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Foreign.
B
Hey, gang. It's Tuesday, January 20th. Beth, Rajeev and listeners, welcome to behind the Numbers new marketer video podcast. I hope everyone had a nice long MLK weekend. I'm Marcus and join me for today's conversation. We have two of our senior analysts who cover digital health for us. The first lives in Pennsylvania. It's Beth Snyder. Bullock. Hello.
A
Hi, nice to be here.
B
Good to have you. We're also joined by Rajeev Leventhal over in New Jersey.
C
Thanks, Marcus. Thanks for having me.
B
Hello, sir. Today's fact. Canadian born James Cameron is responsible for directing three of the top four grossing movies worldwide of all time. Three of the four he directed feel like he should have a statue somewhere. That's a lot. Anyway, what do you. What do you think they are? Can you guys name them?
C
Titanic.
A
Definitely Titanic.
B
Definitely Titanic. Yeah, that's Avatar place. So Titanic's in fourth place with 2.2 billion. Avatar. Which one first?
A
The first.
B
First avatar is first with 2.9 billion. So you've got the first of all time, the second Avatar. The second Avatar. Yeah. Is in third place. So it goes Avatar one, then it goes Avatar is first. Avatar two is in third all time and then Titanic is fourth all time. Bonus points for knowing second place.
A
I guess. It's not Avatar. What is the third one? Fire and Ice.
B
It's not that. That one actually is already in the 40th of all time and that came out like last month or something. It's $1.1 billion for Avatar 3, fire and ash. I don't know that the third one.
A
Did he do the Terminator?
B
He did do the Terminator. Yeah. But that's not.
C
The second one is not a Cameron movie, right?
B
It's not a Cameron movie. No.
C
Oh, you give us a clue on like, what decade or era.
B
Think big franchises.
C
Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Avengers.
A
Oh, Harry Potter.
B
Yep. You're onto it, Beth.
A
Avengers.
C
Yep. Nice.
B
Which one?
A
Really? Come on.
B
Year and director. Just kidding. It's Endgame. Avengers. Endgame is second. The only one to crack the top four. Cameron has the rest, which is.
A
No Star Wars.
B
No, they're up there. They're top. There's a few in the top ten. Yeah. Star wars, the Force Awakens. So Episode seven. That was sixth place actually, then it's a while before you get to any other Star Wars. So. Yeah, yeah. He is responsible for all of the movies that made a ton of money. He. He's also won 11 Academy. Well, Titanic, I should say specifically won 11 Academy Awards, tying the record for the most Oscars won by a single film. Ben Hur and I think Lord of the Rings were the other two that have got 11 awards just for one film. Mr. Cameron is also a deep sea explorer. He's made over 30 dives to the Titanic wreck. And not only that, in 2012, he became the first person to make a solo dive to the deepest part of the ocean on earth. So he went to the Challenger deep in the Mariana Trench.
A
Mariana Trench, Yeah. Sorry. I just wanted to show off that I knew like where the team.
B
It's so impressive.
C
Decent life lived, I'd say by James.
B
Yeah, not bad.
A
Yeah, no kidding.
B
Steep end of a pool. I'm like, I'm okay. Anyway, today's real topic, the great behind the numbers bake off takeoff. We call it digital health trends to watch in 2020 26. All right, in today's episode are takers or bakers because of the show, but they're giving takes so we renamed it. We'll be cooking up some health trends to watch. Digital health trends to watch in 2026. Three rounds. Number one is called signature. Take number two, the how it would technically play out challenge. Number three, the show stopping argument. All right folks, let's get to it. We start with round one. Good places any it's signature take. Our chefs will have one minute to explain the premise of their trends. Rajeev, we'll start with you. What do you have for us?
C
My take is that in 2026, Dr. Google will give way to the term Dr. Chatgpt.
B
Oh, okay. So tell us a bit more.
