Clinicians are embracing AI faster than hospitals can handle, report finds
Healthcare professionals are saving weeks of working time each year thanks to AI, but health systems are struggling to keep pace with demand, according to a new report by Philips.
Artificial intelligence is reshaping healthcare, from the way clinicians take notes during a consultation to how informed they arrive at an appointment
The report, Future Health Index 2026, carried out by the health technology giant Philips, aimed to quantify and measure the exact impacts of AI on doctors' and nurses' daily tasks.
It found that clinicians' use of AI-enabled tools provided by their organisation has increased in the past year.
More than eight in 10 healthcare professionals said they are optimistic that AI can improve patient outcomes, up 4 percentage points from 2025, and seven in 10 believe the benefits already outweigh the risks.
“This is the first year where the signals from the clinicians are that actually AI is having an impact that's measurable by them, or at least they sense it,” Shez Partovi, Chief Innovation Officer at Philips, told Euronews Health.
Partovi said that one of the main results of wider AI use in healthcare settings is time-saving, something especially valuable in systems already strained by workforce shortages.
“That time is resulting in better work-life balance, less stress, less overtime, more time with patients, more equity, and access.”
The report included answers from more than 2,000 clinicians and over 20,000 patients in 10 countries: Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Close to half of the clinicians (46%) said that thanks to AI, they save at least 132 hours annually, equivalent to more than three full working weeks. Those who reported saving the most time from administrative or non-clinical tasks were nurses.
“Nurses led the way, and they said, will you give that time back to me? I put it into collaboration with other clinicians, I put into spending more time with patients, more time reflecting on the case itself, the patient's medical information, and what I need to do,” Partovi said.
Around 71% of medical professionals reported improved workflow efficiency, and 50% said AI has increased their capacity to see more patients.
The benefits extend beyond work itself. Around 50% said AI has improved their work-life balance and reduced their stress levels.
How are clinicians using AI?
Some of the most commonly reported uses of AI involve administrative tasks such as transcribing clinical notes or scheduling patient appointments.
Clinicians also reported using it as a “buddy” to discuss work-related ideas, speed up X-rays, or flag dangerous drug combinations.
The report found that 39% of respondents have already seen AI identify or prevent potential medical errors at least three times in the past three months, and more than 65% of clinicians said that using AI has increased their confidence in decision-making.
Can health systems keep pace with AI development?
The report found that clinician demand for AI is moving quickly, sometimes faster than organisations can respond.
“There is such a high desire by clinicians to use tools that they're actually also using their own personal tools because they said that their organizations aren't moving fast enough,” said Partovi.
The report found that nearly two-thirds of healthcare professionals turn to personal AI tools when workplace options don’t meet their needs.
The tools are available, but many clinicians say they need more support to use them effectively. Seven out of 10 said that training for AI-enabled tools is unavailable, limited or inconsistent at their organisation.
“This is the first time that I recall that the adoption of the tool is so fast that the organization can't keep up,” added Partovi.
The pace of change is so rapid that organisations sometimes do not know where to begin – and it goes beyond that, questions of privacy, safety, security, governance and role-specific training all need to be addressed, he said.
How does the future look?
Nearly all healthcare professionals expect their roles to evolve due to AI. Around 96% expect it to change how they work, and 53% anticipate a significant shift in their role.
Around 44% worry about losing clinical skills through over-reliance on AI, while 37% say their role is changing faster than they’re comfortable with.
While embracing the new tools and looking for ways to incorporate them in their daily tasks, clinicians also consider it essential to keep a human in the loop.
Approximately 86% said all AI outputs require human oversight, and more than 80% said AI will never replace the relationships clinicians build with patients.
At the same time, seven out of 10 healthcare professionals believe that with the increased use of these tools, human interaction skills will become more important than ever.
Anthropic releases public version of its most powerful AI model in the US, citing new safeguards
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US-based Anthropic released Claude Fable 5, the first publicly available model in its most capable AI class, on June 9, two months after the company said an equivalent system was too dangerous to put in general circulation.
The launch sharpens a tension at the centre of the US AI industry, where firms racing to demonstrate ever-greater capability to investors are simultaneously warning that the technology is advancing faster than safety measures can keep pace, a contradiction made starker by Anthropic's confidential filing for a stock market listing days earlier.
