Four questions will guide the AMA’s approach to managing AI agents used to perform clinical tasks, including what the agent is allowed to do and who is responsible for it.

The document offers insight into how the AMA plans to govern agentic AI as the tools are increasingly used in clinical care, including for ambient documentation, diagnostics and patient monitoring.

Agentic AI solutions can operate autonomously, completing complex tasks that generative AI cannot. Since the tools can complete multi-step tasks without human oversight, an inaccurate or biased decision could cause significant patient harm before a human clinician can intervene.

Industry groups are grappling with how best to contain the risks of agentic AI, with the AMA doubling down on the physicians’ central role in the technology’s development and deployment. Its new framework will guide its work with other organizations to ensure AI agents are used safely and responsibly in tasks that touch patient care.

The framework lists four questions the AMA will consider when assessing clinical AI agents:

“As AI capabilities advance, evidence, authority, oversight and accountability must remain aligned in service of better patient care,” the framework states.

The new guidance comes amid an explosion of agentic AI tools in healthcare. In a recent survey of 250 U.S. healthcare leaders, about 28% said their organization has already deployed agentic AI tools, and 44% reported conducting pilots or proof-of-concept projects. A majority of respondents expect agentic AI to have a "transformative" impact on clinical workflows.

But 72% of respondents say agentic AI tools are occasionally implemented without IT approval, highlighting a gap in supervision.

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