C
So we know that the term Dr. Google, which physicians of course don't like it sort of was created as the information started flooding the Internet social media search engines where people can look up medical information from a bunch of different places and use it to maybe self diagnose symptoms to bring the information to the doctor's appointment. Even worse than that, maybe act on it and avoid a doctor's visit. And it's sort of doctors have just started getting used to the idea that people think that they can kind of learn as much information about health and wellness and medicine on the Internet versus going to the doctor. So while that has existed for a while and even the rise of social media has made it even more prevalent in recent the last year or so and I think emerging even more going to this year, AI tools like ChatGPT are going to take over as even a more effective way, at least for some people, to find that medical information online, to act on it, to ask you know, tool, you know, gen chat bots, questions about their health. And while of course Google and search engines will still be a very big part of how people find health information online, there will be very specific use cases that could make ChatGPT an even more powerful source of medical information, you know, beyond what we know from traditional search engines like Google.
B
So you're saying folks might will use doctor, they'll go to Dr. Chatgpt more than Dr. Google more than Dr. Claude, or are you saying that you're going to see other doctors start to kind of join the fray?
C
No, I don't think they'll go to it more because at the end of the day people still go to search engines more than AI. We're, you know, we're not there yet. But, but, but I think people will find the health information on chat GPT and the nature of chatbots in terms of like being able to get personalized guidance and have follow up conversations back and forth as more effective to answering their health questions than Google.
B
Okay, very interesting. All right Beth, how about you? What will you be cooking up for us today?
A
So my trend prediction is that U.S. consumers are going to increasingly use AI for, for mental health therapy and sport in 2026.
B
Okay, and tell us a bit more about this. What, what do you mean?
A
So we already know that 40 million people are using ChatGPT every day for healthcare advice. That's according to OpenAI which recently opened launched its own ChatGPT Health. So included in those health questions are mental health questions, advice support people are looking for. And we know that among all the people who use AI or large language models, 49% of people who say they who self report that they have a mental health condition are using AI specifically for mental health support and advice. And OpenAI itself even says this is a pretty eye opening statistic that more than 1.2 million people discuss suicidal thoughts every week on ChatGPT and another 560,000 show signs of psychosis or mania on the AI chatbot every week.
B
So good God.
A
Right?
B
You said 40 million. That number at the beginning.
A
So 40 million people are using healthcare.
C
Yeah. Around the world. Yeah.
A
Oh yeah. Yes.
B
Okay, okay.
A
And mental health is part of that. So I'm not saying so that's why I qualified that the people who self identify as having a mental has been diagnosed with a mental health condition. 50 49% of those people are using AI chatbots for support and advice. Mental health support and advice. Okay, so we already know that people are using AI scale for mental health Advice, they're using it as coaches, sounding boards, confidants even. I think that's only going to increase despite some state attempts to shut down AI therapy. And also on the platform side, some, like OpenAI, are instituting new rules, guardrails and guidelines to help people to make AI chatbots more safe mental health use.
B
Yeah, these two sounds fantastic. Let's tuck into them a bit more in round two. Round two, of course, is called the how it will Technically Play out challenge. Our chefs will explain in more detail now how they expect this trend to manifest itself. So we'll flick back to Rajiv's doctor. Google will give way to Dr. Chatgpt in 2026. How does this happen, Rajiv?
C
Yeah, so we're obviously still in the very early innings, but people are using or seeing AI chatbots as a really beneficial health information tool. It's not necessarily a direct one to one replacement, I would say for Google, but it offers value to people's health questions and queries that Google and search engines do not. Let me give you an example. We've all typed a health question into Google and search engine, right? Maybe it's what's causing my headache. Here's what you can do. A little more advanced for the kind of the same question, but providing a lot more detailed to a chatbot that you can then, you know, ask follow up questions. Instead of what's causing my headache, you can say I've had mild headaches for the past week, mostly in the afternoons. I work all day and I drink coffee, but I haven't changed my sleep schedule. What do you think could be causing this headache? And what are some safe things I can try before calling a doctor? So you can kind of see like these are two similar concerns. You have a headache, but the way you can query the Genai chatbot is much different than the way you can query a search engine.
