Can the Race of AI Chatbot Avatars Impact Patient Experience?

While some researchers have focused on the quality of information patients can get from chatbots, the CU researchers have zoomed in on the patient experience of using these tools. Particularly, how does the AI chatbot impact the way patients perceive their care, queried Annie Moore, a CU internal medicine professor and the Joyce and Dick Brown Endowed Professor in Compassion in the Patient Experience.

“One of the things we noticed early on was this question of how people perceive the race or ethnicity of the chatbot and what effect that might have on their experience,” Matthew DeCamp, associate professor in the CU Division of General Internal Medicine, said in the press release. “It could be that you share more with the chatbot if you perceive the chatbot to be the same race as you.”