Clinical AI in 2025-2026 - Six Themes from the SAIL Year in Review

AbstractIn the past year, the medical field's relationship to clinical AI has progressed from rapid and often speculative adoption toward evaluation of its impact on patient outcomes, clinical workflows, and society. Drawing from the Symposium on AI for Learning Health Systems (SAIL) Year in Review (May 2026), this Perspective examines six key areas that dominated the domain of clinical AI in the past year: clinical AI evaluation, workflow integration, direct-to-consumer applications, regulation and societal impacts, AI in medical education, and foundational advancements in technology. AI's successes across these areas have been uneven, reflecting its jagged frontier. We highlight milestones that illustrate what AI has already achieved in health care, its potential, and major challenges that remain ahead. (Funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health [grant number T32HD040128].).