Midjourney is working on developing a whole body ultrasound scanner

One popular idea related to artificial intelligence is that it could pave the way for significantly cheaper and more sophisticated medical tests. The movie version of this is a home MRI-like machine that the protagonist steps into and within minutes undergoes a full-body scan and evaluation (remember Elysium’s healing medical room?).

Now, Midjourney, a company primarily known for its powerful AI image generation technology, is turning that dream into reality with a new project: a whole-body ultrasound scanner.

Yes, we’re talking about an actual full-size medical scanner, and it’s so far removed from anything Midjourney has done before that the company itself admits in an introductory blog post that the project is “a little weird, a little crazy, but spectacular and hopeful.”

The Midjourney Scanner project is still in a fairly early stage. According to the company, it works as follows: When you step onto the platform, your body slowly sinks into the water. A ring of underwater sensors sends ultrasound waves into the body, creating images of everything happening inside (this technology is related to the way dolphins use echolocation to explore their underwater surroundings).

The entire process should take no more than 60 seconds. This is much faster than traditional MRI, which requires 60 to 90 minutes to perform a full-body scan.

Mashable Trend Report

The machine takes a photo and the AI ​​determines what is what.
Credit: Midjourney

The key, and this is where Midjourney’s AI expertise comes into play, lies in the terabytes of data generated by sensors every second of scan. The company’s post is a bit lacking in details, but it does say that the scanner will require massive amounts of computing power and AI smarts to convert sound waves into images. Once it’s done, you’ll have a highly accurate 3D map of your body, and it’s much faster than an MRI.

And according to Crypto Briefing, Midjourney is not going it alone. In 2025, the company signed a licensing agreement with Butterfly Network, a company specializing in handheld ultrasound scanners. Also worth mentioning is Ahmad Abbas, Head of Hardware at Midjourney. He previously worked on Vision Pro at Apple.

Midjourney says it is moving forward with the project at “the maximum speed physically possible.” In practical terms, this means the first Midjourney Spa, complete with hot tub, sauna and Midjourney Scanner, will open in 2027 “in the heart of San Francisco.” The idea is that you can enjoy the company’s spa facilities just like any other spa, while also comfortably leaving with a full body scan and a “huge library of health data.”

Welcome to the spa. Enjoy your time here. Don’t forget to pick up your scan.
Credit: Midjourney

Before opening such a commercial spa, Midjourney will need to spend the next 12 months refining its algorithms and hardware, then building a “research spa,” upgrading to a second-generation scanner, and obtaining FDA approval for the project. If all goes well, Midjourney Spas could start opening in more cities in 2028, and the company hopes to upgrade to its third-generation scanner then. “Gen3 is where it gets ‘serious.’ The silicon in this design is completely custom, and the image quality and scan times will be night and day,” the post states.

Midjourney’s goal is to have more than 50,000 scanners deployed worldwide by 2031, with a total scan capacity of 1 billion per month. This is a very ambitious goal for a company that has never manufactured any hardware before, let alone medical hardware. Midjourney says it will document its journey by publishing regular updates about the project (sorry). Beyond that, Midjourney says it plans to unveil more “exciting projects” in the future.