Artificial intelligence has mastered chess, art and medical diagnosis. Now it’s apparently beating doctors at something we thought was uniquely human: empathy.

A recent review published in the British Medical Bulletin analysed 15 studies comparing AI-written responses with those from human healthcare professionals. Blinded researchers then rated these responses for empathy using validated assessment tools. The results were startling: AI responses were rated as more empathic in 13 out of 15 studies — 87% of the time.

Before we surrender healthcare’s human touch to our new robot overlords, we need to examine what’s really happening here.

The studies compared written responses, rather than face-to-face interactions, giving AI a structural advantage: no vocal tone to misread, no body language to interpret, and unlimited time to craft perfect responses.