Who uses AI chatbots to obtain nutrition- and health-related information? Analysis of a representative German sample

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly popular, yet many people are still sceptical of its performance, and objective evaluations of health advice provided by AI chatbots yielded mixed results. This study investigated who is already using AI chatbots to retrieve nutrition- and health-related information to uncover potential social inequalities in its use in a sample of 774 adults with age, gender and level of education approximately representative for the German population. About one third of the sample reported having used AI chatbots to obtain nutrition-related information and 20.3% reported prior experience regarding obtaining health-related information. Age and nutrition knowledge were negatively, and years of education, affinity to technology, and healthy eating were positively associated with using AI to obtain nutrition- and health-related information. Results on income and employment were mixed. Nutrition- and health-related AI use thus is unevenly distributed in the population, mirroring the digital health divide evident for other technologies.