The pre-consultation research process has a new first step, and it\u2019s reshaping what dermatologists and aesthetic providers hear across the table. As artificial intelligence tools become a regular part of that process, providers say patients are showing up to cosmetic-treatment appointments with more information than ever, but not always the right i<\/em>nformation.<\/p>\n According to NewBeauty’s State of Aesthetics 2026 report, 30.3 percent of patients say they\u2019ve already used AI to research treatments, putting it ahead of YouTube (20.4 percent) and closing in on online forums (38.6 percent), both platforms that have had a decade-long head start.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But more research doesn\u2019t guarantee the right questions get asked. New York dermatologist Julie Russak, MD, sees it happen often: a patient comes in convinced they know what\u2019s wrong, having asked an AI and gotten confirmation back. They type \u201cI have jowls,\u201d and the AI answers the jowls question. But when that same patient sits down in her chair, what Russak often sees is something else entirely, a different issue the patient never thought to ask about. \u201cThe answer was correct for the question asked,\u201d she says. \u201cThe question was wrong. That’s the most common form of misinformation I encounter, and it isn\u2019t really the tool\u2019s failure.\u201d<\/p>\n Ahead, we\u2019re diving into what else the report found, including how comfortable patients really are with AI, where it tends to mislead them and how to make it work in your favor before your next appointment.<\/p>\n Fifty-two percent of those surveyed describe themselves as comfortable turning to AI for treatment research, well above the 30.3 percent who\u2019ve actually done it so far. That gap suggests a large pool of patients aren\u2019t using AI yet, but they\u2019re not resistant to it either.<\/p>\n West Palm Beach, FL dermatologist Jacob Beer, MD isn\u2019t surprised. \u201cMany providers find patients doing AI research to be off-putting but we don\u2019t mind it in our practice,\u201d he says. \u201cI think that anything that helps patients feel empowered to discuss their concerns is a net positive.\u201d<\/p>\n Sixty-nine percent say they\u2019d use AI for low-stakes tasks like learning more about treatments, while 67 percent would use it to compare procedures. Just 44 percent would use it to visualize potential results, which comes closest to replacing an actual consultation.<\/p>\n In practice, that line between researching and deciding isn\u2019t always so clean. \u201cPatients are coming with more information but also more misinformation from AI,\u201d says Omaha, NE dermatologist Daniel Schlessinger, MD. He\u2019s seen patients arrive with a specific \u201crecipe\u201d of injectables and lasers an AI told them they needed, or AI-generated, filtered photos of themselves they want him to recreate.<\/p>\n AI doesn\u2019t know the patient. That\u2019s the real limitation, says Omaha, NE dermatologist Joel Schlessinger, MD.<\/strong> \u201cAI will give you many facts about a treatment, and some of them may even be true,\u201d he says. \u201cThe problem is that AI doesn\u2019t have any clue who you are and is, at best, as good as the knowledge you know to pass on to it.\u201d He compares it to a game of telephone, where AI tools pull heavily from Reddit and other social platforms rather than peer-reviewed research, inflating the hype around treatments the evidence hasn\u2019t caught up to yet.<\/p>\n Treat AI as a starting point, not a verdict. That\u2019s Dr. Daniel Schlessinger\u2019s advice, and it comes with a warning about what the tool can\u2019t weigh in on. \u201cAI lacks taste and judgment,\u201d he says. \u201cIt may give you a long list of treatments that may work for your condition or concern, but that doesn\u2019t mean that you should do them or that you are a good candidate for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Getting a better answer starts with asking a better question, according to Dr. Russak, and that means going wider than whatever brought you to the search bar in the first place. \u201cIf you type in a treatment name you\u2019ll get a good answer about that treatment, and you\u2019ll never find out it wasn\u2019t the right one to ask about,\u201d she says. Her fix is a simple change in phrasing: ask what to discuss with a doctor, not what to tell one. \u201cThat single change in phrasing gets you a set of questions instead of a set of instructions,\u201d she says, \u201cand it\u2019s a much better thing to walk in with.\u201d<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the concern that has nothing to do with accuracy at all. Dr. Beer points to privacy. \u201cIt\u2019s important to remember that AI tools are generally not HIPAA compliant,\u201d he says, citing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman\u2019s own public comments that private medical or legal information shouldn\u2019t be shared with AI tools expecting confidentiality.<\/p>\n For providers, the shift isn\u2019t about AI replacing any part of the process. It\u2019s about how differently that process now begins. Patients are walking in curious, a little further along and ready to talk. They just need direction on where to go from there, and that part is still best left to the experts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The pre-consultation research process has a new first s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Featured Experts<\/h2>\n
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