Health Tech Founders: The Future of Care Is Personalized, Proactive—and AI-Powered
Founders from Function Health and Slingshot AI discuss building consumer health products by shifting from digital-only context to a 'Human Experience' that brings biological and psychological data online. They explore new engagement paradigms beyond DAU, the role of AI in augmenting rather than replacing doctors, and the ethical imperative of preserving user autonomy.
The conversation explores how AI is being applied to personal health and mental health, focusing on building products directly for consumers outside of traditional healthcare systems. The core thesis is that the most impactful AI experiences must be built on deep human context—our biology and psychology—rather than just our digital activity.
Redefining User Experience: From UX to “HX” (Human Experience)
A central theme is the need to evolve beyond traditional User Experience (UX) design, which is often based on digital interactions. For health, the context is the human being, not just their online behavior.
- Bringing Biology Online: Function Health’s approach is to “literally bring your biology online.” They argue that personal health data is the ultimate prerequisite context for an AI that people will use continuously. This shifts the focus from “Daily Active Use” (DAU) to a future of “Hourly Active Use,” where health insights are integrated into a person’s life, not confined to a siloed app.
- Innovating Beyond Existing Paradigms: In mental health, users often request familiar features, such as scheduling appointments. However, the founders argue that simply mapping old models onto AI is a failure of imagination, comparing it to asking for a “faster horse” instead of inventing the car. The goal is to innovate and discover the right experience for a new technology, which may involve challenging user expectations. As Jonathan Swerdlin puts it:
To look backwards, even call an AI doctor or an AI therapist is like saying like it’s the motorized horse.
Augmentation, Not Replacement
A strong consensus emerged that the goal of AI in health is to augment human professionals, not replace them. AI’s role is to handle the data-intensive, repetitive tasks that humans are ill-suited for, thereby freeing them up to do what they do best.
- Signal from the Noise: For physicians, Function Health provides a clear, data-driven picture of a patient’s health before an appointment. This transforms a vague, exploratory conversation into a focused, high-signal interaction. The doctor can immediately apply their expertise to the relevant data, rather than spending time on discovery.
- Empowering Therapists: Therapists are reportedly among the biggest supporters of AI tools like Ash. They recommend it to patients for continuous support between sessions or use it themselves to process their own experiences. The AI acts as a foundational tool that can help people solve problems before they escalate, increasing access to care in a system where there are over 10,000 people for every one therapist.
Building Trust and a True Therapeutic Alliance
In a space governed by trust, momentum is built through authentic impact stories and word-of-mouth, not advertising. For an AI to be effective, especially in therapy, it must earn the user’s trust and build a genuine therapeutic alliance.
This is achieved not by being a sycophant, but by being a catalyst for introspection. Daniel Cahn explains the difference:
- A generic chatbot might say: “I’m so sorry that you’re feeling angry. Here are three things we could try.”
- Ash, in contrast, will challenge the user: “So, anger… why is anger a bad thing? If you were angry every day for the rest of your life, what would be the problem with that?”
This Socratic approach encourages users to explore their own feelings and arrive at their own conclusions, which is the foundation of effective therapy. It’s this challenging dynamic that builds a true alliance, not constant validation.
The Ethical Imperative: Preserving Autonomy
The most significant ethical challenge is to ensure that AI supports user autonomy rather than undermining it. The AI should not be a decision-maker that provides easy answers.
It is often better… that this person remain in this relationship for as long as it takes, no matter how painful it is so that they actually learn the lesson for themselves, so they can make the decision for themselves. They maintain their sense of autonomy rather than I try to solve this problem for them short term.
The risk of doing this wrong is creating dependency and robbing individuals of the growth that comes from navigating their own challenges. Paradoxically, by fostering this self-reliance, AI can enhance human connection. Data from Ash shows that over time, users actually increase their connections with other people, suggesting that AI can serve as a tool to improve, rather than replace, human relationships.