Turn.io Launches the Chat for Health Accelerator 2026, scaling AI and Voice for Primary Healthcare.

Turn.io today opened applications for the Chat for Health Accelerator 2026. Announced at the 2026 Skoll World Forum in Oxford, the programme will support ten healthcare organisations across the Global South to build, test, and scale AI-enabled chat and voice services on WhatsApp, with voice capabilities powered by ElevenLabs, and AI capabilities supported by Anthropic, and made possible through the support of Endless Health.

The 2026 programme builds on a 2025 cohort that proved AI-enabled chat can meaningfully improve how primary healthcare is delivered - reducing burden on health workers, improving patient engagement, and reaching people who previously had no access to digital health services. Through services built during the programme, OneDay Health secured a randomised controlled trial with the London School of Economics. Helium Health saw 94% of users engage with their AI symptom checker via WhatsApp. doctHERs reduced administrative workload by 35% while onboarding 10,000 users in a single month. MDaaS increased patient follow-up rates sixfold. Cliniva shifted over 80% of consultations to WhatsApp and Cuéntame doubled onboarding completion rates. (Read the full case studies at turn.io/accelerator-use-cases).

The 2026 programme extends this work with a particular focus on voice AI technology that allows patients to interact with digital health services through natural speech, without needing to read or type.  An estimated 739 million adults worldwide cannot read or write. Literacy barriers, language diversity, and limited digital skills have historically excluded large portions of the population from text-based digital health services. Two-way voice AI changes that.

"Primary healthcare across the Global South is at a turning point," said Gustav Praekelt, Co-Founder of Turn.io. "The results from the 2025 cohort showed what is possible when organisations already delivering care at scale are given the right tools and support. Chat and voice AI are not experiments anymore, they are working in the field, improving outcomes, and reaching patients who would otherwise be left out. In our 2026 programme we are particularly focused on what becomes possible when voice removes the literacy barrier entirely."

From July to December 2026 organisations will build and launch live AI-enabled services on WhatsApp, improving the full healthcare loop from first contact to follow-up. Teams will use chat, AI and voice capabilities to reach low-literacy and multilingual patients, track performance in real time, and strengthen their sustainability model as they go. By the end, each organisation will have a tested service, clear evidence of what works, and a model ready to scale.

The selected organisations will receive full access to the Turn.io platform, including AI triage, appointment management, patient follow-up, and integration with electronic medical records and payment systems. Through its Impact Program, ElevenLabs will provide voice AI technology, technical expertise, and a shared pool of platform credits for multilingual text-to-speech, speech-to-text, and voice agent development. For the first time, benefits extend beyond the cohort itself — eligible non-profit organisations can also receive a Pro account valued at USD 99 per month, including credits, at no cost for 12 months. Terms and conditions apply. As AI technology partner, Anthropic will provide API credits, engineering support, and technical guidance to help teams integrate Claude safely and effectively, including co-building open-source health tools, reusable assets, and participation in workshops on using Claude for healthcare. The programme is made possible through primary funding from Endless Network. The total programme value across the cohort is up to USD 750,000.

"AI is already changing what's possible in primary healthcare — not by replacing health workers, but by making every nurse, pharmacist, and community health worker dramatically more capable. And when that same AI can understand your voice and speak your language on a platform people already use, it becomes the great equalizer: quality care stops being something only the connected and literate can access. We're proud to support Turn.io's flagship accelerator — it gives some of the best healthcare innovators in the world the tools and platform to actually reach the patients everyone else has missed." — Rubayat Khan, Director of Health Programs, Endless Network

"Voice is the most natural way humans communicate, and it should be the way people interact with technology. Yet for hundreds of millions of people across the Global South, text-based digital services have remained out of reach due to literacy barriers, language diversity, and limited connectivity. By bringing ElevenLabs' multilingual voice AI to the WhatsApp channel that communities already rely on, Turn.io's accelerator removes those barriers at the point of care. This is exactly the kind of work our Impact Program exists to support, and we're proud to help scale it." —  Gabi Leibowitz, Partnerships at ElevenLabs

"We believe AI can change how primary healthcare is delivered — both in reach and in quality — when the technology is built responsibly, in ways appropriate to the context, and by those closest to the communities it serves. That's why we're excited to partner with Turn.io: this accelerator puts powerful tools in the hands of social entrepreneurs who already understand what their patients need, and who are best positioned to build solutions that genuinely serve them." — Annie Maxwell, Global Health Lead at Anthropic

The programme is designed for organisations already delivering sustainable primary healthcare at scale across Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. More than 500 million people in these regions rely on WhatsApp as their primary gateway to the internet, making it a natural channel for delivering health services. 

Applications are now open and will close on the 31st of May 2026. The final cohort will be announced at the end of June, with the programme culminating in an online Demo Day event, at which all ten organisations will present their services and their results to date. 

The Chat for Health Accelerator 2026 is supported by Endless Health, ElevenLabs, and Anthropic, with ElevenLabs serving as the lead voice AI technology partner and Anthropic as the AI technology partner. Since 2021, Turn.io's Chat for Impact programme has run eight accelerators supporting over 70 organisations building conversational and AI-powered services across health, education, civic engagement, and economic inclusion. Previous programme partners have included the Gates Foundation, J&J Foundation, Mulago Foundation, The Agency Fund, OpenAI and Anthropic.

Applications are open until 31 May 2026 at https://turn-io-982999.webflow.io/accelerator/health-ai-26