The applications of artificial intelligence in liver transplantation: A comprehensive scoping review

Liver transplantation (LT) is a complex surgical intervention, with intricate decision-making and risks at all stages before, during and after the procedure itself. Artificial intelligence (AI) may assist the process but has seen limited use. This scoping review assessed primary articles reporting on clinical AI in LT in MEDLINE and Embase from 2000 to September 2026. 196 articles were identified: focusing on the pre-operative period before transplant (21.9%), organ retrieval (9.7%), intra-operative issues (3.6%), short-term post-operative complications (16.8%), long-term post-operative complications (45.9%) and natural language processing (2.0%). 95.9% had retrospective designs and only 12.8% had direct multi-centre data, with the rest from national registries or single centres. 13.8% of studies externally validated their AI tools. Only one study performed a prospective evaluation of their tool with a randomized controlled trial. Progress towards clinically deployable tools will require harmonised, higher-granularity datasets, consistent reporting, and prospective evaluation within real-world transplant workflows.