Nurses play an essential role in advancing AI tools.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has advanced at breakneck speed—from a buzzword to a technological and societal phenomenon. Investors, inventors, and businesses are rapidly implementing this advancement for its promised productivity gains, reduced errors, improved decision-making, and even more innovation. Healthcare is no exception.

An American Nurses Association (ANA) position statement on the subject defines AI as a “broad category that involves using algorithms to drive the behavior of agents such as software programs, machines, robotics, games, and other hardware devices” (bit.ly/3JfW7H7). This tool has been in use for decades, but its accelerating adoption requires committed involvement and diligence by nurses.

AI has a solid place in nursing practice as a support tool that can create efficiencies in our work. However, we must guard against the impulse of organizations to meet their return-on-investment goals by requiring nurses to care for more patients after implementing an AI-based system. Such a proposed efficiency swap would prove anything but. Well-designed and well-executed technology tools should free nurses to provide acuity-appropriate care for their patients and reduce the prevalence of missed care—the care they can’t get to due to case load, patients’ acuity, or staffing shortages.

The ANA position statement also calls on nurses to “ensure that advanced technologies do not compromise the nature of human interactions and relationships central to the nursing profession.”

Nurses—especially direct care nurses—are essential in assessing and implementing technologies because they’re the end users and live with the good and bad effects that come with these tools. As the position statement notes, “It is crucial that nurses anticipate and evaluate the impact of AI on healthcare through a proactive approach that emphasizes agency, caring, and influence over how technology is developed and applied.”

ANA also recently released a set of 13 principles involving virtual nursing, a modality that many organizations implement to relieve staffing challenges, enhance patients’ education and knowledge, and improve patients’ experiences (bit.ly/4ihEZhf). This document notes the AI–virtual nursing connection and calls for pilots of virtual nursing models that leverage “AI-powered tools to enhance clinical efficacy and fiscal outcomes, while ensuring patient-centered care is delivered at scale.”

The hype around AI is that it will displace whole sections of the workforce, essentially automating entire job categories. Are nurses at risk? Not according to Sam Altman, founder and CEO of ChatGPT, one of the leading AI platforms. In a recent interview he stated, “a job that I’m confident will not be that impacted [is] nurses. I think people really want deep human connection with a person. …no matter how good the advice of the AI is or the robot” (bit.ly/4953DPw).

This underscores that we shouldn’t fear AI; just ensure that it’s implemented and used appropriately and ethically. That’s why it’s essential for nurses to engage in AI-related policy and regulatory discussions at all levels. In Oregon where I live, the legislature passed a law this year that prohibits any nonhuman entity from using the title “nurse.” Along with colleagues at the Oregon Nurses Association, I helped draft this language and advocated for the law’s passage.

Is similar legislation brewing or needed in your state? Are AI systems under consideration where you work? I urge you to join the conversation; otherwise, someone else, perhaps with little nursing knowledge, will act as they see fit.

Jennifer Mensik Kennedy PhD, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
President, American Nurses Association

American Nurse Journal. 2025; 20(12). Doi: 10.51256/ANJ122514