Reimagining psychiatric care with agentic AI: promise, challenges, and a roadmap forward

Agentic artificial intelligence (AI) represents a pivotal shift in clinical decision support, moving beyond static tools by reasoning, adapting, and acting alongside clinicians. Psychiatry, grounded in subjective experience, trust, and longitudinal care, offers both an opportunity and a high-stakes testbed. Agentic systems may enhance documentation, personalize care, support continuous monitoring, and extend access, while raising risks around bias, explainability, privacy, and therapeutic alliance. In this Perspective, we (i) define psychiatry-specific agentic AI distinct from decision-support and fully autonomous systems; (ii) synthesize current evidence across studies; (iii) propose assistive, collaborative, and semi-autonomous roles; and (iv) outline a roadmap for responsible implementation.