AI and Emerging Technology in Osteopathic Medical Education

Published May 11, 2026

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the way medicine is practiced, and osteopathic medical education is well-positioned to help shape what comes next. A 2025 national survey conducted by AACOM (Speicher, 2026) found strong interest and growing engagement with AI across the field, with more than 60% of respondents reporting they use AI tools at least weekly.

The survey, which included feedback from 715 faculty members across 49 institutions, highlighted both excitement and a need for additional support and resources. In response, AACOM developed the AI and Emerging Technology Hub to directly address the areas that faculty identified as most important for advancing AI knowledge and integration in medical education, including:

1. AI Policy/Governance
2. Foundational AI Literacy
3. Academic Integration of AI

View the full report here.

Initiative Objectives

Informed by the national needs assessment, this initiative is organized around five core commitments:

1. Establishing a foundation for AI integration
2. Building faculty and institutional capacity
3. Integrating AI into osteopathic curricula
4. Fostering collaboration and innovation
5. Addressing ethics, equity and accessibility considerations

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Phase 1: Planning and AI Hub Build (Through April 2026)

Phase 1 establishes the infrastructure and content foundation of the AI Hub in advance of Educating Leaders 2026, the AACOM Annual Conference, and Year 1 implementation of the Strategic Plan. The Hub launches with four content areas—Governance, AI Foundations, Academics and Showcase—each designed to address a specific, data-identified gap from the survey.

Survey findings directly informed each content area. Policy gaps shaped the Governance section: 49.5% of college of osteopathic medicine (COM) faculty were unsure whether their institution had an AI policy, 8.2% confirmed that no policies existed. Only 16.9% reported policies covering both students and faculty. Faculty also identified academic integrity, data privacy, intellectual property and clinical safety as areas that policies must address.

Demand for foundational training shaped the AI Foundations section: foundational AI literacy ranked first among faculty development priorities (mean rank 2.20), hands-on tool training ranked second (mean rank 2.71) and both clinical and nonclinical faculty agreed on these top two priorities, supporting a shared curriculum.

The highest-need training domains shaped the Academics section: AI in competency-based assessment and feedback (M = 3.57), policy and governance (M = 3.50) and AI for curriculum design (M = 3.47) all ranked above the scale midpoint, while faculty comments called for practical exemplars and role-relevant implementation guidance.

Qualitative data shaped the Showcase section: faculty consistently requested peer exemplars and COM-to-COM knowledge sharing, underscoring that the field learns effectively from its own practitioners.

To transform findings into content, Governance provides model policy and communication templates covering academic integrity, data privacy, intellectual property and clinical safety. AI Foundations offers a six-module, self-paced curriculum covering core AI concepts, professional and responsible use, tool selection and prompting strategies. Academics include an Educator's Toolkit for curriculum design, CBME-aligned assessment and workflow integration from pre-clerkship through graduate medical education. Showcase offers a library of short-form faculty spotlight videos featuring COM implementation stories. Phase 1 also launches AI-OME, a dedicated AACOM community of practice that connects AI champions across COMs.

Phase 2: Soft Launch & Refinement (April-May 2026)

Phase 2 coincides with Educating Leaders 2026 and marks the Hub's soft public launch, with a focus on engagement, feedback and relationship-building with COM leadership. Activities include a pre-conference workshop that provides guided orientation to Hub resources; a collection of leadership spotlights and implementation stories for the Showcase section; structured feedback from AI Advisory Meeting participants to inform Phase 3 development; and formal recognition of AI Advisory Team members for their contributions to the initiative.

Looking Ahead

Phases 3 and beyond will expand the Hub to include competency-aligned tools for clinical practice and research, vendor and software resources and micro-credentialing pathways. This work will build toward the Strategic Plan's longer-term vision of expanding AI and emerging technology integration across all COMs and assessing progress against evidence-based outcomes.