What Patients Are Really Looking for When They Turn to AI
More patients are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) tools to answer health questions. They use ChatGPT and other chatbots to research symptoms, understand test results, explore treatment options, and seek information outside the doctor’s office. These tools are shaping how patients think about illness and prepare for appointments.
The trend raises broader questions about the future of health care. If patients can access information instantly, what role should physicians play? And as AI becomes part of more health-related decisions, how might it affect the relationship between patients and their doctors?
“Just because you have access to information doesn’t mean you have access to care,” said Ashwin Ramaswamy, MD, MPP, Assistant Professor of Urology, and Artificial Intelligence and Human Health, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, during an October 2026 panel discussion at the Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) Fall Summit in Los Angeles.
The panel, titled “Hello, doc; meet my chatbot,” explored how patients use AI to seek health information. In a conversation afterward, Dr. Ramaswamy suggested that the technology itself may be only part of the story.
Ashwin Ramaswamy, MD, MPP, Assistant Professor of Urology, and Artificial Intelligence and Human Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, at the Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) Fall Summit in Los Angeles, October 8, 2026. (Image credit: Erica Tricarico | AHCJ)
Why are patients turning to AI for medical advice?
“I see uncertainty and patients trying to exercise their own autonomy through AI,” said Dr. Ramaswamy during the AHCJ panel.
In practice, he said after the panel, many are searching for something far more basic. “It is relief,” he said. “Relief from the burden of uncertainty.”
Symptoms, unexpected test results, and new diagnoses can prompt questions that are difficult to address in a brief office visit. However, AI offers explanations and information at any hour.
“It is relief. Relief from the burden of uncertainty.”
—Ashwin Ramaswamy, MD, MPP, on why patients are asking AI chatbots questions about their health.
Uncertainty has always been part of medicine. What has changed, Dr. Ramaswamy said, is that patients now have what he calls “access to an answer.” They can ask a chatbot questions that once waited until the next appointment. But more information does not always bring reassurance—in some cases, it can heighten anxiety.
“I had a patient who I saw had a bladder mass that I thought looked concerning for cancer. I did a biopsy of that,” Dr. Ramaswamy recounted. “Before the pathology results were available, if the patient consulted AI about his mass, what’s AI going to say?”
A chatbot could generate a long list of possibilities, including bladder cancer, irritation, or inflammation. “That process is going to be a three-day anxiety fest for that patient,” he said.
Until the biopsy results return, the most important question remains unanswered. Patients may continue searching, but information alone cannot always provide reassurance.
“The best thing for the patient is to tell them, don’t think about it,” he said. “And AI doesn’t do that.”
For Dr. Ramaswamy, this is the difference between information and care. AI can offer answers, but physicians help patients decide what information matters, what can safely wait, and which questions need attention.
What happens when AI enters the doctor’s office?
Patients increasingly arrive at appointments with information from ChatGPT and other AI tools, as well as questions and possible treatment options. Dr. Ramaswamy and other panelists described a shift in the doctor-patient dynamic: A conversation once held between two people may now include a third voice, AI.
For physicians, the task is not always to correct AI. It is often to respond to information that has already shaped a patient’s understanding of their condition.
Dr. Ramaswamy has seen that dynamic first-hand. He recalled a patient with large bladder stones who was scheduled for surgery to remove them and relieve a severely obstructed prostate. After an unexpected trip to the Emergency Department, the patient began researching his condition with AI.
At the panel “Hello, doc; meet my chatbot,” moderated by Rebecca Ruiz, senior reporter, Mashable (left), Dr. Ramaswamy (right) and Omer Liran, MD, co-Director, Cedars-Sinai Center for Virtual Medicine and Health System Transformation (center), talked about how they’re increasingly seeing patients come into the clinic already with opinions about their treatment informed by AI. (Image credit: Erica Tricarico | AHCJ)
“He was researching another procedure called prostate artery embolization that I would never have recommended to him,” Dr. Ramaswamy said.
The procedure was not part of the treatment plan and would not have addressed some of the patient’s underlying problems. Yet the patient wanted to discuss it.
The problem was not that the patient asked questions. Many questions prompted by AI are reasonable, Dr. Ramaswamy said. But the chatbot had already influenced how the patient understood his options, whether or not the information applied to his care.
Physicians may need to discuss treatments they would not otherwise raise or help patients assess conflicting information. As Dr. Ramaswamy explained during the panel, AI is shaping how patients interpret health concerns before they enter the exam room.
“I’m having to also anticipate their use of AI,” he said. That may mean proactively discussing procedures, alternatives, risks, or questions that might not have entered the conversation in the past.
Dr. Ramaswamy does not see this as a contest between physicians and chatbots. The challenge is finding ways for patients, physicians, and AI to work together while maintaining trust.
Can AI strengthen the doctor-patient relationship?
“There’s no connection between the doctor, the AI, and the patient. They’re not working in concert with each other, and they very much could,” said Dr. Ramaswamy during the AHCJ panel.
Discussions about AI often focus on risks and misinformation. Dr. Ramaswamy also sees an opportunity to strengthen the relationship between patients and physicians.
He sees that potential in his practice. Dr. Ramaswamy recently developed an AI-assisted process to help patients prepare for surgery. Patients taking multiple medications need detailed instructions about which to stop, which to continue, and when. Staff previously spent hours each week reviewing and communicating those instructions.
Using rules-based automation and AI, the time needed for the process fell from about 10 hours a week to approximately 30 minutes, he said. And the benefit extends beyond efficiency. “It makes it safer,” he said. Patients receive clearer medication instructions, while clinicians gain time for other aspects of care.
For Dr. Ramaswamy, the value is not just the time AI saves, but how clinicians can use it. Physicians do more than supply information: They interpret it, help patients navigate uncertainty, and apply medical judgment to each person’s circumstances.
For example, surgical patients often ask when they can return to playing golf. A chatbot might accurately explain that they should wait several weeks and provide a detailed rationale. His mentors often give a different answer: “You can play putt-putt for the next month. Work on your short game.”
The distinction may seem small, but both answers serve different purposes. One gives medical information; the other makes the guidance feel relevant to a patient’s life.
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AI may strengthen the doctor-patient relationship by giving physicians more time for the human elements of care.
“Sometimes what a doctor is there to do is not to provide an answer,” Dr. Ramaswamy said. Physicians offer context, judgment, and reassurance. “They can help patients recognize when more information may not be useful,” he said.
