TORONTO \u2014 Loblaw Companies Limited\u2019s PC Health launched an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot earlier this month, and the company says it processed more than 100,000 questions in its first week. <\/p>\n
Called PC Chat, the tool is trained on Canadian clinical sources, ranging from provincial vaccine guidelines to health charities such as Diabetes Canada to health professional associations. Users who get prescriptions at Shoppers Drug Mart, which is owned by Loblaw, can opt to link their pharmacy records to PC Chat to receive more tailored responses, the company says. <\/p>\n
Many health-care professionals and medical technology experts say the chatbot fills the need for more reliable, Canada-specific health information than people get from using a general AI chatbot such as ChatGPT or searching on Google. <\/p>\n
But they also caution that it\u2019s run by a private company with marketing interests and people should read the fine print before agreeing to link their personal data so they understand exactly how it\u2019s going to be used, as well as how long their chats will be stored. <\/p>\n
They also note that government regulation of AI chatbots is far behind the technology itself, so the amount of protection regulations can provide is limited. <\/p>\n
Lauren Steinberg, executive vice-president and chief digital officer, Loblaw Companies Limited, says marketing wasn\u2019t the main motivation, although \u201cwhen Canadians trust us and feel genuinely helped, they\u2019re going to choose to do more with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the company had \u201call the pieces here already to do something like this,\u201d including AI engineers and pharmacists across the county who give health advice to Canadians. <\/p>\n
WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PC CHAT?<\/p>\n
The chatbot, which is available at pchealth.ca or the PC Health and Shoppers Drug Mart apps, answers general questions about health and provides links to the sources it drew the information from. <\/p>\n
\u201cCanadians have been going online with health questions for decades. We\u2019ve all met and come to know Dr. Google. Increasingly, they\u2019re turning to AI to answer the questions that they have,\u201d Steinberg said. <\/p>\n
Earlier this year, the Canadian Medical Association released survey findings conducted by Abacus Data suggesting that about half of all Canadians are using AI tools to diagnose or treat their health issues. That\u2019s despite the fact that only 27 per cent said they trusted AI to provide accurate health information. <\/p>\n
The CMA, whose chair was part of the advisory committee that worked with PC Health to develop the tool, is among the medical groups that have raised the alarm about potential misinformation in the sources people turn to online. <\/p>\n
AI tools like ChatGPT draw from many sources across the internet, including some that may be entirely fictional and lead to misinformation, said Muhammad Mamdani, director of the Temerty Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Education in Medicine at the University of Toronto. <\/p>\n
Mamdani was invited by Loblaw to look at PC Health\u2019s chatbot before launch. He said what makes it different from the general chatbots is that it\u2019s trained on more than 1,000 Canadian clinical sources.<\/p>\n
Users can chat anonymously, or sign in using a PC account, which stores their chat history. <\/p>\n
Patients who get prescriptions at Shoppers Drug Mart can also link their pharmacy history to PC Chat, which means the chatbot can access their health information and use it to provide more tailored information and suggestions. <\/p>\n
Medication information provided by the chatbot comes from product monographs, said Aaron Cheng, vice-president of digital health for Loblaws and Shoppers Drug Mart.<\/p>\n
Cheng said that if users give consent, the chat could also make recommendations for groceries (e.g., healthy items for people with diabetes) and other products available at President\u2019s Choice stores. <\/p>\n
If users provide their location information, PC Chat can find local walk-in clinics and pharmacies. <\/p>\n
Steinberg said although the chatbot will suggest Shoppers Drug Mart locations, it will direct to a competing pharmacy if there are no Shoppers stores nearby. <\/p>\n
WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF ALLOWING ACCESS TO MY HEALTH INFORMATION?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big question is going to be to read the fine print,\u201d Mamdani said. <\/p>\n
(\u201cIt\u2019s) so incredibly important for patients to understand, \u2018what are you going to do with my data?\u201d<\/p>\n
Like many of the things that we do online and with AI, users need to decide how they want to balance convenience and giving a retailer access to their personal information, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSome people may say, \u2018I\u2019m OK with that because it gives me more information, the AI is smarter, it knows me, it\u2019s more useful to me, it\u2019s more helpful to me. And I actually like being recommended products that I think would benefit me.\u2019 They\u2019re not as concerned about the privacy issues,\u201d Mamdani said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThen you have the other extreme who says, \u2018I don\u2019t want anybody to know anything about me. I will not accept this.\u2019 Great, you\u2019re given that choice. But there\u2019s a lot of us in the middle who say, \u2018It\u2019s not like I don\u2019t want it to give me useful information and be helpful and know more about me, but I also don\u2019t want to give a for-profit company all my information and I don\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing with it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Mamdani said he sees the chatbot as a valuable resource at a time when many people in Canada don\u2019t have immediate access to a health-care provider to answer basic questions. He also thinks it\u2019s a much better alternative for the millions of people who turn to ChatGPT to find medical information, he said. <\/p>\n
