Arianna Huffington Discusses How AI Can Improve Health at Compelling Perspectives

Arianna Huffington said she would never tell someone trying to manage stress to start their day with 20 minutes of meditation. Instead, she’d suggest they start by taking 60 seconds when they wake up to focus on what they’re grateful for, set their intention for the day and practice deep breathing before they reach for their phone.

The same goes for diet. Telling someone who eats a lot of fried chicken to replace it with kale salad might not work more than once, she said. Having them switch from frying the chicken in canola oil to olive oil would be a manageable step that’s more likely to become routine.

These “microsteps” are central to Thrive AI Health, a company she co-founded with OpenAI’s Sam Altman to build healthier habits through an AI coach.

Huffington, founder and CEO of Thrive Global and founder of the Huffington Post, discussed the role artificial intelligence (AI) plays with the new company, the human side of AI and her own personal life and success as the initial guest in Lehigh’s 2025-26 Compelling Perspectives series.

Huffington participated in a nearly one-hour fireside chat moderated by Lehigh President Joseph J. Helble ’82 in Zoellner Arts Center’s Baker Hall on Tuesday and wrapped up the evening by answering a few questions asked by audience members.

The Compelling Perspectives theme this academic year is AI: Innovation, Responsibility and the Future We Shape.” After inquiring about the early part of her career and admission to Cambridge at a young age, Helble directed the conversation toward AI by asking how Huffington is using AI to shape Thrive Global’s mission and help the companies she’s partnering with.

“AI has an incredible role to play in what we’re doing because AI can help us democratize and scale coaching,” Huffington responded.

The 1%, she explained, knows about the power of coaching. But most people don’t have the same access to coaching. That’s what Thrive AI Health strives to address. She said much of the emphasis when it comes to AI and health care is how AI can accelerate drug development or improve diagnostics. But her focus lies elsewhere.

“The thing I'm most interested in is, how can AI help us improve our habits? Because one of the problems is that we tend to underestimate, the limiting factor when it comes to the development of AI, not just in health, but in everything, is going to be what it has always been: human nature.”

She said human nature needs to change first, or it will be difficult to make any impact on health with AI.

She mentioned Israeli author Yuval Harari and his thoughts on AI, in which he says it would be wise to balance the financial and time investment made in advancing AI with the financial and time investment in moving forward human consciousness.

As students asked nearly a dozen questions, Huffington touched upon many of the topics she’d discuss with Helble, but encouraged the students to take advantage of the intimate setting by disagreeing and interrupting to make the session more interactive.

The first question, from a student studying political science and health, medicine and society, asked Huffington how students can learn to navigate AI generated content critically, especially when it's getting harder to tell what's real.

“AI is changing the way we research, the way we write,” Huffington said. “I feel profoundly that it can never replace human creativity, human wisdom. I like to say that AI can keep intelligence, we keep wisdom. We talk about AI becoming more intelligent than humans, it will definitely not become wiser.”

Huffington said she sees AI as augmenting human capabilities, not replacing humans, who have consciousness, soul and spirit.

“Whether you're an atheist or have a religious and spiritual perspective, there is something about humanity that's beyond our IQ, beyond our material existence, and it's impossible to really look at life and history without taking that into account.”

The role corporations play when it comes to AI was discussed multiple times with one student asking if corporations will prioritize human good over money while using AI and another wondering how it can be ensured that large corporations are creating best practice policies so no communities are left behind as AI growth continues.

Huffington acknowledged companies will base decisions on profits and shareholder interests, but she believes it’s possible for corporations to make money and do good at the same time. She also said people aren’t powerless as AI expands, using communities across a number of states that have pushed back and rejected data center construction as an example.

“People are expressing their discontent,” Huffington said. “One of the problems is that we have been focusing so much on all the amazing things AI can do, we're not paying enough attention to the costs, whether it's electricity costs or community costs. … Companies, as we saw from Dario [Amodei] at Anthropic, have a big responsibility.”

Next Up

Lehigh is featuring two more guests this academic year as part of its Compelling Perspectives series.

On December 4, U.S. Senator Dave McCormick will visit the university to discuss the government's critical role in supporting artificial intelligence and innovation.

Steve Wozniak, tech entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple, will be Lehigh’s third speaker on Jan. 29, 2026. His talk will focus on the evolving landscape of AI, discussing its long-term benefits and impacts.

Both events are free and open to the public, however, advance registration is required and space is limited.