Everyone Thinks AI Can Do Anything. Just Not What They Do

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mskmag.substack.com It can write their marketing, answer their emails and probably do their accounts better than their accountant, but suggest AI might do some triage or follow-ups or (heaven forbid) some actual physiotherapy, and suddenly it’s dangerous and unproven and years away and patients will never go for it. I see a lot of false narratives at the moment and most of them are self-serving. You only have to spend five minutes on LinkedIn to see “*AI can’t ever do this, AI can’t ever do that*“ and there’s always the same old pushback: “*Yeah but patients want humans; people don’t want online physio.*“ “*Didn’t you know my hands are magical?*“ It was suggested to me that this article is probably a couple of years too early but 2026 is very different to 2006 or 2016. We aren’t in a position where an industry can sit back, fail to modernise, continue being two steps behind and expect to survive as has been the case in the past. Even forgetting AI for a moment, I probably chat with more clinic owners than just about anyone and speaking purely from a commercial standpoint, the successful clinics today are embracing change and have been for years, and the clinics that aren’t are being shown up - badly. I’ve often said, if you’re still operating today like you did five years ago, you’re falling behind. In 18 months you won’t have much of a business left. Why? Because AI changes everything; this time it’s not just a case of someone technically, strategically and commercially immature ending up at 60 owning a clinic they thought was their pension and realising it barely covers the cost of an all-inclusive holiday to the West Bank. This time, those clinic owners that don’t adapt simply won’t be around for much longer. “*But Michael, you’re wrong, patients didn’t want online physio in Covid so they won’t want AI physio. People need the human touch. AI is just not something we need to worry about.*”