Most U.S. doctors are quietly using this AI tool. Few patients know about it.; NBC News, May 13, 2026

 Jared Perlo, NBC News; Most U.S. doctors are quietly using this AI tool. Few patients know about it. 

"Almost two-thirds of physicians — or roughly 650,000 doctors — in the U.S. actively use OpenEvidence, while another 1.2 million use it internationally, OpenEvidence representatives said. With its quick and tailored replies, OpenEvidence has become an AI-era equivalent of consulting a colleague for their expert opinion, though the software can also write patient discharge notes and provide custom study tools for doctors’ medical exams.

“Sixty percent of all the searches are about how to make clinical decisions,” said Jena, who is currently examining 90 million OpenEvidence queries submitted since 2024 as part of a new research project. “The physicians are asking: For this particular patient, or with this profile, this condition, maybe other comorbidities that they have, what’s the right treatment?”

Yet with OpenEvidence’s skyrocketing popularity, some experts worry about potential hallucinations or incomplete answers, a lack of rigorous scientific studies on the tool’s patient impact, and the potential for doctors’ critical thinking and evaluation skills to erode with increased OpenEvidence use and dependence.

But many in the medical world see OpenEvidence as a time-saving tool that can improve patient care."