Mark Cuban says doctors should be teaching patients how to use AI to help with their treatment
Mark Cuban went on a healthcare posting spree on X on Wednesday, pushing back on predictions that AI will replace medics and saying that doctors should be helping patients use AI in their treatment.
Across a flurry of posts, the billionaire entrepreneur argued that AI cannot replicate doctors’ real-time observation, communication, empathy, and judgment when a patient’s condition suddenly changes.
Human Dr to patient – You just puked. Let’s find out why.
AI – Nothing AI can’t see and reason in real time.
Human Dr sees patient collapse. Does CPR.
AI – Nothing AI can’t see or do CPR
Human Dr sees patient- Discusses patients with other doctor who knows patient and… https://t.co/0qCLjdtIVH
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) August 19, 2026
“No chance radiologists get replaced,” Cuban wrote, though he predicted every radiologist would eventually use AI.
No chance radiologists get replaced. A model is outdated the minute it is released.
Model usage costs money. A lot more than a radiologist.
Medicine is a business.
Putting together AI with domain knowledge is complex. When it can be the difference between life and… https://t.co/1ZYahctgRr
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) August 19, 2026
Cuban later amended his argument. AI will replace many tasks performed by doctors, he wrote, not because machines can practice medicine independently, but because clinicians spend so much time on what he called “bullshit administrivia” created by healthcare conglomerates.
His proposed solution was blunt: “Replace the middlemen with AI.”
Let me make one correction to what I posted. AI will replace most doctors tasks!
Because most of their tasks are bullshit administrivia introduced by the huge HC conglomerates that serve no purpose.
Asking whether AI can replace doctors practicing medicine is the wrong… https://t.co/3d7uF2rv8G
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) August 19, 2026
Later in the same day, Cuban also proposed a new role for doctors in an AI-heavy healthcare system: helping patients use the technology.
He said private-practice doctors could sit down with patients and configure tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok with personalized instructions, skills, and prompts.
The LLM could then share the results with the doctor, allowing physicians to interact with both the patient and the patient’s AI.
If I was a doctor with a private practice, I would offer to sit with the patient and configure their Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok with instructions and skills, along with a series of prompts/tasks that the patient can use and that can be shared with the doctor and inform the…
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) August 20, 2026
Cuban’s focus on healthcare intermediaries is not new. In 2022, he cofounded Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, an online pharmacy built around transparent pricing and bypassing traditional pharmacy benefit managers.
The venture has made disrupting healthcare’s opaque drug-pricing system one of Cuban’s signature business projects.
Cuban’s latest posts build on healthcare warnings he made last month. He said AI could create an arms race between providers and insurers, with doctors using agents to improve care while conglomerates deploy their own to “delay and deny.”
He has also urged employers to run healthcare contracts through chatbots to identify hidden costs and unfavorable terms.
His comments came as AI’s role in medicine is moving beyond chatbots. On Wednesday, Moderna and Merck said their experimental personalized mRNA cancer vaccine, intismeran, had met key endpoints in a Phase 3 melanoma trial.
The treatment uses genetic sequencing and algorithms to help select tumor mutations for a vaccine tailored to each patient, an example of AI supporting medical treatment rather than replacing the clinician.