B
The context.
C
The context. And then when you conduct a search, you're going to get hit with a bunch of links. Some of those links might not be relevant to you. You got to click into a bunch and read through articles and then click out and then read through the next one. The chat bot output is just all right there and now. Granted, it's not going to be always 100% accurate and it's not going to be the most reliable information all the time. Although, you know, models are getting smarter. But you can kind of see like why people would turn to a chat bot versus search engine for a health question. We do have some data that in My cite in my report that backs that up. So people who would use, who have used a gen AI chatbot for health or would consider using it. So not necessarily even people who have used but people who would use it or say they consider using it. One of the top reasons why 31% say because it's easier to use AI than search engines. And when asking very specific questions like kind of the example that I just gave and you know, Beth noted at the top but it's worth reinforcing. OpenAI just had a report come out that said amongst people. So there's around 800 million active, weekly active users around the world who use ChatGPT. 25% of them are submit at least one health query a week to ChatGPT. So you know, 200 million every week are submitting. Now these are people who are using ChatGPT already, but they are submitting a health query. And you know, just one last point. You can, it's not hard to imagine if you know, you're, you're, it's after medical clinic hours, you can't see a doctor. Most people don't really have the ability to like text their doctor at all hours. But you know, something happened to your kid, your kid has like a cold or some symptoms at 8 o' clock at night. Let me go to ChatGPT and you know, type in the symptoms. What's going on? Maybe the kid maybe have a rash. You can upload a photo of the rash and you know, can you dissect this for me? Interpret what it means and you know, maybe there's some actionable guidance or information that you can use before you see the doctor next.
B
So where are all these visits coming from for Dr. Chat GPT? Is it that, you know, Google, Dr. Google was getting round numbers sake 10 a year and we're saying some of those are going to go or more of those are going to go, say seven of the 10. So only three to Dr. Google, three to doctor, seven to Dr. Chatgpt. Are we saying that people that are becoming more interested in these types of questions and the pie is getting bigger and so that's how it's going to grow? Are we saying people are going to the doctor less because this reason or that reason and they're gravitating more towards these chat bots for medical advice? What's driving this?
C
It might be all of these things.
B
Yeah, you're probably spot on. What do you think is kind of ranking it? What do you think is going to drive me the most? I should Say yeah.
C
What's interesting Marcus, is that Google for years said that health queries were one of the top reasons people search on Google. So I don't think that's going away. I do think the pie is getting bigger and people will still type in all of their, you know, kind of more basic, I would say health questions to Google and then have the more complex, really specific questions to Chachi bt. That's kind of how I see this advancing like it's yeah, Dr. Google will still exist, but it won't be seen as necessarily as effective as Dr. Chat. They'll both exist, but Dr. Chachi BT will be seen as more effective for people's health questions or concerns.
B
Yeah. Beth, where do you land this? It's so interesting because people are using it, but people also really trust it. You have some data in your report. Rajiv noting that the trust in Dr. AI, let's say generic from summer of last year, drip hydration survey, 39% they call it 40% of folks trusting medical advice produced by AI tools such as ChatGPT versus 30% who don't trust it. The rest impartial doctors. Beth though they don't feel great about this, it seems. Rajeev also noting that between say 20 to 40% of leading AI chatbot responses to patients medical questions are problematic. Another 5 to 13% unsafe according to this clinical led study that he notes are not yet peer reviewed. So it doesn't seem like doctors are thrilled about this. Where do you see this going in 2026, this dilemma, so to speak?