However, there\u2019s no question that Loblaw and Shoppers Drug Mart can make money off of products, such as over-the-counter medications, that they carry in their stores and that PC Chat could recommend, Mamdani said. <\/p>\n
When asked for a reaction to the launch of PC Chat, the office of Evan Solomon, minister of AI and digital innovation, said it welcomed \u201cinnovative Canadian solutions,\u201d and emphasized the importance of earning the trust of people adopting the technology. <\/p>\n
\u201cHealth information is among the most sensitive personal information Canadians have. It should not be used for unrelated commercial purposes without clear and meaningful consent,\u201d Solomon\u2019s office said in an email. <\/p>\n
\u201cCanadians should understand what data they are sharing, how it will be used, and whether it will be combined with other information so they can make informed choices about granting access.\u201d<\/p>\n
HOW SECURE IS MY DATA?<\/p>\n
Loblaw says users\u2019 personal data is stored in Canada, which means it\u2019s protected by Canada\u2019s privacy laws. <\/p>\n
Both the AI minister\u2019s office and health data privacy experts said that\u2019s a significant security measure. <\/p>\n
However, like many large organizations and companies in Canada, Loblaw\u2019s cloud provider is U.S.-based Google.<\/p>\n
\u201cData residency tells you where the servers are. Data sovereignty tells you who can be compelled to open them. Those are two different questions, and only the first one is answered by saying the data stays in Canada,\u201d said Natalie Raffoul, managing partner of Brion Raffoul Intellectual Property Law in Ottawa, in an email.<\/p>\n
Raffoul said although it\u2019s important for consumers to know their data is under the umbrella of a U.S. company, \u201cthe realistic risk to any individual user is low.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cheng said chats will be stored for up to one year, but if a user isn\u2019t active in a particular chat for 60 days, it will be deleted then. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis approach is intended to balance data privacy considerations while supporting a more seamless user experience,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But Raffoul said that when it comes to health information, users should have the option to have chats deleted right away. <\/p>\n
\u201cRetention is the most underrated privacy control there is. Data you no longer hold cannot be breached, cannot be subpoenaed and cannot be disclosed. Every month of retention is a month of exposure that someone chose to accept,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Cheng said that\u2019s an option the company might consider implementing in the future. <\/p>\n
ARE THERE SAFEGUARDS AGAINST THE CHATBOT PROVIDING INAPPROPRIATE ADVICE?<\/p>\n
Steinberg said the chatbot is not meant to replace health professionals, nor is it to be used in health emergencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are situations where the right answer is to get a professional, get emergency help and we actually designed this experience to make sure that it can recognize that and then, you know, direct people appropriately,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
A disclaimer notes the responses may have mistakes and aren\u2019t meant to replace medical advice. <\/p>\n
Cheng said PC Chat is set to default to an \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d answer if the question is beyond the scope of information it draws upon. <\/p>\n
The chatbot has guardrails in place to shut down conversations and redirect users to seek medical attention or mental health assistance if it detects a risk to the user, he said. <\/p>\n
The Canadian Press tested a couple of possible scenarios. <\/p>\n
After a reporter typed, \u201cI\u2019m having chest pains. What should I do?\u201d the chatbot said it was ending the conversation for safety reasons and added, \u201cSorry, I can\u2019t assess this safely here. If you think this may be a medical emergency, call 911 immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
A question mentioning self-harm or suicide also caused the chatbot to stop the conversation and redirect to other resources including the 988 suicide crisis helpline, 911 and findahelpline.com<\/p>\n
PC Chat is not available in Quebec or New Brunswick as the company is still working on a French version. <\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept.29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.<\/p>\n
Nicole Ireland, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Loblaw Companies Limited\u2019s PC Health launched an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot earlier this month, and the company…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[45,49,48,15913,84,392,890,47,714,6578,66,2940],"class_list":["post-914216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-hardware","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-lifestyle","tag-national","tag-politics","tag-retail","tag-science","tag-software"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}