Most US Clinicians Hesitant About Gen AI Adoption Despite Potential

With the generative artificial intelligence (AI) healthcare market projected to reach $22 billion by 2032, stakeholders across healthcare, technology, and investment sectors are increasingly recognizing the transformative impact of AI on health and medicine.

In fact, this technology holds immense promise for improving patient care, diagnosis accuracy, and treatment outcomes. And given its ability to analyze vast amounts of medical data, generative AI can assist clinicians in making more informed decisions, identifying patterns that may not be immediately apparent to human practitioners, and even predicting patient outcomes.

However, there appears to be a disparity in the openness to generative AI adoption between more recently developed economies and more established ones, as noted in the “Generative AI Tracker®” study by PYMNTS Intelligence, which analyzes the current state and future potential of generative AI in healthcare.

Insights detailed in the report show that openness to generative AI adoption appears to be more prevalent among more recently developed economies compared to more established ones. This trend can be attributed to several factors. First, newer economies often have less bureaucratic and regulatory hurdles, allowing for more agile adoption of emerging technologies. Established economies, on the other hand, may have more complex regulatory frameworks and established healthcare systems, making it challenging to integrate generative AI seamlessly.

Additionally, more recently developed economies often have a greater appetite for innovation and a higher tolerance for risk. These economies may be more willing to explore and experiment with new technologies, recognizing the potential benefits they can bring to their healthcare systems. In contrast, more established economies may exhibit a more cautious approach, prioritizing the stability and reliability of existing systems over the potential benefits of adopting generative AI.

This is evidenced by the fact that only 42% of clinicians in the United States expressed optimism about the adoption of generative AI in the next two to three years, as compared to the 53% healthcare professionals in China who share similar sentiments about the technology.

But while less than half of U.S. clinicians express optimism about its adoption in the next couple of years, that share remains significant, likely due to the country’s robust technology sector and an innovation-driven culture that makes it more receptive to the potential of generative AI.

This may be the reason why tech firms are moving to capitalize on the trend. On Monday (Oct. 9), Google debuted an AI-powered search capabilities designed for healthcare workers, enabling Google Cloud customers to sign up to get early access to Vertex AI Search features for health and life science firms.

“With these new features, healthcare organizations will now have Google-quality gen AI search that is medically tuned, allowing users to find accurate clinical information much more efficiently, and to search a broad spectrum of data from clinical sources,” the tech giant noted in a Monday (Oct. 9) company blog post.

The AI-powered search is expected to help healthcare professionals find pertinent information and extract insights from it, enhancing organizational efficiency and elevating the quality of patient care.

Overall, generative AI has the potential to transform healthcare, but the openness to its adoption varies between more recently developed economies and more established ones. While less than half of U.S. clinicians express optimism about its adoption in the next couple of years, that share remains significant as compared to other established economies like the U.K., where only 34% of clinicians are optimistic about generative AI adoption in the next two to three years.