Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the rules of engagement between patients and providers. According to a recent survey from the West Health-Gallup Center on Healthcare in America, one in four Americans now use AI tools for health information or advice.
Most say they’re not trying to bypass providers; they simply want to be better prepared for appointments. Nearly half said their AI-generated research made them feel more confident discussing their medical condition and asking questions of their doctors. However, about 14 percent said they used AI instead of an office visit.
This emerging dynamic is shifting the provider relationship from sole authority to collaborator in care. Collaboration, however, is impossible if high costs and limited access get in the way. Among recent AI health users, 27 percent said they simply did not want to pay the cost of a doctor’s visit, another 14 percent said they couldn’t afford it, and 16 percent said they had no access to a provider, a disparity that falls hardest on the lowest-income households, where nearly a third reported using AI because they could not pay for a doctor’s visit, compared to 2 percent of the highest earners.
Perhaps most telling, nearly one in five people surveyed said they felt dismissed or ignored by a provider in the past. That is not a technology adoption problem. When patients disengage from the clinical relationship, care quality, safety, and outcomes are all at risk. The organizations that take that signal seriously, and act on it, are the ones best positioned to lead.
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Trust is the real tension
While AI use is soaring, only 4 percent of recent users say they place strong trust in it, and often with good reason. AI tools are imperfect. They can misinterpret symptoms, miss critical context, and are no substitute for a clinical diagnosis or conversation with a provider who knows a patient’s medical history and can probe issues more deeply.
The patient-provider relationship remains the foundation of good care. What is changing is what patients bring to that relationship: more information, more questions, and in some cases, more anxiety about what they have found. Health care organizations that help clinical teams meet that moment well (acknowledging what patients have learned, building on it, and grounding it in a complete clinical picture) will strengthen both the encounter and the trust that makes it effective.
What leading organizations will do differently
Health care organizations that define the next chapter of AI-powered health care are not waiting for the technology to be perfected or regulated into an organized framework. They are making deliberate choices now about how, when, and where to show up in the patient journey. Three choices will distinguish the organizations that lead from those that follow:
- Be the trusted source throughout the patient journey: Patients are already researching, preparing, and forming expectations before they arrive. Organizations that proactively connect patients to trusted AI tools, rather than leaving them to find their own way, shape the quality of that preparation. A time-constrained clinical encounter becomes more productive and satisfying when both parties arrive ready and depart empowered. Additionally, health care organizations can provide patients access to trusted AI tools after the visit to help them understand all that was covered, answer additional questions, and guide their ongoing care.
- Prepare clinical teams for a different kind of patient: The shift from clinical authority to collaborator does not happen naturally. Clinicians who acknowledge what patients have found, engage with their questions, and build on their existing understanding will drive stronger outcomes than those who treat patient research as a distraction or waste of time. Now, more than ever, your patients need a human collaborator who can travel with them on their health care journey. And health care systems need to lean back into creating the space for, supporting, and training great “bedside” manner.
- Treat equity as a strategic signal, not a footnote: Lower-income patients are turning to AI in disproportionate numbers because high costs and other barriers to care leave them few choices. Health care organizations already committed to these communities have an important opportunity to ensure AI becomes a bridge to better care, not a roadblock.
The question for health care leaders is no longer whether AI will shape patient care. It is whether your organization will shape how that happens. The organizations that lead the responsible integration of AI into care delivery will shape not just how the technology is used, but what health care becomes.
Kevin Biese is an emergency physician. Melissa Martin is a health care executive.
