How can AI help women?
A new example comes from the sexual health brand Julie, which sells the morning-after pill. Founded by Julie Schott, a serial founder who’s also behind the pimple-patch brand Starface, Julie brought a Gen Z sensibility to the emergency contraception category. It became known for cheeky ads with taglines like “don’t turn this semester into a trimester” and “when you don’t want to be a mommy influencer” (and partnering with Olivia Rodrigo on her tour in 2024). More recently, it’s been publishing a popular Substack newsletter titled “Sex Happens.” In a category dominated by Plan B, its strategy made emergency contraception more approachable and less intimidating. Its pill is sold in 13,000 stores across CVS, Walmart, Target, and more.
Its latest launch has that same goal. Julie’s website was getting 50,000 visitors a month, many of whom were asking questions ranging from basic sex ed to “Can I take the morning-after pill more than once?” and “Will it affect my future fertility?”
“Where does the morning-after pill user go when she has questions? We know she goes to TikTok and Reddit,” Schott says. “She goes to those super peer-supported places. Those places are really important. They inform a lot of the choices we make, but they’re not always where you can go for medically sound information.”
The brand just launched “Ask Julie,” a site that provides answers to those questions. It’s powered by an AI women’s health platform called Ema, which has already done the hard work to build an accurate, HIPAA-compliant chatbot designed for health care.
When you look at how general AI chatbots are handling questions about women’s health, the launch of platforms specifically designed for the topic seems even more essential. ChatGPT can give bad medical advice (OpenAI is trying to address that with ChatGPT Health). Mother Jones recently reported that Meta is restricting its AI tools from providing information about abortion and sexual health to minors, even as other sensitive topics like eating disorders and depression are instead directing those users to hotlines. Other women’s health companies like Maven are launching dedicated AI products; many of those are built for an older user with a focus on questions about pregnancy and fertility.
Clearing up misinformation about emergency contraception may be an even more critical use of AI—especially for a generation whose first instinct is to consult AI for answers.
Julie, led by CEO Katie Beck Sutler, is planning to spread awareness of its new chatbot on college campuses and on social media. Its launch could be a model for other brands—even Schott’s own. Starface customers certainly have questions about acne, and customers of Blip, which sells nicotine gum, definitely have questions about how to stop smoking. “I wouldn’t rule it out,” Schott says of launching similar features for her other brands.
While running a “pregnancy prevention brand” is not the easiest task when its entire mission has become politicized, Schott says projects like this make her feel more energized than ever. “I’ve never felt more positive about the generation that we’re currently serving and the subsequent one and the subsequent one. We’re going to keep meeting new people,” she says.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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