Riyadh— Saudi Arabia has opened what officials describe as the world’s first medical clinic where artificial intelligence handles every stage of outpatient care, from registration to diagnosis and e-prescriptions—without an on-site human doctor, reported the Madhyamam.
Patients enter a self-service booth, scan their ID, and describe symptoms verbally or via touch screen. Advanced large-language-model software cross-checks medical records, orders vital-sign scans through integrated sensors, and generates a preliminary diagnosis in under two minutes. If medication is required, the system transmits a digital prescription directly to a connected pharmacy for same-day pickup or drone delivery.
The Ministry of Health says each AI decision is audited in real time by cloud-based physicians, while all prescriptions are automatically flagged for a second review by licensed pharmacists. The clinic complies with new national regulations that mandate explainable AI and encrypted patient data.
During a three-month pilot in Riyadh, the clinic served 12,000 walk-in patients, achieving a reported 93 % satisfaction rate. Officials claim wait times fell from an average of 45 minutes at traditional primary-care centres to under 10 minutes.
Health Minister Fahd Al-Jalajel announced plans to roll out 50 AI clinics across the kingdom by 2026, focusing first on remote areas with physician shortages. International health-tech firms from Japan, the UAE, and Germany have expressed interest in licensing the platform.
Experts at the World Health Organization say Saudi Arabia’s experiment could “reshape frontline healthcare,” but caution that algorithmic bias and accountability must be tightly controlled before wide adoption elsewhere.
