NYU Langone Health Sees Fully Autonomous Clinical AI Within 5 Years

Health informatics leaders say AI will soon manage routine tasks like blood pressure medication titration and diabetic retinopathy screening without human oversight.

Published on Feb. 16, 2026

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Health informatics leaders at NYU Langone Health believe fully autonomous clinical AI is coming in the next five years, with algorithms soon able to manage routine tasks like blood pressure medication titration and diabetic retinopathy screening without human oversight. They argue automation is not just about efficiency, but also a practical and necessary solution to workforce shortages and system inefficiencies.

Why it matters

The medical community's comfort with deploying AI in clinical care is rapidly evolving due to workforce shortages and system inefficiencies. Fully autonomous AI could significantly improve patient outcomes by shrinking the time between diagnosis and effective treatment, as well as increase screening rates for conditions like diabetic retinopathy.

The details

NYU Langone Health is already using an AI assistant for its home blood pressure monitoring program, though it still has a human in the loop for medication titrations. However, the health system's leaders believe that in five years, those titrations will be done fully autonomously by AI, without any human involvement. They argue that hypertension management is a clear example of where full automation makes sense, as the steps follow well-established clinical guidelines and rely on objective home blood pressure data. Full automation could also significantly improve a patient's 'time to therapy' by automating routine steps like data review, guideline-based decisions and patient follow-ups. Similarly, AI could automate diabetic retinopathy screening, which currently has low nationwide screening rates due to the manual steps involved.

  • In the next 5 years, NYU Langone Health expects to have AI managing blood pressure medication titrations without human oversight.
  • Currently, NYU Langone Health is using an AI assistant for its home blood pressure monitoring program, though it still has a human in the loop for medication titrations.

The players

Dr. Devin Mann

Senior director for informatics innovation at NYU's Center for Healthcare Innovation and Delivery Science.

Dr. Paul Testa

Chief medical information officer at NYU Langone Health.

NYU Langone Health

An academic medical center located in New York City.

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What they’re saying

“We already have an AI assistant we built for our home blood pressure monitoring program — that right now still has a human in loop for doing the titrations of the meds. Five years from now, we're not going to have a human doing those titrations.”

— Dr. Devin Mann, Senior director for informatics innovation (medcitynews.com)

“There's no reason to [have a human in the loop for blood pressure medication titration].”

— Dr. Paul Testa, Chief medical information officer (medcitynews.com)

“There's a missing workforce that [AI] will just step into. We're never going to hire 50,000 dietitians. They don't even exist, let alone the fact that the reimbursement is not really there for them. So [AI] will, I think, create roles that we always wanted to be in there with humans, but the humans just aren't there.”

— Dr. Devin Mann, Senior director for informatics innovation (medcitynews.com)

What’s next

NYU Langone Health plans to continue developing its AI capabilities to automate more clinical tasks without human oversight in the next five years.

The takeaway

Fully autonomous clinical AI is becoming a practical and necessary solution to address workforce shortages and system inefficiencies in healthcare, allowing clinicians to focus on more complex, relationship-based care while AI handles routine tasks.