Seoul Declaration on artificial intelligence in health signed at the fifth World Bio Summit

21 October 2026

The Seoul Declaration on artificial intelligence in health was signed at the fifth World Bio Summit, held in Seoul in the Republic of Korea on 21 and 22 October 2026. Speaking at the signing on 21 October, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the declaration gives a shared direction on artificial intelligence in health. He set out principles for its use: testing a tool where it will be used before scaling it up unless countries rely on regulatory arrangements, making oversight proportional to risk, telling patients when artificial intelligence is used in their care, keeping health workers and institutions accountable, and building on secure infrastructure, well-governed data, capable regulators, sustainable financing and stronger cybersecurity. He cited a projected shortfall of 11.1 million health workers by 2030, and named the Global Initiative on AI for Health, which the World Health Organization supports along with the International Telecommunication Union and the World Intellectual Property Organization. He also pointed to work on making WHO guidelines machine-readable so that artificial intelligence tools can draw on checkable recommendations, and to the next Global Strategy on Digital Health covering 2028 to 2033.