More than 15% of the UK public have used AI chatbots for health advice instead of seeing their GP or another NHS service, according to a study by King’s College London.

In the study over 2,000 people were interviewed about their attitudes towards AI in healthcare – both its personal use and its role in clinical settings. 

While 15% said they had used AI chatbots for health advice, one in 10 (10%) said they had used them for mental health support instead of seeing a trained professional.

The most common reasons people give for turning to AI chatbots is convenience (46%), curiosity (45%) and uncertainty about whether their concern was serious enough to contact a GP (39%). A quarter (25%) said they did so because they were waiting too long for NHS services.

Among those who have used AI for health advice, 20% said the technology did not encourage them to seek a professional opinion and 23% said they decided against seeking professional healthcare advice because of something an AI chatbot said. 

This comes amid growing concern about the reliability of AI chatbots, with recent research from King’s College London finding that the tools misdiagnose up to 80% of early medical cases.

According to the report, there is currently no single regulatory framework for AI in healthcare – a gap described as a “wild west” of AI adoption.

The report warns that while the public is already engaging with AI technology, there are significant anxieties and divisions about the clinical use of AI in the NHS, with younger people and women more cautious.

For instance, if AI misses a health problem in a clinical image, the public are still most likely to hold the treating doctor or healthcare professional accountable (34%), with far fewer blaming the company that developed the AI tool (6%).

Professor Graham Lord, executive director at King’s Health Partners, said: “This research underlines the scale and pace at which AI is already shaping how people access healthcare. While the opportunities are significant, it also highlights concerns about safety and accountability.

“When something goes wrong with AI, responsibility is often placed on clinicians, even where they have limited control over how AI tools are introduced. To realise AI’s potential, we need greater transparency about what works, what is safe, how decisions are made and how issues are handled so staff and patients can feel confident in its use.”

Amy Clark, senior policy fellow at the Policy Institute at King’s College London, said: “These findings reveal a striking gap between how AI is being used for health and how the public feels about it. People are already turning to AI chatbots instead of their GP – driven by convenience and stretched NHS capacity – yet the wider public remains anxious about where this is heading. 

“What stands out is that women and young people are among the most sceptical, which challenges the assumption that familiarity with new technology creates acceptance.”