SUMMARY
Antonio J. Forte, M.D., Ph.D., leads a multidisciplinary research team at Mayo Clinic dedicated to advancing the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into clinical practice. His work spans plastic surgery, clinical decision support and digital health innovation. Dr. Forte's research team develops and deploys AI-powered virtual assistants, AI agents, clinical decision support systems and multimodal AI systems to enhance patient education, streamline clinical workflows and strengthen clinical decision-making. His research prioritizes safety, ethical implementation and real-world applicability, with a particular focus on postoperative care and surgical environments.
Dr. Forte also leads a burgeoning initiative that harnesses continuous monitoring data from wearables and touchless sensors to develop digital fingerprints for pain and disease. He also has written more than 320 peer-reviewed publications and secured $2.99 million in research funding.
Focus areas
- AI virtual assistants for surgery. Dr. Forte's team designs AI-powered virtual assistants specifically for patients having surgery. Leveraging large language models and retrieval-augmented generation, these tools deliver personalized, real-time answers to postoperative questions. The assistants' purpose is to ease healthcare professional workload, improve patient understanding and support effective self-management during recovery. In plastic surgery settings, studies have demonstrated high patient satisfaction and better clinical outcomes with the use of these assistants.
- Agentic AI and AI healthcare applications. Dr. Forte's research focuses on developing AI solutions that automate clinical processes, enhance operational efficiency and strengthen communication. By applying agentic AI and multimodal models, his team works to close gaps in healthcare delivery while exploring applications such as surgical instrument recognition, language translation and medical illustration. These innovations are designed to make healthcare more scalable, precise and accessible.
- AI safety. Dr. Forte's research rigorously assesses the safety and reliability of large language models in clinical practice. His team uses retrieval-augmented generation to anchor AI outputs in medical literature, conducts red-teaming exercises to uncover vulnerabilities and advances transparency through systematic benchmarking. This work ensures that AI tools remain trustworthy, fair and ethically sound for use in medicine.
- AI-based clinical decision support systems. Building on his work in large language model safety, Dr. Forte leads the development of AI-driven decision support systems designed to assist clinicians in real time. These systems are validated with synthetic and anonymized data to safeguard privacy and ensure reliability. The lab emphasizes explainability, uncertainty management and workflow integration to strengthen clinician trust and enhance patient care.
- Plastic surgery outcomes research. Dr. Forte studies surgical outcomes in lymphedema, migraine surgery and breast surgery. He is interested in the use of biomarkers to improve diagnosis and predict prognosis in lymphedema, as well as the development of individualized treatment algorithms aimed at enhancing patient outcomes.
Significance to patient care
Dr. Forte's research is making healthcare smarter and safer. With AI tools such as virtual assistants, AI agents and decision support systems, patients receive clearer answers and better guidance after surgery. These tools also help healthcare professionals make quicker, more accurate decisions. His work reduces confusion, saves time, and gives both patients and care teams greater confidence.
Professional highlights
- Mayo Clinic:
- Richard M. Schulze Scholar in Artificial Intelligence, 2026-present.
- Gerstner Scholar in AI Translation, 2025-present.
- Medical director, Digital Product Engineering, Center for Digital Health, 2025-present.
- Vice chair, Clinical Care Team Communications, Mayo Clinic Clinical Practice Committee, 2024-present.
- Terrance D. and Judith A. Paul Director, AskMayoExpert, Jacksonville, 2023-present.