Your Chief AI Officer · Wednesday, November 11, 2026 · Act today
AMA adopts policy that AI cannot be licensed as a physician
Reported1 sourceFor patients and employees
The American Medical Association House of Delegates approved a policy on Nov. 9 at its Interim Meeting saying AI cannot be granted physician licensure, professional titles or certification to practice medicine, Becker's reports. The policy calls for AI-enabled tools to be integrated into physician-led teams and used at the direction of physicians. Becker's reports that it also pushes for vendor liability.
The American Medical Association House of Delegates approved a policy on Nov. 9 at its Interim Meeting in Orlando, Fla., stating that AI cannot be granted physician licensure, professional titles or certification to practice medicine, Becker's Hospital Review reports. The policy calls for AI-enabled tools to be integrated into physician-led teams and used at the direction of the treating physician. Patients "deserve to know who is responsible for their care," AMA President Willie Underwood III, MD, said in a Nov. 10 news release, according to Becker's.
The liability provisions are the part that reaches the contract file. The AMA wants federal and state laws holding AI vendors, manufacturers or distributors responsible when a physician uses a clinical AI product as intended, exercises appropriate judgment, and the product still produces an error that harms a patient. It wants AI companies to carry product liability insurance, disclose failure rates and performance across patient populations, and be barred from contract terms that shift liability to physicians or health systems. It will also seek liability protections for physicians who decline to use an AI tool or follow its recommendation. Health systems are named directly: when a hospital, health system or payer mandates a specific AI tool and that tool causes harm, the AMA said the mandating organization and the vendor should bear liability. Delegates also called for physician-led oversight of AI used in credentialing, privileging, peer review and quality review.
Scale explains the urgency. The FDA had authorized more than 1,450 AI-enabled medical devices as of December 2025, according to the AMA as cited by Becker's. The policy follows a clinical AI liability framework the AMA released in October.
What the evidence shows and does not: this is a professional association policy position, not a law or regulation. It signals the model legislation the AMA intends to pursue and the standard plaintiffs, regulators and medical staffs may reference, but it does not change any organization's legal obligations today.
The move is to get ahead of it. Have legal and compliance review clinical AI vendor contracts for indemnification, insurance and any terms that push liability onto clinicians or the organization. Ask vendors for failure rates and performance across patient populations. Confirm that each clinical AI tool has a named physician owner, and note which tools the organization mandates, since that is where the AMA places shared exposure. Boards gain a clearer risk posture, and physicians gain confidence that using or declining a tool will not leave them standing alone.
Do this week. Review clinical AI vendor contracts for how liability is allocated, and confirm that each tool has a named physician owner.
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Paste it into Claude, ChatGPT or Copilot and fill the bracketed slots with your own numbers. The output is a draft for your team to check, built only from the sources on this page. Never paste patient data. How these prompts are written.
You are a compliance and legal advisor to the executive team of [your organization], a [type of organization, for example health system or physician group]. Context: Becker's Hospital Review reports that the American Medical Association House of Delegates approved a policy on Nov. 9 at its Interim Meeting stating that AI cannot be granted physician licensure, professional titles or certification to practice medicine. The policy calls for AI-enabled tools to be integrated into physician-led teams and used at the direction of the treating physician. Per Becker's, the AMA wants laws holding AI vendors responsible when a physician uses a clinical AI product as intended, exercises appropriate judgment, and the product still produces an error that harms a patient. It wants vendors to carry product liability insurance, disclose failure rates and performance across patient populations, and be barred from contract terms that shift liability to physicians or health systems. When a hospital, health system or payer mandates a specific AI tool that causes harm, the AMA said the mandating organization and the vendor should bear liability. The FDA had authorized more than 1,450 AI-enabled medical devices as of December 2025, according to the AMA as cited by Becker's. This is a professional association policy position, not a law or regulation. Task: Review how each of our clinical AI vendor contracts allocates liability, and confirm that each tool has a named physician owner. Output: a one-page memo for the executive team with these sections: Summary; Tool inventory table (tool, vendor, physician owner or gap, mandated or optional, indemnification, insurance, terms shifting liability to clinicians or the organization, failure rate disclosure); Gaps and priority actions; Questions for vendors; Items to verify with counsel. My inputs: [list of clinical AI tools and vendors in use], [named physician owner for each tool, if any], [which tools we mandate], [contract excerpts on indemnification, insurance and limitation of liability]. Guardrails: Use only the facts above and the inputs I fill in. Cite Becker's Hospital Review by name for every AMA fact. Flag anything uncertain, missing or that needs legal verification. Do not request or include patient data. Nothing here is legal or medical advice. Label the memo as a draft for the team to check.
- The claim.
- The AMA says AI-enabled tools should operate within physician-led teams and at the direction of physicians.
- The evidence.
- This is a professional association policy position, not a law or regulation.
By seat
For the Chief AI Officer. Map each clinical AI tool to a supervising physician role in the governance register.
For the Chief Medical Officer and physicians. Confirm medical staff policy states who directs and signs off on AI-assisted decisions.
For the Compliance, privacy and legal. Flag contracts that put liability entirely on the organization and renegotiate at renewal.
Checked before publishing. 2 independent outlets. Also reported by HIT Consultant Media.
Sources
- Becker's Hospital Review, AMA says AI can’t be licensed as a physician, pushes vendor liability
Drafted by Lumen from the sources above, scored by a second pass on six criteria, then checked by rule against those sources (every figure, two independent outlets or a primary source) and published only when it passes. A person can pull any item, and corrections are published here. Apolitical, always. Nothing here is medical advice. How Your Chief AI Officer is made.
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