AI Won’t Replace Doctors — It Will Upgrade Them
By Jesse Ehrenfeld and Elad Walach, opinion contributors – 04/26/25 8:00 AM ET
Bill Gates recently predicted that artificial intelligence will be as good as any doctor within the next decade — and may even replace the need to see doctors. That is not just wrong. It is reckless.
We are at a turning point in healthcare. AI holds enormous potential, but the way we talk about it matters. In a moment where the narrative swings between unchecked hype and dystopian paranoia, we need to find the middle ground focusing on real problems and solving them with the right tools.
First, AI is not here to take over clinical care. It is here to support it. And if we frame the future of medicine around replacing physicians instead of empowering them, we risk missing the most important opportunity healthcare has had in decades. Gates was right about one thing: AI has the potential to expand access to high-quality medical guidance. For people in remote or underserved areas, AI-powered tools could help triage symptoms or offer early insights.
But that’s a far cry from replacing the role of trained physicians. Medicine isn’t just about information. It’s also about context, judgment, empathy and experience. The danger lies in assuming that because an AI can deliver facts, it can replace care. That kind of thinking leads to over-reliance, which then leads to underinvestment in the clinical workforce and ultimately worse outcomes.
Doctors are not a bug in the system. They are the system. And AI, when used correctly, makes them better. Faster. More informed. Less burned out. This isn’t speculative. AI and physicians are already working side by side, and the impact is real. In emergency rooms across the country, AI is helping surface critical findings the moment they appear on a scan.
At hospitals like Ochsner Health in Louisiana, care teams are alerted instantly when signs of stroke or brain bleeds are detected. Minutes matter. Every 60 seconds of delay in stroke care can cost a patient nearly 2 million brain cells. AI is cutting that delay — not by removing the physician, but by helping them act faster.
In radiology, AI is reducing miss rates that can reach 20 percent in high-pressure emergency settings. It is ensuring follow-up recommendations are not overlooked. It is identifying subtle fractures and lung nodules earlier to help ensure the physician’s work doesn’t go to waste.
The Gates narrative that doctors will soon be obsolete creates a dangerous distraction from the work healthcare leaders should be focused on right now: scaling AI that works, in partnership with clinicians, not in place of them. Take Kim*, a young patient who came to the emergency department three times with worsening symptoms. Each time, she was dismissed. Her condition — including early signs of heart failure — was hiding in plain sight, buried in disconnected records.
By the time she was admitted, her heart was in trouble. Seventeen different doctors had touched her case. None had the full picture. AI could have changed that. Instead of forcing her family to advocate for her at every turn, it could have surfaced the warning signs and connected the dots giving clinicians the information they needed, before it was too late.
That’s the role AI should play. It does not replace medical judgment. It enhances it. It does not eliminate the need for empathy, experience or clinical insight. It strengthens them. Yet, too many leaders are still stuck in the wrong conversation. A recent NVIDIA survey found that 83 percent of healthcare and life sciences professionals believe AI will revolutionize care. Nearly as many are increasing their AI investments.
So why are we still talking about AI as a future disruptor, instead of treating it as a present-day imperative? The organizations that will lead this next phase of healthcare are not the ones chasing automation. They are the ones building systems where AI and clinicians work together to deliver faster, more accurate, more connected care.
This is the shift we need. From replacement to partnership. From speculation to implementation. From hype to impact. The future of medicine will belong to the physicians who are empowered, not sidelined, by technology. And to the patients who benefit from care that is faster, smarter and deeply human.
Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, is former president of the American Medical Association. Elad Walach is CEO and co-founder of Aidoc, a company whose clinical AI platform is now in use at over 1,000 hospitals across the U.S. including Mayo Clinic, Cedars-Sinai, and Ochsner Health.
