Enhancing patient value co-creation via AI-enabled cases disclosure: The role of uncertainty reduction, patient empowerment and risk aversion

Online healthcare platforms have increasingly adopted pre-consultation AI chatbots. During patient-AI interaction before healthcare encounters, disclosing similar case records by AI has emerged as a critical strategy to eliminate patient-doctor information asymmetry and engage patients, which potentially stimulates patient value co-creation intention. However, cases disclosure has not received much attention from researchers. This research explores how AI-enabled similar cases disclosure influences patient value co-creation intention in online healthcare platforms. Drawing on social cognitive theory, case disclosure reduces patient uncertainty and fosters patient empowerment, thereby enhancing value co-creation. Three scenario experiments reveal that similar cases disclosure increases patient value co-creation intention via the sequential mediation of uncertainty reduction and patient empowerment, where patient risk aversion level serves as a moderator. These findings advance research on AI–customer interaction and value co-creation, unveil patients’ psychological mechanisms under similar cases disclosure, interpret risk aversion conditions via regulatory focus theory, and provide insights for deploying chatbots in customer service in the online healthcare industry.