Exploring the potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning in orthopaedic surgery

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as one of the most transformative technological forces in modern medicine, with rapidly expanding applications throughout medicine including orthopaedic surgery. Recent advances in machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing have accelerated the development of AI-enabled tools with direct relevance to orthopaedic practice. This review provides a basic overview of how AI works and current uses of AI in medicine and orthopaedics across multiple domains including documentation efficiency, patient communication, operating room optimization, imaging analysis, rehabilitation, education, and research, and briefly describes AI's limitations, ethical and legal concerns, and cost. These applications are all already being used in orthopaedics or have clear direct translation. AI holds considerable potential to augment orthopaedic care by streamlining workflows, enhancing decision-making, and improving patient outcomes. However, responsible integration requires rigorous validation, transparency, clinician oversight, and ongoing education. As AI adoption accelerates, orthopaedic surgeons must critically evaluate emerging technologies to ensure that.