What do the public think about artificial intelligence note-taking tools in social care?

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Meers, Jed and Leishman, Eppie and Salter, Izzie and Halliday, Simon and Tomlinson, Joe (2026) What do the public think about artificial intelligence note-taking tools in social care? European Social Work Research. ISSN 2755-1768 (https://doi.org/10.1332/27551768Y2025D000000067)

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Abstract

Dozens of local authorities across England are piloting automated note-taking tools, often called ‘digital scribes’, in social care assessments and other interactions. These artificial-intelligence-enabled technologies automatically record, transcribe and summarise assessment meetings into standardised templates, promising a reduction in administrative burden and more time to focus on interpersonal interactions. While research has begun to explore staff attitudes towards these tools, public perspectives remain heavily underexplored. This article details findings from a survey experiment with 1,127 carers in England, examining attitudes towards these automated note-taking technologies. The article compares perceptions of automated versus manual note-taking and of fully automated systems versus those with human review (‘human in the loop’) and investigates demographic differences in attitudes. We draw on these data to set out a fourfold typology of attitudes: ‘enthusiasts’, ‘cautious adopters’, ‘pragmatists’ and the ‘resistant’.

ORCID iDs

Meers, Jed, Leishman, Eppie, Salter, Izzie, Halliday, Simon ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5107-6783 and Tomlinson, Joe;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)