A
Yeah, I mean Doctors already hate Dr. Google, right? People come into their office saying like oh, I looked it up on Google, I think I have XYZ and doctors like I gotta unexplain, you know, so they don't love it anyway. So I don't know the doctors, but I really liked Rajiv's point about the kind of the context and as a parent especially, that was a great example because you can't call your doctor anytime, day or night. And kids, I have no why, no idea why, but they always get sick after 11 o', clock, right? So and there is some weird rash appearing on their face and dots all around their mouth. I mean I know those are hives now, but I may not have a, you know, it's a new parent, I can look it up. So instead of just saying like red dots on my, you know, child's face, what does it mean? You get measles? Something like that. Then you can put into chat GPT. Okay, I have a 6 year old who has spots around their mouth, they just ate, they have a temperature. You know what I mean? You get the context that chat GPT. So I think that the difference between sort of finding facts for help and getting that layered context in ChatGPT is, is the way it's going to go.
B
Yeah. Is there any research about what people are going to it for? Like is kind of 90% of the cases kind of minor and 10% serious? Because there's some real world consequences here. Right. It's the 32% of adults who have used AI to check medical symptoms said they would put off going to the doctor. So a third would put off going to the doctor if an AI tool assessed their symptoms as low risk as according to this specialist.com survey. Going to the doctor is expensive. It's difficult. And so are we saying that, you know, most people are going to a doctor for the serious things and they're using this for some of the more kind of light, intermediate stuff?
C
I think that's right. But as you noted, people are looking for a reason not to go to the doctor, let's be honest. And this, this is, it's a super convenient tool. It's fast, it's easy and it might give you a little bit of a false sense of security. That said, I think if, you know, I think people who are kind of more conscious about their health would see this as more of a supplement than a replacement and I think that's right. It's, it's really like a personal assistant almost. You know, Beth mentioned where, where, where you like go to Google and then go to ChatGPT or AI for, for more context and I think that's right on. Because if you think about it, you know, Google's going to give you an article that someone wrote and it might be a medical professional, an expert article and it might be all fact based and that' but it's not going to give you help and like conversational flow that a chatbot would. It's in, you know, it's even removing health for a second. It's almost like the ChatGPT is like a person going back to best therapy trend or a companion, like someone that you believe is actually like answering your questions. Almost as if a human would.
B
There's so many, I mean what you're saying, people wanting to avoid going to the doctors for multiple reasons. And when you look at some of the numbers there it's quite shocking how many people are doing that and we're doing that before AI. I'm sure this is going to accelerate it. 36% of American adults saying in the past 12 months they've skipped or postponed getting health care they needed. They needed, you know, not they thought they might they needed because of the cost according to KFF Kaiser Family Foundation. And 2/3 of Americans who file for personal bankruptcy blame medical bills. The number one reason that people go bankrupt personally is because of medical bills being the primary cause. It was Harvard study, also a Consumer Financial Protection Board study. It says the same thing. That's half a million Americans filing for bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. So you can see how easily it is for people to say, you know what, let me just check with this AI service first before rushing off to the doctor and having them tell me that it might be nothing. And I've spent all this money. Beth, let's move over to yours. So you're talking about US consumers increasingly using AI for mental health therapy and support in 2026. How does this prediction play out this year?
A
Yeah, it's really interesting too because I think everything that we were just talking about plays exactly into this. Maybe this is sort of a subset of the chat GPT kind of health care. So we know, you know, people are flocking to AI to get instant answers. Right. Low or no cost. Talked about the expense and 24,7 access and that applies to mental health advice and answering questions. So in Rajiv's report there's an, an excellent chart I would suggest everybody look at. But it talked to people who use AI for mental health support or therapy like services and asked why they're using it. 90% because they said it's accessible anytime they need it. 77, 70% said because it's low cost or free. 59% because they can get quick answers. And 47% this is a new one. We haven't talked about this. Because it can be anonymous. Because they can be anonymous. Ah, but there's something. There was another really interesting thing in that same chart that said 30% of people use it because they don't have access to a therapist.
B
Huh? Because.
A
Because they don't. They don't have a therapist. An in person therapist. So they're using AI chat bots as a replacement.
B
Okay, but by access, do they mean I don't have the right health insurance? I don't the cost too much?
