Artificial intelligence can replace nursing tasks, but not nurses: Examining artificial intelligence's supports and threats to nursing practice through the lens of the 2025 Nursing Code of Ethics
Olga Yakusheva, Patricia A Ball Dunlap, Jenna Marquard, Connie Delaney, Constantin Aliferis, Kathy Chappell, Tracee M Coleman , Peter Klein , Ian Wolfe, Martin Michalowski
Abstract
Background: Nurses are concerned that artificial intelligence (AI) could undermine the holistic, intuitive, and experience-based clinical judgment that is foundational to safe patient care. They are also worried that AI will replace their jobs.
Purpose: To examine the supports and threats that four domains of AI (machine learning, generative AI, natural language processing, and robotics) pose to nursing practice, using the American Nurses Association's 2025 Code of Ethics for Nurses as an ethical framework.
Citation:
Ball Dunlap PA, Marquard J, Delaney C, Aliferis C, Chappell K, Coleman TM, Klein P, Yakusheva O, Wolfe I, Michalowski M. Artificial intelligence can replace nursing tasks, but not nurses: Examining artificial intelligence's supports and threats to nursing practice through the lens of the 2025 Nursing Code of Ethics. Nurs Outlook. 2026 May 30;74(4):102808. doi: 10.1016/j.outlook.2026.102808. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 42217292.