When a patient visits an Australian GP’s office today, the doctor might start with the question: “Do you consent to the use of an AI scribe to record our conversations?”
At least, that’s what should happen.
The use of AI scribes by Australian doctors has nearly doubled from 22% in August 2024 to 40% in November 2025, according to a Royal Australian Grand Prix (RACGP) online poll.
These AI tools, such as those offered by Australian company Heidi, record, transcribe, and summarize conversations between doctors and patients to create medical notes.
“We put a lot of effort into letting patients know that we are using AI and giving them the option to opt out, which is really important,” says Newcastle-based general practitioner Dr Max Molenkopf. “Just tell the patient what’s going on and don’t try to be subtle about it.”
Heidi is increasingly being used by GPs, with the Melbourne-based startup announcing it has supported more than 115 million sessions in 18 months globally.
The growing popularity of AI medical scribes may help ease the administrative burden on doctors, but experts have cited concerns about consent, privacy, and accuracy.
Doctors interviewed by Guardian Australia stressed the importance of obtaining patient consent before using these AI tools.
But Dr Elizabeth Devenney, chief executive of the Consumer Health Forum, says not all healthcare organizations are explicitly discussing the tool. “I went to my GP recently and there was a poster of an AI scribe in the waiting room,” she says. “It basically said, ‘By reading this, you understand that consent has been given.'”
When doctors ask, Deveny says, it falls into the box of, “Can I use this?” conversation. “Think about the power differential between the consumer and the clinician. What will the consumer say?”
For some GPs, AI scribes are seen as management tools, allowing them to focus directly on patients rather than feverishly typing notes, allowing them to better connect with patients during consultations and assist with record management afterwards.
“They also use it as a compliance tool,” Mollenkopf says. “The great thing about the Scribe tool is that it can take a consultation and convert it into a format that is suitable for a Medicare audit.”
“So GPs have great peace of mind that if they are audited, they can prove the work they have done to Medicare, because the writing tool has heard all the consultations.”
Mollenkopf was a beta tester for Heidi AI, but was not paid by the company for his work or evaluation and continues to pay for his own use of the app. He also uses the Heidi’s Comms service, an AI bot that can call patients on behalf of doctors to get updates on their condition between visits.
“You would think that [some patients] And they would be furious…but actually that’s a pretty small minority,” Mollenkopf said.
Deveny said there are concerns that outsourcing note-taking to AI could put doctors at risk of not being able to retain or recall conversations with patients.
“What consumers are saying is that when they go to see their GP again, they feel like their GP isn’t emotionally connected to them… because they don’t seem to know as much about what happened last time,” she says.
Dr Caitlin Curtis, a University of Queensland researcher specializing in responsible AI, agrees. “Note-taking isn’t just administrative; it’s part of the way we think when we write or summarize things,” she says.
“It helps you process information, reflect on it, prioritize it, and really understand what’s going on. If that process is automated or removed, you might save time, but it begs the question of what else is being lost.”
But RACGP vice-chair of digital health and innovation Dr Janice Tan says relieving doctors of some of the administrative burden could help.
“Clinicians may actually have some room to think again, to be involved in the consultation rather than half-distracted by paperwork,” she says. “Burnout in general practice is at a critical level right now, and if AI can take on some of that burden, it’s worth looking at.”
The AI Notetaker also doesn’t record the tone, emotion, or nonverbal signals patients use when they say something. For example, for mental health consultations, Curtis says,
Since these tools do not directly diagnose patients, they are currently exempt from medicines control regulations.
Risks to patient data are ever-present in health, and Australia has already seen a number of privacy breaches related to medical data, including at the Australian Clinical Research Institute, Medibank and Genea.
RACGP chairman Dr Michael Wright said he was optimistic that AI tools would help patients and GPs work more closely together to decide the best course of action for each individual patient, but said privacy and consent concerns were problematic.
“GPs (and potentially patients) need to ensure that the AI output is correct,” he says.
Heidi co-founder and CEO Dr. Tom Kelly said the data will be processed in the patient’s country and will not be used to train AI or sold to others. He added that the company uses third-party testing and auditing to keep data secure.
He said the company maintains high standards to ensure the transcriptions processed by the Heidi model itself are accurate, but doctors still need to check the AI-assisted records.
“Even clinicians can make typos, misspoke, and get things wrong,” he says. “But the mistake we made was [Heidi] It’s even weirder because it’s a rare mishearing that humans don’t make. ”
