AI leaders lobby Trump health officials in government-run chat room

Technology executives, investors and senior Trump administration officials have spent roughly a year coordinating an effort to steer Americans toward AI-powered apps for handling their health care and medical records, according to KFF Health News, which reviewed thousands of Slack messages, transcripts and recordings. The work has happened largely out of public view, in a Slack workspace begun in August 2025 by Amy Gleason, the former acting head of the Department of Government Efficiency. The workspace has grown to 1,700 members, but only a few are patient advocates, doctors or hospital representatives, according to CBS News.

In February, the Food and Drug Administration used the workspace to invite companies, among them Microsoft, Anthropic, OpenAI, Apple and Google, to a session on patient-facing chatbots. At least 35 industry groups took part. The session was not on any public calendar, and outsiders were not told of it. Legal experts say a group like this looks like a federal advisory committee, which would ordinarily have to meet openly.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz has encouraged firms to participate, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has praised AI in medicine.

Summarized by PolitiKool from CBS News’s reporting. Read the full story at CBS News →