A
Probably, yeah, all of those things. We don't, we don't know specifically or exactly why. But too expensive in a rural area. You might not have therapists around. We know there's a shortage of healthcare providers in general. And there's certainly a shortage of mental health therapists.
C
A lot don't take insurance to begin with. So then the cash pay price is too, too high.
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A
Because money was. What Was that number? 70% say because of money. They're using AI for therapy because.
C
And you know, therapy is a little, is, it's a unique. It's kind of different than the medical care because there is the an anonymity is is a good point. And there also is the people. I mean even just going back to like telehealth visits. Mental health support and services are the top use case for telehealth visits because. And obviously that's different than AI, but a lot of people aren't really comfortable kind of expressing their deepest thoughts in person to a therapist. Maybe they haven't found a therapist that they would do this with or regardless of any therapist, they wouldn't feel comfortable. And that's where like the, the AI piece comes in. Because it's not a person over a screen or you know, in, in or face to face in person physically, but it's actually just like somewhat of like a companion almost an emotional support assistant where you can just kind of express your. Your thoughts.
B
Yeah, yeah.
A
Kind of like the building on that context idea. I mean it's conversation, it's all. Mental health therapy is all context. Right. You don't go and ask Google like I'm having a crisis, what do I do? You want to talk to somebody. And that's, that's somebody that you talked about Radiv almost being a person. That's the AI chapter.
B
Yeah. So in the research, some top trends, digital health trends for 2026. For this trend you'd written the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA and the Federal Trade Commission, the FTC will aggressively target companies promoting themselves as an AI doctor or AI thera. Most platforms using AI in patient care already assert that they don't diagnose or treat to evade fda. Fda, FDA oversight. So if they don't diagnose or treat, what did they do? What do they advise? What are they claiming that people should come to the services for?
A
I mean, yeah, that's pretty much it, right. So yeah, partly to avoid those sort of regulations. I think I mentioned earlier about the states that some states, Illinois, Nevada and Utah all but new regulations guidelines around AI therapy and chatbots. Illinois specifically has a $10,000 fine for AI companies that use AI for therapy, counseling, decisions or diagnosis. So you can evade it, I guess. I don't know if evade is is a fair word. But you can get around it by saying we're support or coaches or, and, and okay. And the platforms are genuine about it, they are putting in guidelines or flags or markers that when someone seems to be having a crisis, diverts to a hotline, asks for intervention, suggests intervention. I mean, those things are real and happening. But I also think back to what I believe is a trend. I don't think that it's going to stop people, right. So they're going to ask their questions a different way, they're going to go to a different platform, they're going to continue to use it because back to that, you know, free, easy access, instant answers and relief.
C
Yeah, and that diagnosed treat piece is so, so fascinating because, and I think you're touching on this, Marcus, that is if you make these claims that you do diagnose and you do treat, which means, you know, you tell me your symptoms, I'm going to diagnose you with a condition, whether that's depression and mental health or medical condition, or I'm going to prescribe you a medication. You know, so if you're saying you're not, you don't, you're not doing these things, you're now, you're not a medical grade product or service, you don't have to, you know, apply for FDA approval. Right. For your technology, things like that. But there's a gray area because depending on how you define treatment, some of these AI services to me provide treatment. It might not be treatment in the form of a drug, but, but it's still treatment. And so I think there is a big gray area that is a huge, major piece of this whole thing because, you know, I don't know if we're going to get into it, Beth, but Chachi Beat and they're a general purpose chatbot, of course. Like there's these, there are these chat bots out there that are just designed for AI therapy services. But ChatGPT is facing multiple lawsuits now.
B
Yes.
C
From people claiming that are, from parents claiming, you know, really, really tragic that their, their kids, you know, committed suicide. And they're alleging that Chachi Beat is, you know, conversations had a role in that. So, you know, ChatGPT is facing a lot of, a lot of lawsuits or multiple lawsuits or open AI rather is facing the lawsuits. And that makes me wonder like how far these AI therapy marketing claims and actual services going to go before, before you see a pullback.
