The COVID-19 pandemic has lead to catastrophic number of deaths and revealed that much work still remains with data and artificial intelligence. To fully comprehend the dynamics of a pandemic with relevance to artificial intelligence, a primer on global health concepts is first presented. Following this, various aspects of diagnosis and therapy and the relationship to artificial intelligence are presented along with a future projection of an ideal deployment of artificial intelligence in a pandemic. Final thoughts are made about lessons learned and what lies ahead. Display omitted •The COVID-1 pandemic has reminded us the dire need for public health interventions as well as data and artificial intelligence.•Artificial intelligence has many potential applications in pandemic situations, from diagnosis to therapy.•Advances in artificial intelligence can lead to better disease modeling as well as protein structure prediction, drug repurposing, and vaccine designs.•The pandemic is a clarion call for clinicians and policymakers to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence.