The Third Presence in the Clinic Room: How Artificial Intelligence Is Reshaping the Clinical Encounter

For a long time, the clinical encounter has been described as a relationship between two people: the patient and the physician. Yet a third presence has often existed through family advice, television programs, books, and health websites that shape expectations before the visit. What has changed in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) is the character of that third presence. AI systems and algorithm-driven platforms are interactive, personalized, and immediate, and they repeatedly reinforce certain explanations through ranking, recommendation, and conversational responses.