In healthcare marketing today, the problem isn’t a lack of health information. Instead, there is so much information that it often fails to help people move forward.
Consumers are using search engines, health websites, social media, doctor directories, and AI tools to look up health information with a clear purpose: to get care. According to our whitepaper, 98% of people want to take a specific action after researching health topics, but only 41% feel they actually achieve their goal.
This gap inspired the creation of Healthline AI—a conversational health tool based on medically reviewed content, clinical safeguards, and practical steps to help people go from asking, “What does this mean?” to “What should I do next?”
To understand the opportunity and impact of Healthline AI, we spoke with three Fullspan Health experts: Berkeley Bethune, VP of Consumer Growth & Marketing; Aditya Vidhate, Associate Director of AI Products; and Ryan Crabtree, Senior Director of Product Management. Together, their perspectives show how the team is building a health AI experience designed around trust, utility, and clearer next steps.
“Decision utility isn’t just about answering a question. It’s about giving someone the tools, resources, and pathways they need to take a confident next step.”
— Berkeley Bethune, VP of Consumer Growth & Marketing at Fullspan Health
That idea became the foundation for Healthline AI. It’s not meant to replace clinical care or act as a general chatbot. Instead, it’s designed to be a trusted health companion that helps people understand their situation and the next steps they can take.
The early insight: people don’t just want information. They want direction.
Consumers now have more access to health information than ever before. But just having access hasn’t made it easier to make health decisions.
Many people come to Healthline during urgent, personal, and uncertain times. They might be looking up a new symptom, trying to understand a diagnosis, comparing treatments, or getting ready to talk to a doctor. In these moments, more information only helps if it points them in the right direction.
This is where Fullspan Health saw a chance to evolve Healthline’s role. While medically reviewed content stayed at the core, the experience needed to better match how people really make health decisions.
Berkeley describes the shift as moving from education to utility.
Healthline has always helped people understand their health. Healthline AI builds on that trust by helping them answer the next question: Now what?
That “now what” moment matters because people are already telling us what they need. Fullspan Health’s research found that 83% of people want guidance on practical next steps, not just more information.
“You earn the moment by being consistently credible, and you deepen the relationship by being genuinely useful when it counts.”
— Berkeley Bethune, VP of Consumer Growth & Marketing at Fullspan Health
For consumers, this could mean getting a medically reviewed answer that helps them decide what to do next. For pharma partners, it offers a way to connect with people at key moments when they are actively seeking to understand a condition, review treatment options, or prepare for a doctor's visit.
The goal isn’t to replace that conversation. It’s to make the consumer more prepared to have it.
The development challenge: health AI has to be useful, transparent, and safe
Creating a conversational health experience is different from simply adding AI to a website.
General AI tools can answer health questions quickly, but they are not designed for the specific needs and risks of health consumers. Their answers may draw from sources that are not reliable, current, or medically sound. They also do not always provide the traceability people need when the topic is personal and important.
Aditya Vidhate, Associate Director of AI Products at Fullspan Health, recognized the main challenge: Healthline AI needed to be both accessible and rigorous. Every answer had to be grounded in Healthline’s trusted, medically reviewed content and extensive vetting process, with citations when needed so users could see where the information came from. This traceability was not just a nice feature; it was essential for building trust.
“Each answer our tool gives is rooted in a Healthline.com article, and we also cite the sources with each answer whenever applicable. This creates traceable and transparent trust for users.”
— Aditya Vidhate, Associate Director of AI Products at Fullspan Health
This approach guided how Healthline AI was built. The system needed to find the right medically reviewed sources, summarize them accurately, and present the information clearly so users could take action. It also had to know when not to answer. In healthcare, a safe product must distinguish between questions it can answer with educational content and those that should be sent to a doctor or emergency service.
Aditya's team had to choose which questions Healthline AI should answer and which ones to redirect. They needed to balance being helpful with protecting privacy and following healthcare rules. They also had to make sure the AI matched Healthline’s tone, editorial standards, and focus on consumers.
Trust also had to shape the product’s privacy decisions. Ryan Crabtree, Senior Director of Product Management, says one of the team’s most important choices was not to build the experience around persistent user data. There are no user accounts, no conversation history linked to someone’s identity, and no profiles built from user questions. If someone shares personal health information or an identifier, the system is designed to catch it and redirect instead of processing it.
That decision limited some potential personalization features, but it reinforced the product’s most important promise. In a high-stakes health environment, privacy cannot be treated as a compliance layer added after the fact.
“Privacy has to be a design principle from the start, not a compliance layer you add at the end.”
— Ryan Crabtree, Senior Director of Product Management at Fullspan Health
Those principles extended to the user experience itself. Accuracy was only one part of the challenge. Healthline AI also had to match Healthline’s tone, editorial standards, and consumer-first approach. Even a technically correct answer can fall short if it feels cold, confusing, or disconnected from what someone needs in the moment.
That balance between safety and helpfulness is central to the product. Healthline AI is designed to answer when it can, redirect when it should, and help people move forward without turning health decisions into generic AI outputs.
The solution: a health AI experience designed around next steps
Ryan Crabtree, Senior Director of Product Management at Fullspan Health, says the product was created in direct response to user feedback.
Healthline’s research found that many people are interested in a conversational health experience. Almost 70% of those surveyed said they would trust a Healthline-powered AI more than ChatGPT, and 81% wanted clear next steps, not just information.
That last finding became a product mandate.
“[Consumers] were not coming to Healthline just to read anymore. They wanted to do something with what they learned.”
— Ryan Crabtree, Senior Director of Product Management at Fullspan Health
Healthline AI was created to help people do just that.
It all starts when someone asks a question. Healthline AI uses Healthline’s medically reviewed content to answer, then helps guide people to the next best step. That could mean reading more, getting ready for a doctor visit, or finding care options through Healthgrades.
At first, the team expected most users to want a full understanding before taking action. But early results showed some people were ready to move straight from asking a question to getting care. They were just at a different stage, not less engaged.
This insight changed how the product team approached routing. Rather than sending everyone down the same path, Healthline AI now looks at things like which article someone is reading, what questions they ask, and the topic. This helps the system figure out if someone needs more information, a practical resource, or a way to get care.
Ryan explains that the first version of the routing model was kept simple on purpose. If someone needed more information, it showed them relevant Healthline content. If they needed care, it showed doctor options through Healthgrades. This approach lets the team learn from real user behavior before creating more advanced pathways.
Healthline AI isn’t growing by just adding features on a set schedule. Instead, the team is building it step by step, using learning gates to answer key strategic questions before moving ahead.
What Healthline AI means for consumers and partners
For consumers, Healthline AI offers a more useful way to engage with trusted health information. It creates a conversational starting point grounded in medically reviewed content, with clearer paths to action.
For pharma and healthcare partners, it opens a new kind of engagement opportunity: reaching people when they’re actively trying to understand a condition, evaluate treatment options, or prepare for a care decision.
Healthline AI is designed to meet this need by offering trustworthy content, protecting privacy, and giving people clear ways to move from learning to action. It does not replace doctors, diagnose conditions, or make health decisions for people. Instead, it helps users feel more confident about what to do next.
Explore how Healthline AI can help your brand connect with high-intent health audiences. Partner with us.
