Towards conversational artificial intelligence for disease management

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Authors: Valentin Liévin, Anil Palepu, Wei‐Hung Weng, Khaled Saab, David Stutz, Yong Cheng, Kavita Kulkarni, S. Sara Mahdavi, Joelle Barral, Dale R. Webster, Katherine Chou, Avinatan Hassidim
+8 more Yossi Matias, James Manyika, Ryutaro Tanno, Vivek Natarajan, Adam Rodman, Tao Tu, Alan Karthikesalingam, Mike Schaekermann
Cited by: 12
References: 34

Abstract

Abstract Although large language models have shown promise in diagnostic dialogue 1 , their capabilities for effective management reasoning, including disease progression, therapeutic response and safe medication prescription, have remained underexplored. We have advanced the previously demonstrated diagnostic capabilities of the Articulate Medical Intelligence Explorer (AMIE) 1–3 using a new large-language-model-based agentic system optimized for multivisit clinical management and dialogue. To ground the reasoning of AMIE in authoritative clinical knowledge, we leveraged the long-context capabilities of Gemini 4 , combining in-context retrieval with structured reasoning to align its output with up-to-date clinical practice guidelines and drug formularies. In a randomized, blinded virtual Objective Structured Clinical Examination study, AMIE was compared to 21 primary care physicians (PCPs) across 100 multivisit case scenarios designed to reflect the guidance of the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and BMJ Best Practice guidelines. AMIE was non-inferior to PCPs in management reasoning, as assessed by specialists, and scored better both with respect to preciseness of treatment and investigation, and in terms of its alignment with and grounding in clinical guidelines. To benchmark medication reasoning, we developed RxQA, a multiple-choice question benchmark that was derived from two national drug formularies (from the USA and UK) and validated by board-certified pharmacists. Although AMIE and PCPs both benefited from the ability to access external drug information, AMIE outperformed PCPs on higher-difficulty questions. Although further research will be needed before real-world translation of AMIE, its strong performance across evaluations marks a significant step towards use of conversational artificial intelligence as a tool in disease management.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education Clinical Reasoning and Diagnostic Skills Topic Modeling

Publication details

Journal / source
Nature
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Volume
655
Issue
8125
Pages
1292–1299
Publication date
17 June 2026
Language
EN