Consumer Attitudes Towards AI in Digital Health: A Mixed-Methods Survey in Australia
For developers and policymakers of patient-facing AI in healthcare, this study highlights that consumer acceptance depends on concrete communication quality and visible human governance, not just technical performance.
This mixed-methods survey of 275 Australians found that consumers have moderate optimism and perceived usefulness for AI in digital health, but also substantial concerns about accuracy and safety. In a scenario task, an AI-generated consultation summary was preferred over a clinician-written one for quality and empathy, yet consumers could not reliably identify which was AI.
AI applications are increasingly being introduced into digital health. While technical performance has advanced rapidly, successful deployment mainly depends on consumer attitudes, especially to patient-facing applications. However, most existing research examines consumer attitudes towards healthcare AI at an abstract level rather than in response to concrete artefacts. We report a mixed-methods survey study in Australia (N=275) examining consumer readiness, acceptance, trust, and risk perceptions of healthcare AI, combined with a scenario-based evaluation of an AI-generated versus clinician-written consultation summary. Participants expressed moderate optimism and strong perceived usefulness and ease of use, but also substantial concerns about accuracy, safety, and data use. In the scenario task, the AI-generated summary was strongly preferred for quality, empathy, and overall usefulness, yet identification of the AI summary was near chance. Findings show that consumers judge AI through concrete communication quality and visible human governance, underscoring the need for clinically supervised deployment frameworks beyond technical performance alone.