The news: Online healthcare booking platform Zocdoc is opening its infrastructure to AI agents, allowing them to find providers and book appointments on patients’ behalf. With patient consent, registered agents can access physician calendars and insurance information through Zocdoc’s network and complete bookings when authorized.

The move follows Zocdoc’s recent Google integration, which lets consumers find real-time appointment availability and book providers directly in Gemini. Zocdoc also has partnerships with personal AI assistant Instinct, Amazon Health AI, Yelp, and others.

Why it matters: Zocdoc wants to capture appointment bookings as AI tools become another way to schedule care. AI has been influencing consumers’ choice of healthcare providers, and agents are starting to take the next step by completing bookings rather than directing users to provider websites. Twelve percent of US adults have used AI to book healthcare appointments, the second-most common use case surveyed behind searching for health information, per September Axios/Ipsos data. Zocdoc says inbound traffic to its website from AI agents has doubled roughly every 10 days since early September.

Still, AI agents risk booking nonexistent or out-of-network appointments without reliable provider availability and insurance information, said Zocdoc founder and CEO Oliver Kharraz, MD. Zocdoc’s network of over 200,000 verified providers and 10,000 insurance plans could help address these gaps.

Implications for healthcare marketers and providers: More consumers will likely turn to AI agents for healthcare booking given their convenience and the growing use of AI to seek health information. Zocdoc’s integration success will hinge on agents accurately matching patients with available, in-network providers. Requiring agents to register and identify themselves with Zocdoc could help reduce such errors.

More broadly, AI visibility could become a new patient acquisition priority for healthcare providers and their marketers. As agents handle more bookings directly, providers will need to maintain accurate information on platforms that AI tools can access, rather than relying solely on website traffic and traditional search.