Nurse AI adoption outpaces hospital strategy: Survey

Nurse AI adoption is accelerating faster than hospitals are building strategies to support it, a report from Incredible Health found.

Healthcare staffing company Incredible Health released its 2026 Annual State of Nursing report July 7. The findings are based on a national survey of 2,240 U.S. nurses. The report also incorporates platform data from Incredible Health’s network of 1.5 million U.S. healthcare professionals. The full report is accessible from Incredible Health here.

Here are six key findings from the report:

1. Forty-four percent of nurses now use AI at work, up from 15% a year earlier.

2. Many nurses reported receiving little formal preparation to use AI tools. Forty-six percent said they received no AI training in the past year, while 5% said they received formal training that adequately prepared them.

3. Among nurses who use AI, the most common applications were documentation and charting (37%), creating patient education materials (37%) and drug or clinical reference lookups (32%).

4. Nurses who received AI training were more likely to report saving more than an hour per day using the technology than nurses who did not receive training (24% versus 16%). At the same time, half of AI users said their most recent use of AI saved little or no time.

5. The survey also found nurses who were involved in selecting AI tools were more likely to use them than those who were not consulted. Eighty-one percent of nurses who helped choose AI tools reported using them, compared with 62% of nurses who were never consulted.

6. One in five nurses said AI tools “just appear” in their workplace without a plan or explanation, and only 17% of nurses working in organizations that already use AI said their employer’s strategy for the technology is clear.

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