Oura unveils proprietary AI model for women's health

Health technology company Oura is testing its first proprietary AI model focused on women's health, intending to provide personalized and clinically informed information to women.

Oura provides a smart ring product, known as the Oura Ring. The wearable device collects data on more than 50 health and wellness metrics to provide insights into sleep, movement, cycles and stress.  

The large language model (LLM) will be available within Oura Advisor, an AI-powered tool that translates data from the Oura Ring into guidance for users. In addition to long-term health trends and plans to reach health goals, Oura users will now be able to ask questions about reproductive health.

The model was built using Oura Advisor's existing generative AI and algorithms, as well as the ring's biometric tracking data. When an Oura user asks the Advisor question about women's health , it will prompt the new model to reference various research and knowledge sources. It will simultaneously assess relevant metrics across sleep, daily activity, cycle and other physiological data gathered by the wearable device.

"Women's health is too complex -- and too often overlooked -- to rely on one-size-fits-all systems," Ricky Bloomfield, M.D., chief medical officer at Oura, said in the press release. "By designing a model specifically for women and grounding it in trusted clinical science and real-world biometric data, we're setting the standard for how responsible intelligence should be built and expanded across more areas of health, pairing rigorous science with the lived, longitudinal data that makes Oura uniquely powerful."

The company also underscored that the new model will be hosted on Oura-controlled infrastructure, and that the conversations will never be "sold, shared, or used to train public or third-party AI systems."

Oura is one of dozens of companies that voluntarily committed to CMS' Health Technology Ecosystem initiative, a broad data-sharing effort involving technology companies, health systems, patient-facing app developers and payers. Oura signed on to a pledge focused on conversation AI assistants.

Companies signing the pledge promised to "build conversational AI assistants that connect to CMS Aligned Networks or personal health record apps, and with patient consent, securely access relevant health information and use this information to deliver personalized, helpful support."

They also promised to ensure their tools "clearly distinguish educational content from clinical guidance, assist patients directly when appropriate and guide them to care from a health professional when needed."

The LLM is being rolled out for testing in Oura Labs this week. Women may volunteer to test the new model, helping shape its development.

Anuja Vaidya has covered the healthcare industry since 2012. She currently covers the virtual healthcare landscape, including telehealth, remote patient monitoring and digital therapeutics.