Current Status of TxtAid

Happy new year everyone! Thank you for your interest in TxtAid and for following along with our progress. As we are nearing our one year anniversary of our funding, I want to provide a transparent update on where things stand as of today and our demo. 

Our Demo and Cost Considerations

For those who visited our website last year, you may remember seeing a demo of TxtAid—and some of you may have even tried it yourself. If you visit the site today, you’ll notice that the demo section is currently unavailable.

Maintaining this prototype required ongoing technical resources, including processing costs for each query. While an individual request costs only a few cents, those costs quickly add up at scale. As this project has been entirely self-funded, the expenses eventually became unsustainable without external support. After investing several thousand dollars, we made the difficult decision to temporarily take the demo offline while we reassess and optimize our infrastructure.

Patient Safety & Ethical Responsibility

Another critical factor in our decision was patient safety and responsible use of medical information. TxtAid is designed to gather medical knowledge from trusted sources and present it in an accessible way. However, any tool that provides health‑related information inevitably enters the realm of medical guidance. Even with the best intentions, there is a potential for misunderstanding or misuse.

Because of this, we are taking extra time to fine‑tune how the system responds so that it aligns with both legal standards and best practices for ethical healthcare information. We want to ensure that we are not only helpful, but also safe and trustworthy in everything we deliver. This work involves consultation with legal and medical advisors and will remain a priority before we reopen the tool to the public.

Where We Are Now

The core functionality of TxtAid is up and running, and much of the backend infrastructure is already in place. We’re now focused on refining the system to make it safe, reliable, and ready for public use.

Our goal is to relaunch TxtAid in a form that is not only fully functional but also dependable and responsible for everyone who uses it.

Thank You for Your Patience

We truly appreciate your support and understanding as we continue to refine this project. Exciting updates are on the horizon, and our team is working diligently behind the scenes to bring TxtAid to its full potential.

For questions or to join our mailing list for announcements, please contact us or follow our blog.

— Peizhe (Peter) Lu, Founder, TxtAid
01/03/2026