It’s safe to say that artificial intelligence (AI) will have a role in the future of the behavioral health industry.
However, the American public is doubtful of health information generated by AI chatbots.
A new poll from health policy organization KFF found that only 29% of the public trusts AI chatbots, like ChatGPT or Google Gemini, to provide accurate health information.
“While most of the attention around AI in health is focused on how it can transform medical practice and create new business opportunities, consumers are also using it, and the jury is still out on whether it will empower or confuse them,” Drew Altman, president and CEO of KFF, said in a statement.
Behavioral health innovators have leveraged AI to create chatbots programmed to offer mental health treatment techniques, like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and mindfulness. Other chatbots can triage patients to better connect people to care.
When it comes to taking advice from AI chatbots like Microsoft CoPilot, Americans are not all on board.
About half of the public reported that they trusted AI chatbots for purposes like cooking and technology, according to the poll. Even among people who use AI themselves, only 36% reported trusting chatbots to provide reliable health information.
Some fear that AI-generated health information may be doing more harm than good: 23% of adults said they think AI hurts people seeking accurate health information. A slightly smaller amount, 21%, said that AI does more to help than hurt people seeking accurate health information.
The jury is still out for most Americans. More than half of the public said they are unsure of the impact of AI on people seeking health information.
The poll also revealed that many Americans are unsure of their ability to determine which information generated by AI is accurate and which is false. Only 9% said they were very confident in their ability to tell AI facts from fiction, and 33% said they were somewhat confident.
Despite gaps in public confidence relating to AI, mental health chatbots are poised to continue to increase their stake in the behavioral health industry.
Mental health chatbots have the potential to reduce the cost of mental health treatment and improve access for people who otherwise would not be able to get it, industry insiders previously told Behavioral Health Business. These bots are likely best suited to patients with lower-acuity mental health needs and do not replace human clinicians.
Investors have expressed strong interest in the mental health chatbot business.
In 2022, Bangalore, Karnataka, India-based Wysa raised $20 million in a Series B round led by HealthQuad. San Francisco-based Woebot Health has raised a total of $123 million, and London–based Limbic raised $14 million in March.
