Zocdoc и Google Gemini объединились для записи к врачу прямо в чат-боте

Zocdoc is partnering with Google Gemini to streamline the digital healthcare journey, allowing users to schedule medical appointments without leaving the chatbot. The move comes as an increasing number of consumers search for health information on AI answer engines.Executives at Zocdoc and Google announced the first-of-its-kind collaboration last week. According to Zocdoc, the partnership is meant to close the gap between searching for health information and booking a doctor’s appointment. In a survey run by Zocdoc, 85 percent of healthcare providers surveyed said they’ve noticed more patients arriving after having consulted AI to understand their symptoms. The same survey found that 23% of patient respondents would prefer to consult both AI and a clinician in their healthcare journeys. As AI becomes a starting point for more consumer decisions, appearing in traditional search results is no longer enough. Providers increasingly need to be discoverable, relevant, and ultimately, bookable within the environments where patients are seeking health information. To integrate the AI-informed patient journey with the online booking experience, Zocdoc and Google teamed up to provide real-time booking availability within the Google Gemini app. Users can simply say or type “Zocdoc” in a prompt to Gemini, and they’ll be prompted to enable Zocdoc access. As soon as a user turns on Zocdoc access, Gemini will find real-time appointment availability across ZocDoc’s network of over 200,000 providers, Zocdoc founder and CEO Oliver Kharraz, MD, told ADWEEK in an email. “Users can share the speciality they want to see or the types of issues they need addressed and Zocdoc will surface appointments for them,” Kharraz said. “Patients can just click to book, without having to dial for doctors or search across multiple sites.” For Zocdoc, the partnership effectively extends its marketplace into a new discovery channel where users are increasingly likely to seek out health-related information. This also benefits providers connected with Zocdoc, so long as they have appointment availability. When asked how this partnership will surface provider information, in other words, what factors determine which Zocdoc-connected providers show up first or second in a Gemini-generated response, Zocdoc responded that results will be “relevancy-based,” not performance-based. Relevancy tends to be user-centric, so which providers appear first in Gemini’s suggestions will depend on a user’s location, preference of specialty, availability, and insurance status. For the marketing teams working to make providers discoverable with AI, a distinction between advertising and visibility has emerged. A provider appearing in Gemini’s recommendation no longer has to buy an ad placement to become visible to patients, but they do need to appear relevant to a given user. The Zocdoc-Google partnership not only illustrates the emerging distinction between being search-visible versus discoverable with AI, but also demonstrates what it looks like when AI-delivered results are actionable with such an integration. “Our ambition is that every front door to care in America will be powered by Zocdoc, and every provider will be connected to our network,” Kharraz told ADWEEK. “This is the next step in Zocdoc’s journey as we expand beyond our marketplace, to power access to care everywhere patients search.” This shift is part of a larger change underway in healthcare marketing. Health-seeking behavior is increasingly fragmented across search engines, insurance directories, marketplaces, and now AI assistants. The brands that benefit may not simply be the ones that show up across various forms of search, but the ones that can turn discovery into action.