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, Beth, as you mentioned, Illinois, Nevada banned the use of AI for therapy. Utah they have a law limiting it. Do you. Where do you see regulation going? Are we just going to see states just start to enact things over the next couple of years? Do you think it's going to be harder and kind of. You might see a couple of states, it's going to be harder to kind of get legislation through most of the.
A
U.S. i don't think it's. I do agree that there's going to be more states are going to pass laws to restrict therapy and that could, you know, push some tools off the market. And I do think the FDA is going to crack down on sort of that specific promotion of AI doctors or AI therapists. But, you know, again, we'll go back to. They're already using it to answer healthcare questions, to answer mental health questions, give advice. I just don't. I don't. It's just not gonna stop. Like, you can regulate. You can put up guardrails, you can put up regulations, but you can't regulate people's behavior. And that drive. You can't regulate, I don't know, you know, loneliness and the need for support. And people are just going to use, you know, going to go for it either way, right?
B
Yeah.
A
And I think the platforms too, will. I think I looked up, there's a big Amazon. Amazon is. Uses AI mental health apps Twill by Dario. And they encourage people to use it. They encourage their employees to use it to help them get, you know, quick anonymous support. And I think a lot of employers do that. Right. It's less expensive for them. So it's definitely not going away.
B
Yeah. All right, folks, let's move to round three to wrap up this episode. In round three, we our chefs. Not we, I don't really do much. Pull out their best closing arguments as to why their trend is most likely to happen. We call it the show stopping arguments because they are trying to convince me that their trend is more likely to happen or prediction is more likely to happen than the other person. So, Reggie, if we go back to you, Dr. Google giving way to Dr. Chatgpt in 2026, your closing 20 second.
C
Argument is, well, I think OpenAI made this segment in this case a little easier for me. They just recently introduced ChatGPT Health, as Beth mentioned. So not only, you know, are is it a conversational chatbot where you can ask your health questions and get guidance, but they just connected with all these different, like, health and wellness apps and are allowing people to upload their medical data into ChatGPT Health. So essentially you're going from Dr. Google where you just kind of, you know, type in a pretty basic health query to now I can give my blood work to ChatGPT Health. I can give my app from Weight Watch or my data from Weight Watchers or my fitness pal. Right.
B
Scan results. Yeah.
C
And then they can give, they can tell me what all, what this means and give me suggestions to change my diet, my workout, things like that. That's going to be I think a game changer that again makes it just even more effective than the two traditional health query on search.
B
Yeah, really quickly. So in your research you had a line that said AI chatbots and Google's AI overviews will become more accurate as they ingest more information and more consistently cite credible sources such peer reviewed journals and government data sets. Won't they also ingest more garbage and misinformation though as well?
C
Definitely. And I think you bring up another kind of layer of this. Google knows that search isn't good enough which is why they have AI have Gemini do their AI overviews. Right. Which is kind of a part of a part of this. People can also now do their health queries on Google and you get a long AI overview, you know, summary of that. But yeah, you know, we didn't talk enough. I think about like the, the risks of misinformation, you know, information that really is just not, that can be like problematic and even dangerous when it comes to your health. But I do think as more people ask questions in general, but health questions specifically, I do think the models will get smarter and that will sharpen their outputs.
B
Yeah, I mean that cycles back to that reference you have earlier on when I was saying that clinician led study, 5 to 13% saying that the responses people are getting are unsafe, not just problematic. Unsafe.
C
That's kind of a high number for unsafe.
B
Yeah. 1% would be bad. 5 to 13 is. Yeah. Concerning. Absolutely. Beth, for you, US consumers will increasingly use AI for mental health therapy and support in 2026. What's your closing argument?
