our understanding of how patients seek information and where influence is being formed. Media strategies built solely around legacy channels risk missing critical moments upstream. Diversifying media mixes and investing in content that is discoverable, authoritative, and AI-readable will be essential as conversational environments continue to become commonplace.
What this means for patients
Patients searching for healthcare information won’t see health-related ads in ChatGPT’s current state. But they will become accustomed to the ease of conversational research in other parts of their lives like grocery shopping, product comparisons, financial planning, and beyond.
Over time, those expectations will bleed into healthcare. Regardless of how ChatGPT ultimately monetizes health-related interactions, patients will increasingly expect their healthcare experiences to feel just as intuitive, responsive, and helpful as the AI-powered tools they use in other facets of their lives.
Interestingly, while OpenAI is introducing ads, platforms like Perplexity and Anthropic are currently positioning themselves as ad-free alternatives. Perplexity has even stepped back from early advertising tests, suggesting ongoing experimentation with how conversational AI should be monetized. The question becomes less if these platforms will generate revenue and more how. Subscription-only models may limit scale; enterprise-first strategies may shape feature prioritization; and future monetization pivots could quickly alter the user experience. For healthcare marketers, this reinforces an important reality: conversational AI is still economically and strategically fluid.
ChatGPT Health: a new era of patient empowerment
Perhaps the most consequential update from January is the introduction of ChatGPT Health, a dedicated experience designed specifically for health-related conversations. Built with input from more than 260 physicians and designed with enhanced security safeguards, Health allows users to connect medical records, lab results, and wellness apps to receive more personalized insights.
OpenAI reports that more than 230 million people globally are already asking ChatGPT health-related questions every week—a number that underscores just how central AI has become in the health information ecosystem.
What this means for healthcare marketers
Tools like ChatGPT Health are accelerating a shift that’s been building for years: patients are arriving more informed, more curious, and more prepared to participate actively in their care. We can expect patients to seek answers to increasingly complex questions, engage more deeply in medical research, and challenge care pathways that were historically referral- or physician-driven.
For healthcare marketers, this raises the bar. Educational content must be more sophisticated. Service line messaging must anticipate nuanced questions. And digital experiences must support patients who are no longer passive recipients of information, but active participants in decision-making.
What this means for patients
For patients and caregivers, ChatGPT Health represents a powerful new tool for self-advocacy. Individuals may arrive at appointments better prepared, with specific treatment options in mind or a desire to see more advanced specialists sooner.
At the same time, realizing the full value of this tool requires sharing deeply personal information. How willing patients are to do so, and under what conditions, will be one of the most important signals of consumer trust in AI. Privacy, transparency, and perceived safety will ultimately determine how embedded tools like this become in everyday healthcare decision-making.
an increasingly AI-forward search experience
Google’s continued evolution toward an AI-first search experience further blurs the line between traditional search and conversational AI. With Gemini 3 now powering AI overviews and AI Mode becoming more accessible on mobile, users are being guided away from classic search results and into personalized, conversational journeys.
What this means for healthcare marketers
We’ve already seen AI overviews disrupt informational search, reducing click-through rates and changing how visibility is earned. This trend will only accelerate as users receive more of what they need directly from AI-generated summaries and follow-up conversations.
For healthcare organizations, the opportunity lies less in ranking among ten blue links and more in ensuring content is structured, credible, and accessible to AI tools. Visibility in an AI-driven ecosystem depends on clarity, authority, and relevance, not just keywords.
What this means for patients
ChatGPT isn’t the only place patients will encounter AI-driven health information. Even those who continue to favor “traditional” search will increasingly receive personalized, AI-powered results.
Google is unapologetically reshaping search in the interest of delivering better information, faster. For patients, while this means less friction, it also means a greater need to evaluate sources critically as AI becomes the intermediary between questions and answers.
the bigger picture
Taken together, these updates point to a future where AI is not a channel, but an environment. One that shapes expectations long before patients ever interact with a health system. While healthcare may be insulated from certain monetization models today, it won’t be insulated from the behavioral shifts these tools create.
For healthcare marketers, the path forward isn’t about reacting to every update. It’s about building strategies that are resilient to change: grounded in patient understanding, supported by strong content foundations, and flexible enough to evolve as AI continues to redefine how people seek and trust information.
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