David Kirk, Physician, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at WakeMed and Chief Medical Officer at Regard, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“In 2026, patient-facing AI will become the doctor’s new challenger. One of the more surprising and disruptive shifts in care in the upcoming year will be the introduction of patient side AI agents. As patients and families gain broader access to large language models and their medical records, intelligent tools will scan notes, labs, imaging reports, and bills for inconsistencies and opportunities.
With this assistance, patients and families are going to be asking incredibly high level questions like why care varied from the latest guidelines or why a surgical technique with better outcome was not offered.
The traditional ‘just trust me’ posture will no longer suffice and will give way to increasing expectations that decisions will need to be explained and linked to evidence. The multiples of bureaucracy and inefficiencies this will add will be overwhelming to staff at times. To thrive in that world, clinicians will need AI at their side that helps them reason transparently, document their thinking, and practice in a way that can withstand constant, machine assisted scrutiny.”
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