{"id":17319,"date":"2025-07-15T10:54:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T14:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/?p=17319"},"modified":"2025-08-04T14:32:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T18:32:30","slug":"new-ai-model-podgpt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/2025\/07\/15\/new-ai-model-podgpt\/","title":{"rendered":"BU HIC: New AI Model PodGPT Blends Research and Podcasts for Smarter Health Answers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Excerpt from BU Hariri Institute | By: Maeve Smillie |<span> July 15,<\/span>\u00a02025<span>\u00a0| <\/span>Photo: Hariri Institute<\/p>\n<p>In an age where medical misinformation runs rampant and science communication often falls flat, a new artificial intelligence tool promises to bridge the gap between expert knowledge and everyday understanding.<img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/cds-faculty\/files\/2021\/02\/vkola_color_portrait-e1739827172327.jpeg\" alt=\"Headshot of BU CDS Professor Vijaya Kolachalama\" width=\"150\" height=\"219\" class=\" wp-image-6850 alignright\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/files\/2021\/02\/vkola_color_portrait-e1739827172327.jpeg 392w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/files\/2021\/02\/vkola_color_portrait-e1739827172327-206x300.jpeg 206w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Introducing PodGPT: a tool trained not just on written material like textbooks and journal articles, but also on real conversations. This medical dialogue is sourced from science and medicine podcasts where experts talk through everything from heart disease to public health. By learning from the way people naturally talk about complex topics, PodGPT delivers answers that feel more relatable and easier to understand.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy integrating spoken content, we aim to enhance our model\u2019s understanding of conversational language,\u201d said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/profile\/vijaya-kolachalama\/\">Vijaya B. Kolachalama<\/a>, Associate Professor of Medicine and Computer Science, Hariri Institute Faculty Affiliate, and corresponding author of the study published in npj Biomedical Innovations. \u201cThis is special because it uses real conversations, like expert interviews, instead of just written material, helping it better understand how people actually talk about science in real life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>PodGPT is the latest development in the expanding field of generative AI, where large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI\u2019s GPT-4 are already transforming how we search for information, study, and make decisions. Yet, until now, most LLMs have been trained almost exclusively on text like books, articles, and scientific papers. That leaves out a rich, often more relatable source of knowledge: spoken conversation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/2025\/07\/15\/new-ai-model-podgpt-blends-research-and-podcasts-for-smarter-health-answers\/\" class=\"button-primary\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Read the Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Discover how the Kolachalama Lab is using PodGPT\u2014an AI model trained on real conversations\u2014to transform the way we communicate health and science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18839,"featured_media":17365,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[251,5,317,232,248,230,35,244],"tags":[34,377,525,279,22,572,709,584],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18839"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17319"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17367,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17319\/revisions\/17367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}