Midjourney’s ultrasound spa pitch draws imaging scrutiny

Midjourney Medical has introduced plans for a whole-body ultrasound-based scanner that the company calls Ultrasonic CT.

The San Francisco-based generative AI firm said the system is designed to scan a person in water using a ring of underwater ultrasound sensors. Midjourney said the goal is to complete a whole-body scan in about 60 seconds.

A first Midjourney Spa is planned for San Francisco at the end of 2027. The company said the location will include hot tubs, saunas, cold plunges, and 10 scanners.

Midjourney’s public roadmap is larger than a single clinic. The company said it aims to deploy about 50,000 scanners globally over the next 6 years and reach capacity for 1B scans per month by 2031.

The scanner prototype uses 40 Butterfly Ultrasound-on-Chip imaging modules per system, according to Butterfly Network. Future versions are expected to use more modules.

Butterfly said the project is tied to a previously disclosed co-development and licensing agreement with Midjourney. A November 2025 SEC filing states that Midjourney agreed to pay a $15M one-time fee, a $10M annual license fee over the 5-year term, and up to $9M in milestone payments. The filing also includes revenue-sharing payments and chip-purchase payments tied to commercialization.

Regulatory status remains a central issue. Midjourney said diagnostic medical capabilities normally require FDA approval and that it plans to begin with detailed body-composition maps while submitting test results to the FDA for expanded capabilities.

Over the next 12 months, Midjourney said it will refine algorithms and hardware, run research trials, move toward a 2nd-generation hardware design, and build its first research spa. The company said a 3rd-generation scanner is planned for 2028.

Public evidence has not yet matched the scale of the claims. Midjourney’s launch material includes concept visuals, reconstructed scan examples, and a roadmap, but it does not include a peer-reviewed validation study or comparative diagnostic performance data against MRI, CT, or conventional ultrasound.

Some radiologists questioned the positioning of the technology after the announcement. On LinkedIn, neuroradiologist Gennaro D’Anna wrote that in medicine, clinicians are impressed by “evidence, rather than shining images.”

Breast radiologist Laura Heacock, MD, also questioned whether the system should be framed against current imaging modalities. In a LinkedIn post, she wrote that the material shown so far does not demonstrate medical-grade diagnostic quality or outperform modern ultrasound, CT, or MRI.

Butterfly framed the collaboration as a potential commercial opportunity, but its own statement included risk language around development, regulatory clearance or approval, commercialization, manufacturing scale, market acceptance, and dependence on Midjourney as a significant customer under the Butterfly Embedded program.