The Future of Artificial Intelligence in Hand and Upper Extremity Surgery

The increasing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare is largely attributed to the fact that, with continual medical advances and digitization, clinical decision-making has become more and more reliant on data. As the volume and complexity of datasets grow, it is understandably difficult for physicians to manually discern meaningful patterns that guide diagnoses and/or treatments. AI applications, with the ability to rapidly identify patterns in large datasets, are being developed to assist physicians for improvements in patient care and workflow efficiencies. This review provides a brief description of AI with a focus on existing and developing applications in hand and upper extremity surgery. Although AI demonstrates great promise, both foreseen and unforeseen challenges remain. (Journal of Surgical Orthopaedic Advances 34(2):059-061, 2025).