Will AI Replace Psychiatrists? Thoughts From the APA Annual Meeting

CONFERENCE REPORTER

"This is the culmination of my life's work," said John Luo, MD, at the 2025 American Psychiatric Association (APA) Annual Meeting. "We talk about technology in the practice of psychiatry, just like we would psychopharmacology or psychotherapy."

Luo, the APA Scientific Program Technology & Psychiatric Practice subcommittee chair, is thrilled to be able to elicit speakers for the annual meeting on specifically this topic. Implementing psychiatry in the practice of psychiatry can be exciting, but Luo believes psychiatrists and mental health clinicians should first understand said technology in order to properly utilize it.

Luo believes we should be particularly wary of AI. "Yes, AI can do these things, but it really has no understanding of what [psychiatric disorders] are and that is a hazard... People get advice that can be really inappropriate, and that can be really damaging."

Dr Luo is the director of Emergency & Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry at the University of California Irvine Medical Center. He is on faculty as a health sciences clinical professor of Psychiatry at the University of California Irvine School of Medicine. He is an internationally recognized educator and expert on behavioral health informatics. He has presented at numerous conferences, written books and articles on technology use in mental health, and he has been recognized locally and nationally for excellence in teaching.