New AI tools can record your medical appointment or draft a message from your doctor

By CARLA K. JOHNSON
AP Medical Writer

New artificial intelligence tools are helping doctors communicate with their patients. Some tools answer messages and others take notes during exams. It’s been just 15 months since OpenAI released ChatGPT. Already thousands of doctors are using products based on similar large language models. Enthusiasts say these AI tools save doctors’ time and prevent burnout. They’re also shaking up the doctor-patient relationship, raising questions of trust, transparency, privacy and the future of human connection. AI tools can be prompted to be friendly, empathetic and informative. They can also make mistakes, so it’s important that the human doctor stay in the loop.