How AI Is Transforming Life Sciences Commercialization
High-Impact Opportunities for Faster, Smarter Sales and Marketing
Authored by Simon Smith, Brian Fox
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Executive Summary
Rapid advances in AI are opening the door to new efficiencies in life science commercialization—especially within pharmaceutical sales and marketing. In particular, generative AI has emerged as a transformative technology, capable of producing high-quality copy, images, videos, and more. While many organizations remain cautious about adoption, those leveraging a hybrid “AI + human” approach have uncovered tangible gains, accelerating go-to-market strategies and boosting campaign impact. In practical terms, generative AI already offers clear benefits in multiple domains:
Copy Creation and Content Automation: AI can produce first drafts of medical and marketing copy in a fraction of the time traditionally required by human teams alone. With expert oversight, it aligns with brand guidelines and regulatory requirements while freeing human talent for higher-level tasks.
Imagery and Creative Production: From stock-like images to near-finished visuals, AI streamlines creative processes, reducing costs and speeding production. Designers can focus on refining aesthetics and ensuring compliance, rather than starting projects from scratch.
Interactive Rep Training: AI-powered simulations let reps practice complex brand scenarios with virtual healthcare professionals, gaining real-time feedback on messaging and objection handling. This hands-on approach accelerates learning and improves field effectiveness.
Market Research Simulations: Generative AI can model thousands of virtual patient or physician profiles that quickly deliver qualitative and quantitative feedback on promotional concepts, vastly reducing the turnaround time—and cost—of traditional research.
Compliance Automation: By flagging issues early and comparing content to approved claims or prescribing information, AI-driven checks help ensure consistency with medical, legal, and regulatory standards. In a heavily regulated environment, this functionality is a crucial accelerator.
Derivative Asset Production: Once a core brand asset is approved, AI can quickly generate variations, adapt them for regional needs, or resize layouts for different channels—allowing teams to focus on higher-value strategic work.
Across these applications, human oversight remains critical. AI outputs must be reviewed for accuracy, adjusted for tone, and validated for compliance. When skilled professionals collaborate with AI, they consistently achieve faster results, reduce repetitive tasks, and often enhance quality standards.
Looking ahead, the emergence of “agentic AI” will push this transformation further. Rather than handling a single task (e.g., generating copy), future systems will autonomously manage entire workflows—from drafting copy and visuals to triggering compliance checks and routing final assets for sign-off. In a pharma context, this could significantly compress production cycles while retaining the human role in high-level strategy, complex ethical judgments, and nuanced decision-making.
At the same time, this next generation of AI-driven autonomy will usher in a new era of “mass personalization,” enabling marketers to dynamically tailor content and brand experiences for diverse physician and patient segments at unprecedented scale. In this scenario, the demand for strategic, creative, and compliance-focused agency support grows in tandem, as pharma organizations look to partners who can orchestrate these high-volume, highly-personalized campaigns while maintaining regulatory rigor.
Ultimately, generative AI is not a passing fad; it is a fast-evolving force reshaping business operations. Life science organizations that adopt a robust, hybrid “AI + human” approach across key domains—copy creation, imagery, training, research, compliance, and more—can look forward to sustained improvements in speed, cost, and commercial impact. By embracing AI for these practical applications, companies can achieve a meaningful competitive advantage in the next era of pharmaceutical sales and marketing.
AI’s Exponential Progress: Reality, Not Hype
Generative AI has reached a point where it can produce medical communications content, banner and website copy, campaign imagery, KOL avatar videos, and more with high fidelity. ChatGPT alone has grown to over 300 million users, making it one of the top ten most visited websites worldwide. Far from mere hype, these capabilities and usage metrics confirm that generative AI is becoming deeply woven into everyday work and communication.
The best AI models now significantly outperform expert humans on the GPQA benchmark of PhD-level reasoning.
Behind this momentum is a consistent trend: AI models keep getting better, ingesting more data, using more training computation, and leveraging techniques like reinforcement learning to deliver increasingly accurate, intelligent, and creative outputs. In late 2024, OpenAI introduced its o1 and o3 models—both representing major leaps in reasoning and problem-solving. These models excel in math, coding, graduate-level challenges, and even complex reasoning tasks, as demonstrated by their performance on tough tests like GPQA (a PhD-level reasoning benchmark) and ARC-AGI (a demanding benchmark for artificial general intelligence). Progress in text generation has also carried over to other modalities: speech models are now nearly indistinguishable from human voices, while AI-generated images have achieved photorealism, and short-form videos are rapidly approaching a similar level of quality. Compounding this evolution is a rapid, continuous improvement cycle. New releases and significant feature rollouts arrive every few weeks, fueled by large user bases that provide real-world feedback and creative applications. Skeptics who dismiss this wave of generative AI risk falling behind in an environment where best-in-class tools quickly become integral to day-to-day commercial functions, especially in an ultra-competitive sector like life sciences.
