Practical uses of AI across the urologic care continuum

In this video, which was recorded at the 2026 Desai Sethi Urology Institute Urology on the Beach meeting, Archan Khandekar, MD, assistant professor of urologic oncology at Desai Sethi Urology Institute, discusses a “Future of Urology” session highlighting how artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping clinical practice across the entire patient journey.

The session explored AI applications from the moment a patient enters the clinic through diagnostics, surgery, and post-visit documentation. Speakers discussed AI-enabled intake processes, improved visualization of imaging and pathology, and intraoperative innovations. Industry leaders from Intuitive Surgical and Theator showcased advanced platforms, including case insights and agentic AI systems capable of generating operative notes directly from surgical video. These tools, now increasingly integrated natively into electronic health records such as Epic, reduce documentation burden by allowing physicians to work entirely within existing workflows. Additional insights came from Suki, which demonstrated ambient AI solutions that extend beyond dictation to clinical decision support, including automated ordering based on physician–patient conversations. Overall, the session emphasized how rapidly evolving AI technologies are addressing long-standing inefficiencies in urologic care.

Khandekar also described 2 major areas where augmented reality (AR) is currently being applied in clinical practice. In the clinic, AR is being used to improve patient understanding of complex diagnoses. By transforming CT or MRI scans into interactive 3D AR models viewed through a HoloLens, patients can visualize tumors spatially, explore surrounding vasculature, and better comprehend surgical decision-making. Early data from a 30-patient survey showed significantly improved understanding without increasing anxiety. In procedural settings, AR is being explored for prostate biopsies by adapting FDA-approved cranial and spine navigation technologies. Using AI-generated lesion models from MRI data, physicians can visualize targets in 3 dimensions and align them directly with the patient’s anatomy. Although still in proof-of-concept stages, these AR-guided workflows show promise for broader applications in urology, with prostate biopsy potentially becoming mainstream in the coming years.