Midjourney claims that full-body ultrasound scanners rival MRI, but radiology experts criticize: extremely exaggerated and baseless

AI image-generation company Midjourney announced it is moving into medical imaging, unveiling a device that immerses users in a water tank for a 60-second whole-body ultrasound scan, claiming the image quality is “as powerful as MRI.” But five radiology and cardiology professors say the company’s technical claims are “extremely exaggerated” and “completely without basis.”
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• 60-second water tank scan, ambition to rival MRI
• What happens when ultrasound hits bone and fat
• Experts: Likely more scam than transformation

A company that has never worked with medical devices suddenly announced it would build a whole-body scanner “more powerful than MRI,” but five radiology professors from the University of Michigan, the University of Washington, the University of Wisconsin, and Jefferson University delivered nearly identical responses: No evidence, excessive claims, far from mature.

60-second water tank scan, ambition to rival MRI

Last week, Midjourney CEO David Holz publicly explained this pivot in business: users step into a water tank, immerse for 60 seconds, and undergo a whole-body ultrasound scan using 40 Butterfly Ultrasound-on-Chip modules, with images processed by AI and custom chips. The company describes the experience as “as relaxing as going to a spa,” but claims the generated images are “as powerful as MRI.” Holz even hinted in an interview with The Verge that future systems might surpass MRI.

The scope of the plan is quite concrete: opening the first spa in San Francisco in 2027, aiming to deploy 50,000 scanners by 2031, at which point the monthly scanning capability would reach 1 billion scans. Midjourney is investing $74 million for this, and has signed a cooperation agreement with ultrasound chip company Butterfly Network in November 2025.

Speaking to The Verge, medical lead Tom Calloway said the device is currently positioned as a “wellness product,” not a medical diagnostic device. The company has already confirmed this classification with the FDA, so it cannot claim cancer screening or extending lifespans. The third-generation scanner is expected to launch in 2028, and the company claims that by then the image quality and speed will be “worlds apart.”

In its official blog, the company even cites statistics, claiming that “with enough early screening images, 30% of deaths and 50% of medical costs worldwide can be avoided.” The announcement quickly sparked a heated discussion online, with many Silicon Valley tech commentators praising it as a “disruptive moonshot”—a new way for people to “monitor their body status continuously and for free.” Most of these discussions are coming from outside the medical field.

What happens when ultrasound hits bone and fat

Ultrasound has a fundamental limitation as a medical imaging tool: it cannot penetrate bone and air-filled body cavities. Simply put, sound waves directly bounce back at the interfaces of bone and air, so they cannot reach the tissues beyond. The thoracic, abdominal, and cranial cavities are all ultrasound blind spots. In addition, fat tissue rapidly attenuates ultrasound signals, so image quality drops noticeably for larger-bodied users—and the images Midjourney has publicly shown so far are from slender subjects.

Although immersing in water could theoretically help transmit signals, it places extremely high demands on water quality: it must be completely pure, free of bubbles, and requires specialized degassing equipment. The water must be replaced after each guest’s use. Users also need to shave in advance to prevent residual bubbles between the skin and the water from interfering with the signal.

Scott Reeder, a radiology professor at the University of Wisconsin, points out that current ultrasound technology usually takes more than 30 minutes to complete regional scans, while MRI and CT, although they take longer, provide information of a far higher quality. He says that achieving results comparable to MRI or CT would be “a major leap,” and that the current technology “is not yet mature.”

Venkatesh Murthy, a preventive cardiology professor at the University of Michigan, says the resolution the company claims is “clearly theoretical,” the MRI equivalence statement “has no basis whatsoever,” and the images currently shown are “clearly lacking in resolution.” He also notes a gap between regulation and marketing: “The company’s messaging is mostly not about body composition, but about cancer screening and lifespan extension.” Since there are already existing techniques for measuring body composition, he adds that “some weighing scales are almost as accurate.”

Experts: More likely a scam than a transformation

Among the five professors, the harshest wording comes from William Morrison, a radiology professor at Thomas Jefferson University. He describes the whole thing as a “vibe-based rollout,” a release strategy driven by emotion and anticipation rather than actual technical data. He points out that the currently displayed images “are far behind existing CT and MRI,” that water immersion has been “almost abandoned” in modern medical imaging, and that the entire effort “feels more like a marketing campaign than a transformation.” He then states directly: “This might be more scam than transformation.”

Matthew Davenport, a radiology professor at the University of Michigan, is equally unsparing, saying the company’s claims are “one of the most exaggerated I’ve seen.” Mark Anastasio, an imaging science professor at the University of Washington, is more cautious, believing that whole-body ultrasound “is indeed feasible,” but emphasizing that “there is no evidence” showing such ultrasound scans can match MRI.

Midjourney’s fallback is its regulatory positioning: since it is presented as a wellness product, it is not subject to strict medical device regulations. But this also means users pay for scans yet cannot obtain medical information with diagnostic validity. Reeder further warns that if, because of this, people do not get mammograms or colonoscopies, “that would be concerning.”

Matthew Davenport’s criticism rises further into ethics: “Launching unverified claims that are almost certainly impossible to achieve raises ethical concerns.” This year, he and Reeder also jointly published an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) to examine the pros and cons of whole-body MRI screening, noting that large-scale imaging screening does not automatically translate into better medical decision-making.