AI chatbots can be a valuable health resource for older adults – if they embrace ‘informed skepticism’

It’s easy to stereotype older adults as tech-averse or novice tech users. Yet a growing number of adults age 60 and older are embracing artificial intelligence, using it for entertainment, planning trips and even accessing health information.

I study how people interact with computers and technology – and specifically, how older adults use voice assistants and AI-powered chatbots like Amazon Alexa and ChatGPT to engage with information. Using AI for health information can be particularly fraught because chatbots can be so helpful in explaining complex medical information, but also risky if users automatically trust the responses they receive.

My research suggests that the most productive way of engaging with health information generated by an AI chatbot is from a position of informed skepticism – that is, remaining open-minded, yet using built-in features to evaluate the credibility and quality of chatbot responses.

The AI appeal

About 1 in 5 adults turn to AI chatbots to ask questions about health, according to a 2025 survey of 300 adults. Questions might include asking about symptoms or seeking advice about diet and fitness. The chatbots might be mainstream services such as Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT or systems designed for a specific health provider.

People turn to these tools for many reasons. It can be easier to talk to a chatbot about sensitive topics, and chatbots reply almost instantaneously – much quicker than making an appointment to see your doctor weeks or months down the line. Chatbots can also explain complex topics in new ways and condense an overwhelming amount of information into a simple summary.

Although older people may be less likely than others to use AI, I’ve found in my own work that older people often use voice assistants like Siri and Alexa to ask health questions. Similarly, a poll I conducted with colleagues in 2025 shows that 1 in 2 older adults report using AI chatbots or voice assistants, and about 14% of people in this group are accessing health information.

Older adults often experience more health needs than younger adults due to long-term chronic health conditions or new age-related diagnoses. More health needs often means more health-related questions.

AI is particularly appealing for health questions because people get answers faster than searching across multiple websites when using a search engine – or having to wait for a healthcare visit. Moreover, being able to use chatbots and voice assistants at home can make people feel more in control of their health, compared with clinical settings where older people’s autonomy can be overlooked or where they may experience being excluded in lieu of conversations with caregivers.

What are the risks?

Although older people may use chatbots to supplement or replace medical professionals, AI use has risks.

For example, it can provide incorrect advice in medical emergencies, misclassify health conditions and be overly agreeable, responding with what it deduces the user wants to hear, even if the response is not factually accurate. AI experts call this last tendency “sycophancy.”

But these inaccuracies can be hard for a user to detect. AI-powered chatbots draw on vast amounts of data and use pattern-matching to predict words most likely to come next in a sentence. That means the output can appear correct but contain inaccurate information.

Most mainstream chatbots include a warning under the dialogue box noting that their output might contain mistakes, but it is often in small or gray text, making it easy to overlook. The warning is meant to encourage cross-checking information with published sources, but users rarely do so. In the 2025 survey mentioned above of 300 adults who used a health chatbot, 4 in 5 admitted they never verified its output.

In my own research, I found that older people searching with a voice assistant preferred to begin and complete their search process on the same device, suggesting they are unlikely to verify an AI chatbot’s output if it takes them to a different format. In contrast, younger adults expected AI to be a step in the search process, guiding them to seeking further information with the help of another option, such as a search engine. This difference makes it critical to provide strategies to older people as they use AI.

Another risk is privacy, since AI companies that make public chatbots often keep user prompts for training future models. Researchers generally recommend that users not include personally identifiable information when asking questions to chatbots.

Strategies for safer searching

Awareness that older adults may use AI in ways distinct from other demographic groups – and may encounter specific challenges – is growing. A bipartisan bill, the Aging with AI Act, introduced in the U.S. Senate in 2026, for example, underscores the need for more research on both its benefits and its risks.

My research points to a few guidelines to start with:

Learn how to opt out of AI. Although mainstream chatbots like ChatGPT are popular, the most common way people access AI is through a search engine because AI features are often built directly into search results. Some search engines, like Microsoft’s Bing, ask people to opt into using AI. Others, like Google Search, rely on users to opt out of AI.

Google shares an AI-generated summary at the top of each search result. To opt out when searching for information using Google, adding “-ai” to the end of the search query will remove AI content. Opting out of AI might be useful when searching for particularly sensitive health information that you wish to keep private.

Use the information quality features. Most AI chatbots have features that allow users to confirm the source of its output. For example, Claude, Gemini and ChatGPT include links to sources they used to predict the response. Make sure you explore these sources to confirm they are legitimate and to get more details that can help you find the information you need.

Further, you can change the model the chatbot is using, which can change how much depth the chatbot goes into in its response. For example, Gemini has a drop-down menu next to the search box that includes “flash-lite,” “flash” and “pro” models. Chatbots’ more advanced versions provide more thorough responses that can help users better determine information quality.

And users can report inaccurate, toxic or harmful content by clicking the thumbs down icon shown at the bottom of the response.

Ask better questions. Ask for objective information that can be verified, rather than subjective advice, particularly in high-risk health contexts. For example, instead of asking “which high blood pressure medicine should I take?” ask “what are the side effects of” a particular high blood pressure medicine.

And to prevent sycophancy, phrase questions neutrally. For example, instead of asking “Is it a good idea to get a flu shot?” a searcher can instead type “Tell me about the pros and cons of getting flu shots.”

Don’t use AI as a replacement for medical professionals. Health-related chatbot output is best used collaboratively with a medical professional. This might include saving the chatbot output to discuss during your next healthcare appointment, using chatbots to understand complex diagnoses from your doctor, or getting a chatbot to suggest questions to ask your doctor during your next visit.

Most importantly, confirm health-related answers that result in making changes to your health routine with your healthcare provider. A knowledgeable, licensed healthcare provider is best qualified to determine how general information about illness or treatments would apply to your specific situation.