Kimberley Rivero keeps a log of over 100 pages of correspondence with artificial intelligence chatbots, as well as a 50-page symptom log. Her records are not unlike the charts that doctors keep in electronic health records.
The log is filled with prompts and responses containing medical jargon relating to cerebral cavernous malformations, a rare brain blood vessel disorder that Rivero was diagnosed with in 2025.
She has good days and bad days, but the Longmont resident had to stop working because her migraines and unpredictable bouts of vertigo can leave her unable to function.
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Nearly one-third of U.S. adults used AI tools to look up medical information and advice in 2025, a recent KFF poll shows. Rivero uses AI to supplement conversations with her providers and help her advocate for care that could improve her quality of life.
"I don't know that without these tools, if I would have realized how much I can help myself without leaving the state," Rivero said.
Manjari Henderson, a painter and former graphic designer living in Superior, started using Anthropic's chatbot Claude about two years ago to help navigate her cancer diagnoses.
"I'm getting more and more excited about AI," Henderson said.
AI chatbots provide these women with access to not only vast amounts of information, but also a greater sense of optimism, something that can be hard to come by when faced with chronic health conditions.
Henderson has both non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and liver cancer. She sees a different oncologist for each diagnosis. Henderson uses multiple AI chatbots to cross-reference medical advice from her providers and to explore alternative forms of care such as herbalism and Ayurvedic medicine.
People with complex diagnoses find that multiple providers may lack efficient means of coordinating care.
"They don't communicate with each other," Henderson said of her various specialists.
One of Henderson’s oncologists recommended a treatment to target the non-Hodgkin's lymphoma tumors in her spleen. When Henderson asked a chatbot about the recommendation, she learned it could reactivate the hepatitis B infection in her liver, which can lead to liver dysfunction and disruption of cancer treatment.
Henderson's posture straightened, and she leaned forward at her desk — surrounded by her colorful original artwork — when she described her prompting the AI chatbots to act like experts in different healing modalities.
"Can you pretend you are a natural healer, and you know everything about Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, and Western herbalism?" she has asked ChatGPT.
It has recommended using mullein leaf for respiratory health and has created meal plans tailored to her specific health needs.
Henderson, originally from Germany, also asks ChatGPT to pull from German medical journals.
"It just helps me understand my body better, and gives me more control over what I want to do," Henderson said.
AI isn't without flaws
However helpful, using AI tools for medical information is not foolproof.
AI chatbots are designed to maintain user engagement, and studies show that users prefer models that are more likely to agree with them.
"It often will reflect back what you want to hear," said Dr. Lauren Brave, a pediatrician in Boulder.
Brave recounted an experience with a young patient's mother who was using AI for medical advice that Brave did not believe was the right treatment for the child.
"That, I think, is when it becomes dangerous. ChatGPT validating what she's doing even when it may not be correct,” Brave said.
Both Rivero and Henderson use several AI chatbots to cross-reference the responses they receive.
Brave, who educates her pediatric patients and their families on the beneficial uses of AI, believes that it's an improvement from "Dr. Google," but cautions against using it as a diagnostic tool.
Rivero and her husband saw how AI can slip up first-hand. They used a chatbot to create a dietary plan that supports her husband’s prostate health as well as Rivero's brain health.
A few days later, when Rivero returned to the chatbot to resume her own health inquiry regarding hormones and brain health, Gemini slipped up, assuming that she had a prostate and expressing confusion about why she was now inquiring about female hormonal health.
Having lived with a cancer diagnosis for over a decade, Henderson has interacted with countless health care providers. She expressed her disappointment with doctors whom she says give only three sentences of interpretation for results as nerve-wracking as learning whether the radiation therapy she underwent last fall for her liver cancer was successful.
It was, Henderson said, but the cancer can come back at any time.
That’s why she’ll keep using AI: more tools, more knowledge and more support.
