Physicians Are Ready for AI…and Health Systems Need a Better Path Forward

By Andrew M. Ibrahim, MD, MSc, Chief Clinical Officer, Viz.ai

As a practicing physician, I often hear the narrative that physicians are skeptical of AI. The data tells a very different story.

A newly released 2025 Physicians AI Report, based on a survey of 1,000+ physicians across 106 specialties, shows that clinicians are not only open to AI — they’re already using it, believe in its value, and want more of it. The bottleneck is less about clinician skepticism and more about the infrastructure around them. 

Health administrators are in a genuinely hard position: clinicians want new AI tools, yet many solutions are unproven, require extensive IT lift, and introduce real governance burdens. Aligning clinical enthusiasm with organizational readiness — even when the value case is clear — remains one of healthcare’s biggest challenges.

Top takeaways from the 2025 Physicians AI Report

1. Physicians Are Already Using AI Regularly
   

   One of the most striking findings from the report is the level of real-world AI usage among physicians:

   • 67% of physicians use AI daily
   • 89% use AI at least weekly
   • 84% say AI makes them better at their job
   • Only 3% report never using AI

   
   When asked which AI tools they actually use, physicians named a mix of general-purpose tools like ChatGPT — often through personal subscriptions — and healthcare-specific solutions deployed by their health systems.Notably, Viz.ai was one of the only clinical decision-support platforms to appear on the list, which was otherwise dominated by broad LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude as well as a multitude of tools that exclusively offer basic ambient documentation support.

2. Health system leaders charged with AI adoption are in a tough spot

   

   Despite high personal adoption, 81% of physicians report dissatisfaction with how their employer is deploying AI.

   Three issues emerge consistently:

    

   1. Speed – AI adoption moves far too slowly
   2. Influence – Clinicians have limited say in purchasing decision
   3. Communication – Rollouts lack transparency and adequate training

   
   More than 70% of physicians say they have little or no influence over which AI tools their organization purchases. I was a bit surprised by this number. All of the Chief Medical Information Officers I’ve spoken to – usually 2 per week – have regular engagement with clinicians on the front line and in day-to-day realities. But the stakeholders are several: IT, data governance, finance. On the one hand, more input could be more robust. On the other hand, more input slows down an already very complex process. 

   There are also different cultural norms surfacing. While some clinicians may be willing and eager to be first adopters and push through the kinks and learning curve of an evolving technology, administrators may lean more risk averse and want to see broad adoption of a tool before they adopt it themselves. 

3. What Physicians Actually Want from AI

   But at the end of the day, clinicians are clear on their needs. It is not super fancy augmented reality for edge cases. It’s just help with the day-to-day processes of every day care. Specifically, clinicians’ priorities are grounded in real workflow needs:

    

   • Medical documentation & ambient scribing – 65%
   • Reducing administrative burden – 48%
   • Clinical decision support & diagnostics – 43%
   • Augmenting physician capacity – 27%
   • Data aggregation & summarization – 20%
     

   
   While documentation relief ranks highest, nearly half of physicians cite decision support and diagnostics — signaling that AI must do more than save clicks. It must help clinicians deliver better outcomes at the point of care.

A Path Forward: Shared Accountability Between Clinicians and Administrators

To move beyond the current gridlock, both clinicians and administrators need a clearer framework for how AI decisions are made and why.

Clinicians can strengthen their role by:

• Building clear business cases for why they want a tool — not just because it’s new or interesting, but that hits a real pain point aligned with the overall mission of the organization
• Linking AI requests to measurable outcomes, such as time-savings, throughput improvements, or patient-impact metrics

Administrators can support alignment by:

• Being transparent about prioritization frameworks, evaluation criteria, and governance processes
• Clarifying how decisions are made, so clinicians understand constraints and can align their proposals to shared organizational goals

The goal: move from frustration to partnership.
When clinicians articulate the “why” — and administrators articulate the “how” — health systems can move faster, with less friction, toward safe, meaningful AI adoption.

In summary: AI Adoption matures fastest when physicians and leadership align

Physicians don’t need to be convinced that AI works. Neither do administrators. But they each need one another to find where the best use cases are and to navigate together how to efficiently get them implemented. 

Successful AI programs:

• Involve clinicians early to identify ideal use cases
• Communicate priorities and expectations openly
• Tie tools to real outcomes that impact the entire organization
• Move at the pace of clinical reality

At Viz.ai, our philosophy is simple:

AI should support clinicians at the point of care and help patients receive the right care at the right time. This means meeting both clinicians and hospital leadership where they are, listening, and advancing their mission alongside them.