AI Chatbot Treatment Recommendations Influenced by Drug Advertisements, Mount Sinai Study Reveals
A study conducted by researchers at Mount Sinai Health System has revealed that AI chatbot treatment recommendations can be swayed by drug advertisements. The study tested 12 AI models from major technology companies, including Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic, across 33 clinical scenarios. When an advertisement for a drug was present, the models chose the advertised drug in 47.6% of responses, compared to 35% when no ad was shown. In four specific cases, models that previously never recommended the advertised drug began recommending it 100% of the time after the ad was introduced. First author Mahmud Omar, MD, noted that while the answers often appeared clinically reasonable, the preference among appropriate options shifted due to the ad. Senior author Girish N. Nadkarni, MD, MPH, emphasized the need for transparency in distinguishing clinical guidance from commercial influence, especially as patients increasingly rely on AI for health information. The models rarely acknowledged the ads, explicitly mentionin...
