How Indian AI chatbot could be ‘game-changer’ for women’s access to sexual health information

Indian mum Komal Vilas Thatkare, 32, says she does not have anyone to ask about her most private health questions.

“There are only men in my home – no ladies,” said the homemaker in Mumbai. “I don’t speak to anyone here. So I used this app as it helps me in my personal problems.”

The Myna Bolo app she uses is powered by artificial intelligence running on OpenAI’s ChatGPT model, that local women’s organisation Myna Mahila Foundation is developing.

Thatkare asks the chatbot questions and it offers answers. Through those interactions, Thatkare learned about a contraceptive pill and how to take it.

She is one of 80 test users the foundation recruited to help train the chatbot. It draws on a customised database of medical information about sexual health, but the chatbot’s potential success relies on test users like Thatkare to train it.

The chatbot, currently a pilot project, represents what many hope will be part of the impact of AI on healthcare around the globe: to deliver accurate medical information in personalised responses that can reach many more people than in-person clinics or trained medical workers. In this case, the chatbot’s focus on reproductive health also offers vital information that – because of social norms – is difficult to access elsewhere.

“If this actually could provide this non-judgemental, private advice to women, then it could really be a game-changer when it comes to accessing information about sexual reproductive health,” said Suhani Jalota, founder and CEO of the Myna Mahila Foundation.

The group received a US$100,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation last summer to develop the chatbot, as part of a cohort of organisations in low and middle-income countries trying to use AI to solve