"Earlier this month, Lyra Health announced a "clinical-grade" AI chatbot to help users with "challenges" like burnout, sleep disruptions, and stress. There are eighteen mentions of "clinical" in its press release, including "clinically designed," "clinically rigorous," and "clinical training." For most people, myself included, "clinical" suggests "medical." The problem is, it doesn't mean medical. In fact, "clinical-grade" doesn't mean anything at all."
""Clinical-grade" is an example of marketing puffery designed to borrow authority from medicine without the strings of accountability or regulation. It sits alongside other buzzy marketing phrases like "medical-grade" or "pharmaceutical-grade" for things like steel, silicone, and supplements that imply quality; "prescription-strength" or "doctor-formulated" for creams and ointments denoting potency; and "hypoallergenic" and "non-comedogenic" suggesting outcomes - lower chances of allergic reactions and non-pore blocking, respectively -"
AI mental health companies increasingly use terms like "clinical-grade" to imply medical legitimacy for chatbots addressing burnout, sleep disruptions, and stress. Such language appears frequently in product announcements and press materials, with multiple repetitions of clinical descriptors. These descriptors function as marketing puffery that borrows authority from medicine while avoiding the accountability and regulation that accompany actual medical claims. Comparable buzzwords include "medical-grade," "pharmaceutical-grade," "prescription-strength," and "doctor-formulated," which suggest quality or outcomes without standardized meaning. Consumers and regulators may be misled by implied clinical status absent clear evidence, oversight, or defined standards.
Read at The Verge
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]