Midjourney is best known for synthetic image generation. Now the company is promoting a very different ambition: a full-body ultrasound scanner that would be placed in spas and give people more information about what is happening inside their bodies.
The pitch is bold. Midjourney has described a scan that could take “no more than 60 seconds,” feel “as casual as a trip to the spa,” and eventually produce “something as powerful as MRI.” But medical imaging specialists who spoke to The Verge said the central issue is not whether the idea is interesting. It is whether Midjourney has shown enough evidence to support what it is saying.
A wellness product with medical language
The proposed Midjourney Medical scanner would lower a person into a vat of water while they stand on a platform. A ring of underwater sensors and scanners would send sound waves through the body and collect returning echoes to build internal images.
Midjourney compares the process to dolphin echolocation. It also says the system is meant to give people more data about their bodies so they can make better health decisions.
That framing matters because the company is not initially presenting the scanner as a diagnostic medical device. The source article says Midjourney cites the high FDA clearance and clinical trials required to market it for medical use, while also saying it plans to move into medical applications later.
For now, the company describes scans as something that could happen inside spas, where they would become “a side-effect” of visits. Concept images described in the source show luxurious golden rooms and pools of water, far removed from a conventional clinical setting.
Why experts are cautious
Radiologists, clinicians, and imaging experts who spoke to The Verge did not reject the idea outright. Several said the concept is exciting and may be plausible. Their concern is that Midjourney’s public claims appear to run ahead of the proof.
Venkatesh Murthy, a professor of preventive cardiology, internal medicine, and radiology at the University of Michigan Medical School, called the technology “super cool.” He said he is excited to see working prototypes of this kind of technology, and said the idea has been around for a long time.
But Murthy also said there is “a long road ahead to generating high-quality images and then to understand the clinical value and demonstrate net benefit to patients.” He said many of Midjourney’s “claims about resolution are clearly theoretical,” and that suggestions the system could be an “MRI equivalent are completely unsupported.”
His assessment of the images shown so far was direct: they “are decidedly low-res.” That matters because Midjourney’s own blog post says, “All of these images come together to cover a 3D map of your body, down to a fraction of a millimeter, that looks a lot like today’s MRIs.”
The MRI comparison is the pressure point
The strongest skepticism centers on how Midjourney compares its scanner with MRI. MRI scans use powerful magnets and radiowaves to create detailed internal images. They often take longer than ultrasound scans and can be uncomfortable because patients may need to lie still in a narrow, noisy tube.
Ultrasound has a long history as a diagnostic tool, and typical ultrasounds can take around 30 minutes or more, depending on the test and the body part being scanned. CT scans can also create detailed internal images, but they often use ionizing radiation, which raises safety concerns for unnecessary or repeated scans.
Midjourney’s pitch uses these differences to position its scanner as fast, accessible, and radiation-free. But experts said a useful comparison is not the same as proof that one imaging method can match another.
Mark Anastasio, a professor of imaging sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, described Midjourney’s move into medical imaging as an “exciting development” and said the ultrasound scanner idea was plausible. He also noted that researchers have recently demonstrated whole-body prototype systems using related approaches.
Even so, Anastasio said the system would need validation before any medical or diagnostic claims could be made. He added that there “is no current evidence” that detailed ultrasound scans like this could be comparable to MRI.
What Midjourney says AI is doing
Midjourney’s existing business is built around AI image generation, but the source article notes that AI is barely mentioned in the company’s plan. Tom Calloway, Midjourney’s head of medical, told The Verge the scanner uses AI and specialized chips to handle the “unthinkably huge amounts of data and processing power” needed to “execute a scan.”
Calloway also said AI is used “to enable lossless compression and dramatically speed up processing.” That suggests AI is part of the technical pipeline, but the bigger public question remains clinical evidence, image quality, and the real value of frequent scanning.
Midjourney has quoted statistics claiming that “the world could avoid 30% of all deaths and 50% of all healthcare costs” if enough early imaging were available. Experts in the source article questioned the leap from more imaging to proven health benefit.
The key issues include:
- whether the scanner can produce images with the fidelity Midjourney suggests;
- whether fast, frequent body imaging produces useful health information;
- whether the system can support any comparison to MRI;
- whether medical claims can be validated through the required process.
A promising idea still needs evidence
Matthew Davenport, a professor of radiology at the University of Michigan Medical School, said Midjourney’s published images were “interesting” and that he could see a market for body imaging. But he described the company’s “claims” as “wildly unsubstantiated” and “perhaps the most grandiose” he has seen.
Calloway offered a more limited description when discussing CT and MRI comparisons with The Verge: “Every modality has its strengths and weaknesses. MRIs are powerful but expensive and slow. CT scanners are excellent for things like bone and lung imaging but expose patients to ionizing radiation. The first-generation scanner is fast, affordable, radiation-free, and great at imaging soft tissues like muscle and fat for body composition — but it won’t be a replacement for either of these technologies.”
That statement is narrower than the most ambitious framing around the project. It also points to the central tension: Midjourney is presenting a scanner that may sit somewhere between wellness technology and future medical imaging, while experts are asking for evidence before accepting the larger claims.
The concept may be real enough to deserve attention. But in medicine, attention is not the same as validation. For Midjourney’s body scanner to move beyond a striking pitch, the company will need to show what the images can actually reveal, how reliable they are, and what benefit they can deliver to people.