Developing AI fluency

I don’t want to sound like an alarmist, but if your job description includes sitting at a computer performing data entry, it could be in jeopardy. The pace of progress in AI has become exponential rather than linear. As recent advances spread across the economy, stock markets gyrate, and career anxiety pervades the health care profession, the concern about being replaced by AI must be addressed.

In 1811, the textile weavers in England were fearful of the adoption of automated looms that might put them out of work, and they were labeled Luddites who opposed the use of automated machinery due to concerns relating to worker pay and quality of the finished product from the new automated looms. The Luddites destroyed the machines in organized raids. Now the term Luddite refers to any one or group opposed to technological change. True, some weavers became unemployed. However, 19th-century England demonstrated that technological innovations rarely eliminate jobs, and workers who are willing to shift gears and adapt will always find work. Those workers most at risk are complacent: those who assume they can get by without fundamentally changing how they operate. This is true in health care, as some physicians use the same skill sets, medications, and treatments they learned decades earlier.

To protect yourself and your practice, you need to develop AI fluency (AIF).

Developing AI fluency (AIF)

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang warned in May 2025, “You’re not going to lose your job to an AI, you’re going to lose it to someone who uses AI.”

In the book Build a Better Future: 7 Mindsets for Navigating the Age of Acceleration, Robert Tucker recommends proactively anticipating change rather than reacting too late. Preparedness demands that, regardless of any uncertainties about AI, we learn to embrace it, become experts at using it, and, just as we stay current with new methods of diagnosing and treating medical conditions, keep abreast of how AI can improve health care for our patients.

Start by dedicating time each week to using new AI tools to enhance patient communications, including creating a brainstorming strategy and testing ideas before making implementation decisions. In doing so, you are not just learning to use AI; you are learning the importance of AI in solving pain points in your practice. Pain points include obtaining prior authorization, completing the avalanche of paperwork, scheduling headaches such as no-shows, incorporating new technology, and, most recently, finding how AI can improve patient care. Those who understand what AI can and cannot do become indispensable.

Being AI-fluent means having the skills and confidence to understand, interact with, and apply AI effectively in your practice. It’s more than knowing AI jargon. It’s about interpreting AI concepts, evaluating AI solutions, and using AI tools responsibly to solve problems or enhance productivity.

AIF involves understanding AI concepts and their application to both clinical and non-clinical settings.

AIF means applying AI to boost productivity, manage mundane administrative tasks, and improve patient outcomes. This includes skills such as prompt engineering to achieve optimal results with AI.

AIF also includes understanding ethical considerations, avoiding bias, and adhering to current guidelines and guardrails.

If you are AIF, you could:

Explain to those who are not AIF how a chatbot understands and responds to questions.

Use a generative AI tool to draft a project proposal, refining prompts to get the desired result.

You might consider evaluating whether an AI-powered hiring tool is fair and unbiased before implementing AI in your practice.

Bottom line: Getting up to speed on AI helps us achieve faster diagnoses, access the newest treatments, and enhance efficiency. AI has the potential to identify coding and billing errors, maintain ethical, patient-first care, and more. Failure to embrace AI is like being a Luddite, risking being left behind and losing patients to practices that are AI-fluent.

Neil Baum, M.D., is a professor of clinical urology at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. Dr. Baum is the author of several books, including the best-selling book Marketing Your Medical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, and Economically, which has sold over 225,000 copies and has been translated into Spanish.