Gen Z is leading the AI healthcare revolution. Are Boomers being left behind?

Gen Z is clearly helping to pull AI and digital health into the mainstream, but Boomers are not so much “left behind” as unevenly included, with structural and design choices making it harder for them to benefit at scale.

What Gen Z is doing in AI health

Gen Z patients and consumers are generally more willing to use AI-supported health tools, telehealth apps, and digital self‑management platforms, reflecting higher baseline tech comfort and smartphone saturation.

Studies of Gen Z medical students and early‑career clinicians show high exposure to AI tools (over 70% in one survey) and strong belief that AI will be integral to diagnosis and workflow, even if they remain cautious about ethics and reliability.

Young adults engaging with AI‑driven mHealth apps value usability, personalization, and “always‑on” access, but also articulate data privacy and trust concerns, suggesting they are enthusiastic early adopters rather than blindly optimistic.

Where Boomers are lagging

Older adults, including many Boomers, remain among the most resistant groups to digital health, despite being heavy users of healthcare and prime beneficiaries of remote monitoring, telehealth, and decision‑support.

Systematic reviews highlight recurring barriers: limited digital literacy and confidence, interface complexity, poor connectivity, cost, privacy fears, and a strong preference for in‑person, relationship‑based care.

A “legitimacy gap” often exists: many older adults feel that app‑ and AI‑mediated care lacks the authenticity and authority of face‑to‑face encounters, reinforcing withdrawal from digital channels over time.

Evidence of a generational gap

Telehealth satisfaction data show a clear generation gap: one US study reported higher satisfaction scores among Gen Y/Z users (~714/1,000) and significantly lower scores among Boomers and pre‑Boomers (~671), with the biggest gaps in digital channels and appointment scheduling.

Broader telehealth surveys find younger generations most open to using virtual care (around three‑quarters willing) versus roughly half of seniors, who are less inclined to switch providers purely for digital access.​

Even when older adults do use digital health, they tend to restrict use to narrow tasks (eg, prescription renewals or chronic disease check‑ins) rather than broad substitution of in‑person care, unlike younger users who lean on it for convenience and mental health support.​

Are Boomers being “left behind”?

In design terms, yes: many AI and digital health solutions are optimized around smartphone‑native, high‑literacy, always‑online users, which implicitly centers Gen Z and Millennials and marginalizes older adults with lower digital confidence.

In outcome terms, older adults’ combination of high disease burden and lower digital adoption risks amplifying existing inequities, as AI‑enabled triage, monitoring, and personalization increasingly drive access, responsiveness, and guideline‑concordant care.

However, Boomers are not uniformly resistant: when interfaces are simple, support is available, and clinicians endorse tools, older adults’ uptake improves, especially for chronic disease management and remote follow‑up.

What it would take to close the gap

Build age‑inclusive AI: larger fonts, voice interfaces, minimal steps, clear error recovery, and explicit human‑in‑the‑loop cues tailored to cognitive and sensory changes in later life.

Provide structured on‑ramping: in‑clinic onboarding, caregiver involvement, phone support, and local training that focus on building self‑efficacy and addressing anxiety, not just handing out an app link.

Use trusted clinical channels: older adults respond strongly to endorsement by their existing clinicians and to hybrid models where digital tools clearly complement, rather than replace, face‑to‑face care.

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