A 27 Jul 2026 article reports that while artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly transformed South African healthcare, the human practitioner remains solely responsible for the patient’s outcome. A key risk is automation bias, the tendency to favour suggestions from automated systems over one’s own reasoning. From a medical malpractice insurance perspective, AI is viewed strictly as an administrative or diagnostic tool, never as a peer. If an AI system misinterprets a scan or misdiagnoses a patient, and a clinician signs off on that conclusion, the legal liability falls on the registered professional. Adhering strictly to an AI recommendation does not automatically satisfy the legal “standard of care”; if baseline medical protocols are skipped because the AI deemed them unnecessary, the practitioner could face severe liability. Insurers require clear, contemporaneous records detailing why a clinician agreed or disagreed with a software prompt. The article notes that clinical intuition, tactile experience, and bedside observation cannot be coded into software, as AI lacks contextual nuances and the ability to read the human being behind the chart.