A
Yeah, as we discussed, you know, guardrails by the chat, by the AI companies are going to happen. More state regulations are going to happen. But at the heart of it, you can't, and I think I said this already, of course you can't remove that fundamental demand. Right. You can. There's still going to be a need for health, mental health questions and queries that a, that people can't access. And I especially want to bring up the lack of affordable care. So health care is getting more expensive, less accessible. But, and I already talked about this too. But the demand for mental health specialists therapists is outpacing how many? There are so many. I think that the demand for inexpensive, anytime access, easy to understand mental health therapy is going to continue to grow. And as we talked, so I guess sort of, you know, the kicker is that it's not about is AI therapy, is AI mental health advice, some kind of hypothetical? It's happening right now, right. So I think the big question is not about how or how the trend's happening, but more about how to make it safe, more responsible, and make it so that you're not cutting out people or that you're including people who need it, who may not have access or nowhere else to turn.
B
All right, folks, that's what we've got time for. We're going to pick a winner. Or normally I would, but I'm not going to the today because I think they're both, I mean they're both so kind of intrinsically linked and I think if you put both of your dishes together, it makes for one hell of a meal. So I'm picking both of you as today's winner. Some fantastic predictions or Trends for for 2026. If folks want more digital health trends, Pro plus subscribers can head to eMarketer.com and search for health trends to watch in 2026. Gen AI is poised to play a major role in consumers health journeys. The link to the report is of course in the show notes. That's all we've got time for for today's episode. Thank you so much to my guests. Thank you. First to Rajiv.
C
Thanks Marcus. It's great being here.
B
Yes, indeed. And thank you so much to Beth.
A
Thank you. Great conversation. Appreciate it.
B
Absolutely, absolutely. And thank you so much to the whole production crew, Lance and Victoria of course as well, in the background making everything happen. Thank you to everyone for listening to behind the Numbers new marketing video podcast. Tomorrow Susie will be here on the reimagining retail show talking about commerce media trends in 2026. Before I go, just say huge thank you to Victoria who edits the podcast. People might know her as this is the last episode she's working on for us. We're going to miss her beyond words and we can't say enough about how much she's made this podcast. What it is. So huge thank you to her. We miss her. If you want to message her on LinkedIn, find her. Victoria, who edits the podcast is her official title and tell her to stay at the company. But thank you so much, Victoria.
Episode Title: The Great BTN Bake (Take) Off — Digital Health Trends for 2026: Dr. ChatGPT vs. Dr. Google and AI for Mental Health Therapy
Air Date: January 20, 2026
Host: Marcus Johnson (B)
Guests:
This episode of Behind the Numbers dives into the rapid evolution of digital health, focusing on predictions for 2026. The hosts discuss two major digital health trends: the rise of "Dr. ChatGPT" overtaking "Dr. Google" for health searches, and the increasing use of AI for mental health therapy and support. Through a three-round structure—with each analyst presenting a trend, exploring its technical and societal implications, and delivering closing arguments—they examine data, real-world behaviors, regulatory concerns, and ethical debates at the intersection of AI and healthcare.
[04:40] Rajeev’s Trend:
[07:10] Beth’s Trend:
Personalization of Health Queries:
Key Data:
Behavioral Dynamics:
Limitations and Risks:
Key Statistics:
Access and Equity:
Emotional Context and AI as ‘Companion’:
Regulation and Legal Issues:
Will regulation stop this trend?
Rajeev’s Final Argument ([27:41]):
Beth’s Final Argument ([30:10]):
The episode highlights that as AI tools like ChatGPT rapidly integrate into healthcare searches and mental health support, users and providers face major opportunities and risks. Personalization, comfort, and accessibility for users are pitted against concerns over accuracy, safety, regulation, and the potential for harm. Both trends—the rise of “Dr. ChatGPT” and AI-driven therapy—are already reshaping health behaviors in the U.S. and globally, with rapid adoption triggering both optimism and alarm among experts, regulators, and the public.
Final Thought from Marcus ([31:22]):
“If you put both your dishes together, it makes for one hell of a meal…these trends are so intrinsically linked.”
For more digital health trends, explore eMarketer’s “Health Trends to Watch in 2026” report.