The rapid growth in consumer use of tools like ChatGPT for health questions is often framed as a technology story. But that framing misses what matters most.
This behavior isn’t just a trend; it’s a signal. It reveals exactly how healthcare is experienced by the people it is meant to serve.
For healthcare leaders, the most important question is now: Where are consumer AI tools acting as a proxy for access, navigation, and trust in your organization?
Where are people turning to algorithms because they cannot reach the system, cannot make sense of it, or no longer believe it will guide them effectively when they need answers?
Seen this way, these tools are not simply entering healthcare. They are exposing where the system is difficult to access, hard to move through, and inconsistent in how it shows up for consumers.
AI as a Proxy for Access
In healthcare, access is shaped less by availability and more by reachability. It depends on how quickly someone can get help, how easily they can connect with the right resource, and whether support is present when uncertainty arises.
When people turn to AI for health questions, they are responding to friction in the system. Calls go unanswered. Portals are confusing. Digital tools are fragmented. Administrative steps slow everything down. Even small barriers push people to disengage.
AI offers immediacy when the system does not. It responds when hours, staffing, or workflows fall short.
That does not make AI the solution. It makes it a symptom.
When AI becomes the default place for people to seek guidance, it points directly to where access models no longer match how people actually look for help. It shows where organizations are difficult to reach across time, channels, and moments of urgency.
For leaders, the issue is not whether consumers are using these tools. It is where the access experience is failing to meet expectations, leaving people to look elsewhere for support.
AI as a Proxy for Navigation
Getting into the system is only part of the challenge. Once inside, many people still do not know where to go next.
Healthcare remains one of the most complex consumer experiences in any industry. Benefits are difficult to interpret. Care pathways are fragmented. Clinical information is dense and often inconsistent. Too often, people are left to determine what a symptom means, which care option is appropriate, or how to move forward on their own.
AI is increasingly being used to fill that gap.
Consumers turn to these tools to interpret symptoms, clarify diagnoses, compare care options, and decode insurance language because the system rarely presents a clear, connected view of the journey.
This matters because navigation shapes outcomes. When people are unsure what to do, they delay care, choose the wrong setting, disengage from programs, or abandon the process altogether.
AI has become an informal guide in that space. That does not reflect technology replacing healthcare. It reflects how difficult it still is for people to command the complexity of care without outside assistance.
When external tools become the guide, they reveal where journeys are not coordinated, where handoffs break down, and where individuals are forced to connect the dots on their own.
For healthcare leaders, the implication is direct: Where in your organization are patients and members relying on AI to make sense of pathways that should already be clear, supported, and accountable?
AI as a Proxy for Trust
Access and navigation ultimately shape trust.
People do not turn to AI because they trust technology more than healthcare. They turn to it when experiences feel unpredictable, guidance is hard to obtain, and the system does not respond when they need it to. In those moments, anything that feels immediate and clear can begin to fill the gap.
This is where the shift becomes more than operational.
Trust in healthcare is built when organizations show up consistently, provide guidance that feels reliable, and take responsibility for outcomes. When consumers begin to rely on external tools for understanding, reassurance, and direction, it signals that the system itself is no longer serving as the trusted guide it was meant to be.
The risk is not experimentation with AI. The risk is that decisions and expectations are being shaped outside any framework of accountability.
For organizations responsible for clinical quality, financial performance, and patient or member experience, that is a leadership issue, not a technology one.
This Is a Design Problem, Not a Technology Problem
It’s easy to frame this moment around adoption curves, regulation, or whether providers will embrace or resist new tools. Those debates miss the core issue.
This is about system design.
When AI becomes a stand-in for access, navigation, or trust, it is not because people want a different system. It is because the existing one is too fragmented, too difficult to move through, and too slow to respond when uncertainty arises.
AI did not create those conditions. It simply makes them visible.
The real question for healthcare leaders is not whether to adopt AI, but how care, access, and guidance should be designed in an environment where these tools are already part of the consumer experience.
Orchestration as the Leadership Mandate
This is where the conversation must move from technology to operating model. The future is not human or AI. It is orchestration.
Orchestration means determining how tools, platforms, and people work together to deliver clarity, continuity, and accountability across the care journey. It means deciding where automation belongs, where judgment is essential, and how responsibility for outcomes is preserved as new interfaces enter the experience.
Organizations that try to compete with AI on speed or convenience alone will be commoditized. Organizations that ignore it will lose influence over how patients and members make decisions.
Leadership now requires designing systems where technology removes friction and surfaces insight, while experienced teams provide judgment, escalation, and accountability. That work is structural. It affects access models, navigation pathways, and how trust is earned at scale.
How We’re Approaching This at Carenet
At Carenet, this shift is not theoretical. We see it in the growing demand for navigation, advice, and access support across our Nurse Advice Line and care navigation services. The scale of AI usage does not suggest that need is shrinking. It confirms how large and unmet it remains.
We also believe this moment calls for more than adding technology for its own sake.
We use AI deliberately, including within our Intelligent Engagement platform, to remove friction, surface insight, and support our teams. At the same time, we are clear about where we do not use AI. We do not replace clinical judgment, complex triage, or emotionally nuanced decision-making. We design systems where technology absorbs complexity and experienced professionals retain accountability.
In practical terms, that means helping our clients rethink how access, navigation, and guidance are orchestrated across channels, workflows, and partners. Not to compete with consumer AI tools, but to address the gaps they expose and ensure that when people seek answers, they find them within a system designed for safety, trust, and outcomes.
For us, this work is part of a broader commitment to helping healthcare leaders navigate the changes the industry must make to deliver better experiences, better decisions, and better outcomes.
What This Moment Requires
The growing use of tools like ChatGPT in healthcare is not a referendum on technology. It is feedback on the system.
It shows where people struggle to gain access, where they get lost in complexity, and where trust breaks down. The leadership challenge is to decide how those moments are redesigned.
Not by chasing the next tool. Not by defending the status quo. But by rethinking how care is accessed, navigated, and supported in a world where consumers will always seek clarity, immediacy, and guidance.
At Carenet, we see this as part of the work of powering the change healthcare needs. If your organization is grappling with how AI, access, and navigation should evolve together, we are committed to advancing that conversation.
To explore how we are approaching these changes and the broader shifts reshaping healthcare, visit our Powering Change hub.
