ChatGPT is the most used AI tool by family doctors in Catalonia

Artificial intelligence is already part of the daily life of primary care in Catalonia. In fact, ChatGPT is the most used tool by family doctors, far ahead of other options, according to a study published in The Lancet Primary Care. The work, promoted by the Societat Catalana de Medicina Familiar i Comunitària (CAMFiC) and led by Antoni Sisó, shows that AI has become a regular support in tasks such as medical literature research, text drafting, or clinical session preparation.

According to the survey, 27.9% of professionals use AI tools daily and 29.5% several times a week. On the other hand, 36.5% use them less frequently and only 6.2% say they never use them. However, implementation is uneven and often informal: most opt for free versions and only a minority resort to paid or integrated solutions in the healthcare system. In fact, the AXIA clinical assistant – integrated into the electronic health record – is used by approximately 36.2% of doctors, far from the 80.2% who use ChatGPT, and also behind platforms like Google Gemini (24.9%) or Perplexity (18.5%).

This use is mainly concentrated on daily tasks that allow for streamlining clinical practice, such as literature search and synthesis (67%), text drafting (45.6%), or preparation of clinical sessions (37.3%). However, professionals warn that real integration with healthcare systems is still limited and that legal and privacy concerns persist. In this regard, more than 80% of the surveyed doctors request specific training in artificial intelligence and denounce the absence of a clear institutional strategy.

The CAMFiC warns of a "clear gap" between political initiatives and clinical practice. The entity maintains that, without independent evaluation, results monitoring, and continuous training, AI will hardly be consolidated in primary care. In a system subjected to growing pressure – with nearly 62 million annual visits –, professionals are already incorporating these tools on their own. "If we don't agree on how to integrate them, they will do it individually," warns Sisó, who argues that AI "is not a future option, but an immediate necessity".