A large percentage can make a relatively technical search announcement look like a commercial turning point. Doctify's 25 March 2026 report of a 680% year-on-year increase in click-throughs from AI search is worth examining, but it requires careful interpretation before a doctor uses it to justify marketing expenditure.
The figure comes from Doctify's own announcement. It describes a change in an acquisition channel reported by the company. It does not establish a corresponding increase in completed consultations, clinician earnings or the proportion of UK patients using AI to choose a doctor.
The useful response is neither dismissal nor enthusiasm without measurement. It is to ask what the metric means and how a practice could detect a meaningful change in its own enquiries.
First, interpret the arithmetic correctly
A 680% increase means a new level 7.8 times the original level. If a hypothetical channel started with 100 clicks, a 680% increase would take it to 780 clicks, not 680. That example explains the arithmetic; it is not Doctify's undisclosed starting volume.
Absolute numbers matter. The same percentage growth can describe a small emerging channel or a substantial source of demand. Without a denominator, a clinician cannot calculate its importance relative to conventional search, insurer referrals, hospital websites or existing patient recommendations.
Ask whether the comparison covers the same countries, time periods and tracking methods. A new way of identifying AI referrals can affect a reported trend. That possibility is not an allegation about Doctify's measurement; it is a standard question when evaluating a channel-growth claim.
Separate platform traffic from your reachable market
Even a large increase in traffic to a national or international directory may have little relevance to a particular service. Your practice is constrained by location, specialty, insurer recognition, appointment capacity and the conditions you can appropriately manage.
A consultant offering a specialised procedure should therefore ask whether relevant enquiries increased, not whether the platform's overall visits did. A remote second-opinion service may have different geographic constraints, but it still needs suitable patients, sufficient records and an appropriate clinical pathway.
This is a reason to request service-level information rather than a generic sales deck. Where detailed data are unavailable, treat the proposed expenditure as an experiment with uncertainty, not as a purchase backed by a known volume of future bookings.
Why AI-mediated discovery deserves attention
Conversational search can let a person formulate a need in ordinary language rather than choosing a precise specialty keyword. A query might combine symptoms, location, funding and appointment preferences in one request.
That creates a plausible need for clear, consistent professional information. It does not prove that any particular platform knows the ranking formula for every AI system. Nor does it establish that adding reviews or purchasing a profile guarantees a recommendation.
For Google's own AI search features, Google Search Central states that established SEO practices remain relevant and that there are no special additional requirements for inclusion. Eligibility is not a guarantee of being shown. This is a useful counterweight to sales claims about secret optimisation techniques.
Build an audit rather than an AI-marketing superstition
Choose a small set of realistic questions a patient might ask about your actual service. Record the date, wording, system and resulting information. Check factual accuracy: current clinic, scope, professional registration, funding routes and whether appointment information is still valid.
Do not treat one generated answer as a stable ranking position. Repeated answers can vary, and a single screenshot does not establish how a wider patient population experiences the system. The purpose of the audit is to detect errors and missing information, not to manufacture a league table.
Prioritise corrections at the original source. An obsolete biography copied across several directories is better addressed by updating the authoritative practice and hospital records than by producing dozens of near-identical articles intended only to influence a model.
Measure the journey beyond the click
A useful practice-level funnel distinguishes discovery, enquiry, suitability, booking, attendance and payment. Each stage answers a different question. Increased discovery with unchanged bookings might indicate the wrong audience, limited capacity or unclear fees.
Imagine an illustrative month with 200 visits from a new source, 12 enquiries, eight suitable enquiries and five attended appointments. If each attendance contributes GBP140 before fixed overheads and tax, the resulting contribution is GBP700. A GBP900 campaign would not be covered by those appointments alone.
Even this calculation may overstate incrementality if some patients would otherwise have booked through a different route. Ask patients about initial discovery and subsequent reassurance, and compare with existing trends. Use ranges where attribution is uncertain rather than presenting a false precision.
Protect clinical and commercial integrity
The best response to changing discovery is not to promise outcomes you cannot substantiate. Make service information clearer, explain who the consultation is suitable for and state what is not included. Avoid presenting review volume as a validated measure of clinical superiority.
The GMC's social-media guidance requires professional communications to remain accurate and not misleading. The same ethical concern applies when a practice commissions material intended to be quoted by AI systems: content should help patients understand care, not manipulate their uncertainty.
Keep sensitive patient information out of marketing experiments. A search audit can use hypothetical questions and publicly available professional information. There is no need to paste identifiable referral letters into consumer search tools to see which specialist they recommend.
What should a doctor do now?
Begin with a reliable website and consistent directory information. Verify booking routes and assign someone to correct inaccurate listings. Add a simple source question to the enquiry process and review the results alongside existing referral channels.
Only then consider additional spending. A directory package may be worthwhile, but its value should be assessed using your actual service and a conservative commercial model. The reported growth figure is a reason to investigate, not a forecast of personal earnings.
Keep patient discovery separate from clinical information retrieval. Ask iatroX is relevant to clinicians exploring clinical questions and supporting sources. A doctor's marketing strategy should never determine which evidence they consider or how they assess the needs of an individual patient.
Related reading: AI search and specialist discovery and allocating a practice marketing budget.
FAQs
Does 680% growth mean Doctify received 6.8 times as many AI-search clicks?
No. A 680% increase corresponds to 7.8 times the baseline. The absolute baseline is needed to understand how large the channel is; the percentage alone cannot provide it.
Does this prove doctors earn more from AI search?
No. The company-reported metric concerns click-throughs. Establishing additional earnings requires evidence about suitable enquiries, attended appointments, incremental contribution and the costs of acquiring and serving those patients.
Should I buy an AI-search optimisation package for my practice?
First check factual accuracy, ordinary search accessibility and the booking journey. Demand a clear explanation of any proposed service and reject guaranteed ranking claims that cannot be substantiated.
Use Ask iatroX to keep clinical evidence separate from marketing claims.