Patients are using AI to drive more engaged conversations with their doctors and nurses

The clinical encounter is where patients and clinicians demonstrate the strongest alignment on their unified goals to improve care outcomes. Real-world patient behaviors indicate that patients are actively leveraging AI to fuel more informed and data-driven conversations about their health.

Overall, 42% of patients frequently or very frequently bring AI-generated information to their appointments. That number explodes to 81% of the youngest patients (18-24 years old), and stays strong (around 56%) among patients in their 30s and early 40s.

As patients bring AI-generated content into the exam room, clinicians are increasingly spending time interpreting and validating that growing stream of information.

Patients are bringing AI-generated health information to discuss with their clinicians

Many patients report that their clinicians welcome this new behavior pattern. Just under 60% said their clinicians openly engaged with the data, although patients in their thirties felt more strongly than younger patients that clinicians take their notes seriously (86% of 30-34 year olds vs. 41% of 18-24 year olds).

Notably, 14% of seniors (65+) also said their clinicians actively minimized or brushed the data aside, highlighting potential age-related biases in how clinicians interact with patients who use AI to support their own care.

From their perspective, clinicians are seeing similar trends amongst their patients. Sixty percent of doctors and nurses say they’ve had patients frequently or very frequently bring in AI-generated information, and clinicians are fairly aligned with their patients on how that information gets used during the encounter.

Healthcare professional holding a tablet and showing information to a young child during a clinical visit.

AI-generated health information is redefining the patient-clinician interaction

More than half (56%) of clinicians say they review patient-provided AI data and explain how it aligns or does not align with the evidence-based resources used to make clinical decisions. A further 31% say they review the data and incorporate it into the visit as a discussion tool.

But doctors and nurses are much less likely than their patients to say they are dismissive of AI data, with just 3% saying they try to redirect conversations away from the information, showing a mismatch in how clinicians and patients perceive these interactions.

The increasing frequency with which patients bring AI insights into the clinical encounter is reshaping the role of the clinician. Patients are now expecting both doctors and nurses to validate, interpret, and contextualize outside data, which can put additional strain on the provider.

This introduces new cognitive and communication dynamics. As AI becomes more deeply embedded on both sides of the relationship, the ability to align on how information is introduced, interpreted, and acted upon will become a defining factor in the effectiveness of the patient-clinician interaction.

Overall, both patients and clinicians are optimistic about how AI can assist them with these goals. Seventy percent of both groups believe that AI can enable better patient health literacy and engagement, which directly ties back to the goal of improving communication and reducing friction within the patient-clinician relationship.

AI, patient engagement, and health literacy

Horizontal bar chart showing how often patients bring GenAI info (10–28%) and how doctors respond, most commonly by listening and engaging (59%).
Bar chart showing clinician perspectives: most clinicians frequently review and use patient-sourced GenAI information, with 43% frequently and 31% incorporating it into decisions.

  • Graphic description

    This graphic presents two sections comparing patient and clinician perspectives on the use of GenAI in medical appointments. In the patient perspective section, 19% of patients report very frequently bringing GenAI-generated information to a medical appointment, 23% report doing so frequently, and 28% report doing so sometimes. When asked how receptive clinicians were, 59% of patients say the doctor or nurse welcomed and engaged with the information, 20% say the clinician listened but did not fully engage, and 19% say the clinician acknowledged the information but did not discuss it further. In the clinician perspective section, 43% of clinicians report that patients frequently arrive having done their own health research using GenAI tools, and 17% report this happens very frequently. When responding to this information, 56% of clinicians say they review it and explain how it aligns or does not align with evidence-based resources, 31% say they review it and incorporate it into the discussion, and 10% say they listen and acknowledge it but do not review it in detail. Overall, the graphic shows that patients commonly bring GenAI-informed information to appointments and that most clinicians engage with it to some extent, though the depth of engagement varies.

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