The Infectious Diseases Orchestrator: Embracing AI Literacy in the Agentic Era

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming healthcare, with agentic AI systems positioned to perceive, reason, and act within clinical environments. For infectious diseases (ID) clinicians, agentic AI presents both opportunity and imperative; to embrace AI literacy and remain actively engaged in shaping their design rather than becoming passive adopters in clinical care, antimicrobial stewardship, and infection control. Historical examples show that professions failing to adapt to automation faced challenges, highlighting the urgency for ID specialists to understand AI's evolving role. While AI can streamline documentation, surveillance, and decision support, clinicians must advocate for high-quality data, define appropriate automation boundaries, and ensure human oversight in critical decisions. ID communities should lead efforts to educate clinicians, establish AI governance policies in ID operational practices, and foster interdisciplinary collaboration to guide responsible AI integration. AI literacy is the "no-regret" investment that will enable clinicians to lead this transformation-ensuring that AI supports, augments, and, when appropriate, automates the repetitive, searchable, and time-consuming tasks. The future of ID practice will be defined by how effectively clinicians leverage AI to enhance care, promote equitable access, and reclaim time for the human dimensions of medicine.

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