APG Spring Conference 2026

When AI Systems Are Their Own “Agents”: Benefits & Risks For Physician Groups

Speakers: Rick Goddard, SVP of Market Alliances, Lumeris; Khang Nguyen, MD, Permanente Medical Group​; James Schultz, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Neighborhood Health Center​; Karandeep Singh, MD, MMSc, University of California, San Diego​; Susan Huang, MD, APG (Moderator)

A relatively recent development in AI is creation of “agentic” systems designed to act autonomously as "agents" to achieve specific goals with minimal human intervention. Unlike traditional AI, which typically follows directions or prompts, agentic AI can perceive its environment, reason through complex problems, and create and execute multi-step plans – for example, by searching an electronic record to understand patients’ conditions, then surfacing real-world evidence to support treatment decisions before a clinician prompts the system to do so. In this session, panelists will discuss potential new applications for agentic AI in care delivery, especially in clinical and other processes prone to inefficiencies and bottlenecks. They will also discuss creating needed guardrails around these agentic systems – for example, to block harmful or inaccurate information before the systems display it to clinical or other users.