Fable 5 draws on the same underlying technology as Claude Mythos, which Anthropic unveiled in April and restricted to a small group of organisations over fears it could be used to attack computer systems. The company said a public release was now possible because it had added safeguards that block responses on high-risk subjects such as cybersecurity, biology and chemistry, redirecting those queries to a less capable model, Claude Opus 4.8.
"Fable's capabilities exceed those of any model we've ever made generally available," the company said in a blog post, adding that releasing a model of that strength "comes with risks".
The safeguards trigger in under 5% of sessions and remain stricter than the company considers ideal, according to its announcement. Anthropic said an external bug bounty programme running more than 1,000 hours of testing found no universal way to bypass the model's restrictions.
Joel Pen, a member of Anthropic's technical staff, told CNBC that Fable 5 marked a significant jump in capability that required additional guardrails to prevent misuse, citing the example of a user asking how to produce the toxin ricin.
The release lands as Anthropic, led by chief executive Dario Amodei, prepares for an initial public offering after a funding round valued the firm at $965bn (£721bn), ahead of rival OpenAI. Anthropic said in May its revenue run rate had reached $47bn, up from about $10bn a year earlier.
Organisations already testing Mythos will gain access to an updated version, Claude Mythos 5, without the cybersecurity and biology limits, the company said. Firms using the earlier model have reported finding more than 10,000 critical security flaws in their systems.
Fable 5 is priced at roughly twice the level of Opus, at $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens, CNBC reported.
Apple lays out its AI with a new Siri: Here's what to know from Tim Cook's last WWDC
Apple's keynote at its annual World Wide Developers Conference unveiled new and long-awaited artificial intelligence advances, including upgrades to its Siri assistant.
It was also the last one to be held by CEO Tim Cook before he turns his post over to John Ternus in September.
Cook received an extended standing ovation and told the audience he is “deeply grateful to have been on this journey with you” and said “the energy around Apple platforms has never been stronger.”
Here are the key takeaways from the event.
The new Siri AI
The new Siri, which Apple is calling Siri AI, will be available on Apple devices and will analyse what is on a user’s screen and incorporate information from a person’s Apple devices to better answer questions.
Apple emphasised a focus on privacy and day-to-day use as the iPhone maker tries to catch up to rivals when it comes to AI.
It will be available both in a standalone app and throughout the company’s software, and Apple plans to launchSiri AI in beta later this year.
Apple said Siri is now a “much more capable assistant” that can help users find what they need and get things done across various Apple devices.
For instance, it can create a menu and gather recipes from the web or from your own text messages for a World Cup viewing party and invite friends from a group chat.
Siri mode on your camera, meanwhile, can tell you what you are looking at and give you relevant information, such as the nutritional details of a plate of food.
Siri's visual intelligence also works with images on your screen. For example, it can tell you whether a backpack you are thinking of getting will work as a carry-on for a flight or whether a pair of bulky hiking boots will fit inside it.
Apple focuses on helpful AI
Apple software chief Craig Federighi took some swipes at AI companies — without naming them — that seem to be “pursuing AI for the sake of AI” without clear regard for the people it is supposed to serve.
At Apple, he said, “we believe that truly helpful AI should be centred around you and your needs,” which means integrating AI into the products people use every day while prioritising privacy.
Apple is partnering with Google on the models that will power its new Siri and other features.
Apple also announced improvements to its popular AI photo editing tools, including spatial reframing that lets you adjust how a photo is framed after it was taken — as if you had moved the camera to a better position while you were snapping the picture.
Apple's announcement follows Google's and OpenAI's launches of tools that allow users to incorporate photos and other media into AI queries.
A standalone Siri AI app will launch later this year, though Apple said it will not initially be available in Europe and it won't be available in China while the company works out regulatory issues.
Tim Cook's last WWDC
Cook announced his retirement in April, ending a 15-year run that saw the company’s market value soar by more than $4 trillion (€3.47tn) during an iPhone-fueled era of prosperity.
Ternus has been with Apple for the past quarter century, including the past five years overseeing the engineering underlying the iPhone, iPad and Mac — a role that made him a prime candidate to succeed Cook.
Ternus did not take the main stage during Monday’s event.
The transition to a new CEO comes at a pivotal time for Apple. Artificial intelligence has proved the most disruptive force in the technology industry since Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in 2007 — and Apple, the company he built, has been slow to keep up.
The firm stumbled in its efforts to deliver AI features it promised nearly two years ago, and has yet to fully recover lost ground. Cook called his time at Apple “the honour of a lifetime.”
“I truly believe the best is still ahead.”
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