From Systems of Record to Systems of Influence: How AI is Reshaping Healthcare
ChatGPT reached 100 million users in two months. A billion in four months. Over 230 million people now use it for health-related questions every week. The front door of healthcare has already changed, and the ignore-and-wait strategy is no longer safe. In this keynote from the Connected Health & Care Summit 2026, Dr Louise Schaper, a healthcare futurist with over 20 years across clinical practice, digital health and policy, argues that AI is not the second opinion anymore. It is increasingly becoming the first. The clinician is becoming the second. And people that control the interface layer, controls healthcare economics.
Watch Dr Louise Schaper explain why AI is already the front door of healthcare, why three trillion-dollar companies are building healthcare as a core product line, and what you need to do now before the gap between consumers and systems widens further.
What the keynote covers and the central argument
This keynote argues that consumer AI is fundamentally changing healthcare economics, clinical relationships and business models. The central arguments were:
- It takes 17 years for published healthcare innovation to become common practice. ChatGPT reached a billion users in four months. The speed is unprecedented
- Three trillion-dollar companies, Apple, Google and Microsoft, made simultaneous strategic moves into healthcare in January. These are not pilots. They are strategic product lines
- 230 million people use ChatGPT for health-related questions weekly. This is mainstream behaviour
- ChatGPT is no longer the second opinion. It is the first. The clinician is the second. Patients return home and ask AI for a third
- Information asymmetry, the foundation of medical authority, is shrinking. Triadic care, where patient, clinician and AI are all in the consultation, is emerging
- Healthcare organisations no longer control how AI is used. It comes directly to consumers and clinicians outside institutional walls
