Gram stains in the age of artificial intelligence: one laboratory’s journey

The Gram stain remains a cornerstone of diagnostic microbiology and continues to inform clinical decision-making, despite having changed little over many decades. In high-volume laboratories, however, the manual nature of Gram staining contributes substantially to workload, repetitive tasks, and turnaround pressures. Concurrently, increasing regulatory and accreditation requirements mandate enhanced accountability, traceability, and retention of interpretive evidence across all result types.