Doctors Versus Nurses Over AI: Round Two

About two years ago, I predicted that the final workplace battle between doctors and nurses will be fought over artificial intelligence (AI) technology that performs many administrative and clinical tasks. Whoever controls the AI controls the clinical work environment. You can read the rationale behind my prediction in this column, “It’s Doctors Versus Nurses Over the Future of Healthcare AI.”

Two new surveys are out — one of doctors and the other of nurses — that support my contention.

The first survey is from Doxmity, the San Francisco-based online community and digital platform for physicians. Doxmity released the results of its 2026 State of AI in Medicine survey on March 17. The report is based on a survey of 3,151 physicians in 15 medical specialties.

It was a love fest between doctors and AI. Sixty-three percent of the physician respondents said they are already using AI in their clinical practice, with another 31% that said they are interested in doing so. Of those who are already using AI, 74% said they use it daily or multiple times a day.

The three most common AI use cases cited were literature searches, voice-based documentation and writing patient support letters. The three biggest benefits of using AI, according to the doctors surveyed, were a lighter administrative burden, greater job satisfaction and improved work-life balance.

The most interesting finding, and one that warrants a future blog post or monthly column, is that only 19% of the doctors said they would use their reclaimed time from using AI to take on new patients. By comparison, 75% said they would use that reclaimed time from AI for more free time. If you’re a hospital or health system executive, and you’re investing in technology like AI scribes or ambient listening in the hope that your doctors will see more patients to generate more revenue, you may be disappointed.

The second survey is from nurse.org, the Bellevue, Wash.-based online community and digital platform for nurses. Nurse.org released the results of its 2026 State of Nursing Survey on April 6. The report is based on a survey of 2,090 active nurses and nursing students.

It was not a love fest between nurses and AI. Only 25% said they are currently using AI tools in their work, and even fewer — 22% — said they trust AI to support safe patient care. Forty percent said they have no meaningful input into how their organizations select AI tools, and 60% said their employers haven’t provided adequate training on the AI tools they did select. Only 18% said AI has reduced the time that they spend on documentation and administrative tasks.

“The overall picture is of a technology rollout being driven by institutions rather than by nurses. AI is being deployed on the nursing workforce rather than with it, and the results — low trust, inadequate training, no meaningful voice in the process — are entirely predictable,” the nurse.org report said.

Neither the Doxmity survey nor the nurse.org survey is scientific. They’re both based on self-reported, biased responses. As a result, the Doximity survey may be overstating the attraction of AI to doctors. The nurse.org survey may be overstating the repulsion of AI to nurses. But to me, that makes the two surveys equivalent for the purposes of this blog post.

The opinions of doctors and nurses about the use of AI in clinical settings are diverging. That will create a new workplace challenge for hospital, health system and medical practice executives who see AI as the path forward to increase productivity, lower operating costs, generate new revenue and keep everyone happy at the same time.

Good luck.