[Technical innovations and future perspectives].

Background: Digital systems have increasingly become integrated into the modern operating room in the last few decades. This has brought about a massive change, especially in minimally invasive surgery.

Objective: The article provides an overview of the current technical innovations and the perspectives of digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) in surgery.

Material and methods: The article is based on a literature search via PubMed and research work by the participating coauthors.

Results: Current research is increasingly looking at machine learning techniques that take advantage of the complex data in surgery; however, the integration of artificial intelligence systems into the operating room and clinical practice has only just begun.

Discussion: Translational research of artificial intelligence in surgery is still in its infancy but has great potential to improve patient care; however, to accelerate the incorporation of intelligent systems into the clinical practice, the creation of interdisciplinary research groups led by surgeons is necessary.