Key stat: Just 7% of US adults use AI chatbots extremely often or often for health information, while 59% never use them at all, ranking chatbots last among seven major health information sources, according to an October 2025 Pew Research Center survey.

Beyond the chart:

• Even ChatGPT's biggest health users still defer to doctors. Some 55% of US consumers turn to ChatGPT after a doctor's appointment to better understand a diagnosis, but 74% still trust their doctor's advice over the chatbot's, according to a Tebra survey of 803 Americans.
• Meanwhile, consumer confidence in finding reliable health information is sliding. Just 63% of US adults say they're confident they can find reliable health answers, down from 77% the year before, according to Edelman's Trust Barometer.

Use this chart: Drop this in your healthcare AI strategy review when teams pitch chatbot rollouts as the next frontier. Consumers still trust providers above all and AI chatbots last, so your AI launch needs human backstops and provider integration. Show this to pressure-test consumer-facing AI investments.

Related EMARKETER reports:

• The Healthcare Consumer 2026 (EMARKETER subscription required)
• Healthcare Influencers and Creators 2026 (EMARKETER subscription required)

Methodology: Data is from the April 2026 Pew Research Center report titled "Where Do Americans Get Health Information, and Do They Know What to Trust?" 5,111 US adults were surveyed during October 20-26, 2025 as part of Wave 182 of Pew Research Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel (ATP) of randomly selected US adults. SSRS conducted the survey via online (n=4,945) and live telephone (n=166) interviewing, in English and Spanish. The survey includes an oversample of non-Hispanic Asian adults and parents with children younger than 18; these oversampled groups were weighted back to reflect their correct proportions in the population. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 1.7 percentage points, and the survey-level response rate is 87%.

We prepared this article with the assistance of generative AI tools and stand behind its accuracy, quality, and originality.