Entrepreneur Michael Dershem wants to use Bermuda as a sandbox for certifying and governing medical artificial intelligence agents.

“There are close to a billion AI agents operating in the world right now, with seven million new ones minted each day,” said the chief executive of Bermudian-based medical technology firm Apierion. “Out of that, 99.9 per cent have no legal jurisdiction or governance.”

The developer of digital medical twin technology, said the explosion of AI agents in healthcare demands a new layer of oversight.

“Bermuda is well placed to lead that,” Mr Dershem said. “Bermuda is a microcosm for us. We can build the tech here, build how it works and then export it.”

Mr Dershem, argues that autonomous systems such as AI nurses and diagnostic tools should be regulated and credentialled in much the same way as human ones.

He cited a real case of an AI‑driven teddy bear that glitched and began telling children how to go to the medicine cabinet and how to get knives from the utensil drawer.

“Is it going to take one death, two deaths or wiping out an entire hospital ward before people wake up and take some steps?” he said.

Mr Dershem is working with Aaron Smith of the Bermuda Clarity Institute, to educate local professionals on AI, its risks and opportunities.

This week the pair lead AI workshops for administrative professionals at the Bermuda College and at Clarien Bank. The workshop for administrative professionals and office managers in the medical sphere had a wait list.

Mr Smith said AI development is moving extremely fast.

“Changes are happening logarithmically, even compared to a year or two ago,” he said.

Despite AI’s power, he emphasised that it could still make mistakes.

“On a diagnostics level, AI agents are diagnosing at a faster and more accurate rate than a doctor can,” he said. “However, you always want a human in the loop even with diagnostics. If something goes wrong, you cannot sue AI.”

The Bermuda Monetary Authority is working to make their Digital Identity Service Providers framework a legislative act. Mr Dershem wants to see such policy extended to the identity of AI agents.

“There has to be some standard, recognised registry on how it would be done,” he said. “Bermuda could lead on that. This is the next level of standard registration.”

Offering AI agent credentialling services comes with a certain level of risk for Apierion. To protect against this Mr Dershem is looking for insurance cover.

Finding insurance comes with challenges such as classifying the necessary cover. Policy language has not caught up with AI risk, Mr Dershem said.

“Does it come under cyber insurance, the organisation’s general policy or some other specialised coverage,” Mr Dershem said. “Nobody is really sure whether the current policies handle it or not.”

Apierion’s credentialling project is already receiving international attention.

Mr Dershem recently spoke about AI agent medical industry credentialling in Lithuania before government officials, major hospitals and universities.

“Lithuania is very progressive from a digital health perspective,” he said. “The Lithuanian stakeholders loved it. The talk brought the house down.”

He saw the country of 2.9 million people as a potential gateway to the European Union.