In Brief
- An estimated 40 per cent of general practitioners use AI scribes in their consultations.
- Experts are divided over their benefits and drawbacks, with bigger questions around privacy and regulatory oversight remaining.
Walk into a GP's room these days, and you might be asked something new: "Do you consent to me using an AI transcription tool?"
It's a question that could soon become routine, with AI scribes now used by roughly 40 per cent of Australian GPs, up from 22 per cent in August 2024, according to survey data from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP).
Dr Janice Tan, a spokesperson for RACGP's expert committee, said GPs and clinicians use AI scribes to transcribe conversations with patients, take automated notes, and summarise what was discussed.
"During the consult, they [the AI scribe] listen and produce a draft note afterwards," she told SBS News. "Many also draft referral and specialist letters, care plans, and sometimes a plain-English summary for the patient."
But she's clear that the software documents interactions — it doesn't decide care plans.
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"A product that starts suggesting a diagnosis or treatment the clinician didn't state is no longer a scribe, and sits in a different regulatory category," she said.
But another expert said more safeguards are needed to protect patients — and the benefits aren't as clear-cut as they first appear.
The good
For GPs, Tan said the appeal comes down to reduced burnout and more patient-centred care.
"There's less documentation after hours, which is a real driver of burnout and people leaving the profession," she said.
"The doctor is looking at you rather than the keyboard … there's more patient-centred consults, not quicker ones."
"The most underused benefit is the patient-facing summary … [which features] what we discussed, what changed, when to come back. That's valuable for anyone managing something complex, and for carers."
She also said it allows for "better and more consistent records", which are particularly helpful if you don't always see the same GP.
The bad
Andrew Cullen from the University of Melbourne's School of Computing and Information Systems agrees GPs are the clear winners — but is more cautious about what patients get out of it.
"GPs and clinicians love scribes, because they no longer need to take notes — so they can devote more time to their patients," he told SBS News. "However, for patients, the benefit is a lot less clear."
His main concern is 'hallucination' — when AI systems, including scribes, confidently make up facts. He cited a 2025 study which he said found "up to 20 per cent of notes made by AI scribes contained major errors".
"The quality of these notes is hugely important — they're the way doctors keep track of patients long term, and how they share concerns with specialists," he said.
"So if AI gets things wrong, patients can be misdiagnosed, or provided inappropriate care, based upon an AI's mistakes."
Tan said the most common error type is omission — where details are left out — which she puts at roughly three-quarters of all errors.
"They're the hardest to catch because you have to notice something isn't there," she said.
Both experts flag the tools can also struggle with strong accents, speech impediments, or noisy rooms, raising equity questions about who the technology best serves — though Tan notes this is improving with newer models.
The bigger questions
Bigger questions around regulation and privacy still surround the technology, with the two experts split on whether current oversight goes far enough.
Privacy
Concerns around how AI tools handle personal information aren't unique to healthcare — but Cullen argues the stakes are higher here than in most industries.
"We don't know how these notes are being used, we don't know how safely they're being held, and clinicians aren't well equipped to handle these conversations within an appointment," he said.
"Patients really need an empowered regulator, supported by government, to actively look out for their interests, to ensure that their private medical information is treated safely, and that their data is protected."
Tan said retention of audio files varies by product, while draft notes go into the practice's clinical software, where they're covered by the Privacy Act and state health records legislation like any other health record.
"RACGP advises practices to check where data is stored and processed and whether the vendor can reuse it for other purposes," she said. "Asking your practice whether that check was done is fair."
Regulations
Then there's the question of whether an AI scribe constitutes a medical device, which are subject to far stricter regulatory oversight.
While AI scribes are covered by multiple regulatory frameworks, including the Privacy Act and guidance from the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, oversight from the Therapeutic Goods Administration only applies if a tool crosses into medical device territory.
"A scribe becomes a medical device once it interprets the conversation, including generating a diagnosis or treatment recommendation the clinician didn't state," Tan said. "That's the right line in the sand."
Cullen argues that threshold "completely misses the risk that biases and mistakes in an AI's output could affect diagnoses" and said there is a need for further safeguards.
"Treating a scribe as a medical device would require the companies behind these systems to perform much more rigorous testing, and to be far more open about who has access to patient information," he said, adding that other countries have moved to treat AI scribes as medical devices.
But Tan cautions against regulatory overcorrection.
"Make compliant tools hard to use, and clinicians will reach for ungoverned ones on personal devices, which is a worse outcome for patients," she said.
She said that, ultimately, an AI scribe requires clinician oversight — and patient consent.
"Like every tool in medicine, it needs training, oversight, checks, and a clinician who takes responsibility for the output," she said.
"If patients take one thing away: being asked for consent is a good sign, and asking your GP what happens to the recording is a reasonable question."
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