A study published in The Lancet on 8 October tested Google’s diagnostic chatbot AMIE with real patients at an urgent primary care clinic at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, under doctors’ supervision.
Google says 98 patients who chatted with AMIE before their appointment went on to be seen. No conversation needed a safety stop, and supervising doctors found one hallucination. The final diagnosis was in AMIE’s top seven in 90% of cases.
Doctors’ management plans were rated more practical and cost-effective than AMIE’s. The authors say larger trials are needed.
Why it matters: it is among the first peer-reviewed tests of a diagnostic chatbot with real patients, not simulated ones.