The question is no longer “Does generative AI work?”; it is, instead, “How can we keep pace with its rapid evolution?”
For pharmaceutical commercialization teams, these capabilities stretch far beyond faster copy generation. Advanced models now enable everything from compliance checks and sales training simulations to interactive content. While regulatory frameworks—such as medical, legal, and regulatory (MLR) requirements—can slow uptake, many other barriers are self-imposed through risk-averse policies and rigid processes. The question is no longer “Does generative AI work?”; it is, instead, “How can we keep pace with its rapid evolution?” Those that address both external constraints and internal hurdles stand to unlock AI’s full potential in pharmaceutical sales and marketing.
The Hybrid Advantage: AI + Human Collaboration
Generative AI has advanced to the point where it can independently produce robust content. Yet, today, the best results come from a collaborative effort between AI and human experts. By pairing AI’s unparalleled speed and breadth with human creativity and judgment, teams not only accelerate production timelines, but also consistently achieve higher quality and greater impact.
A typical workflow might begin with AI generating multiple drafts or concepts in mere minutes. Take marketing copy for a new biologic, for instance: the AI can pull from relevant clinical trial data, existing brand messaging, and style guidelines to produce an initial set of options. From there, a skilled copywriter or medical editor can refine the content—validating facts, adapting tone for a specific audience, and applying any market-specific nuances. In recent research with clients at Klick, projects that took this “hybrid” approach cleared MLR review at a higher rate and were rated more favorably by healthcare professionals than content produced by either AI or human teams alone. Additionally, they reduced overall time investment by more than 70% relative to the human-only approach.
A similar dynamic plays out in visual creative production. AI tools can explore dozens of visual concepts—patient scenarios, infographics, product labels—in a fraction of the time it would take designers to develop them manually. Designers can then focus on polishing the AI outputs, ensuring that color palettes, typography, and cultural cues align with brand standards. The end product is typically more innovative than purely human-driven concepts and requires fewer cycles of revisions.
Core design platforms are also quickly integrating AI-powered enhancements that supercharge existing workflows. Tasks like retouching an image, refining color palettes, or adjusting layouts—which once demanded hours of manual effort—can now be achieved in minutes using next-gen AI features from tools like Photoshop, Figma, or Canva. These capabilities elevate overall output quality and speed, allowing designers to focus on sophisticated creative decisions rather than tedious production work. Ultimately, such seamless AI integrations free up creative teams to concentrate on high-level brand storytelling, campaign ideation, and other strategic elements that drive significant impact in pharmaceutical marketing.
Hybrid AI + human synergy is especially relevant in the heavily regulated pharmaceutical arena, where compliance demands meticulous oversight. Although AI can rapidly flag missing references, highlight off-label implications, or compare claims to prescribing information, it’s the human reviewers who exercise final accountability—verifying clinical accuracy, interpreting regional regulations, and confirming that tone and context meet local market requirements.
Yet, today, the best results come from a collaborative effort between AI and human experts.
By offloading repetitive tasks to AI, cross-functional teams recapture hours for higher-level ideation and targeted strategy. In practice, this means brand strategists can devote more time to shaping holistic launch plans, while creative directors iterate on top-tier design elements. Meanwhile, AI “copilots” handle the heavy lifting of initial draft generation, data validation, or adaptation into localized assets.
The net result is a powerful blend of speed, scale, and strategic insight. Organizations that embrace a hybrid AI + human model report faster go-to-market timelines, richer creative output, and a more flexible approach to accommodating regulatory changes. In short, pairing AI’s remarkable capabilities with human expertise offers the surest path to maximizing both productivity and impact in pharmaceutical sales and marketing.
6 Proven Generative AI Use Cases for Life Sciences
While many organizations are still navigating AI-related cultural and operational challenges, several generative AI applications have already delivered tangible benefits in pharma—ranging from faster time-to-market and reduced costs to stronger compliance outcomes. In their current form, these use cases have proven valuable in focused deployments, where forward-thinking teams are already reaping clear efficiency gains. Yet their full promise lies ahead: as AI matures and becomes more deeply integrated across platforms and workflows, it could reshape entire segments of the commercialization process.
From speeding copy creation and streamlining design tasks to automating compliance checks and enabling rapid market research simulations, each of the six use cases offers a glimpse of how generative AI can transform day-to-day operations. Over time, as these technologies evolve beyond point solutions into more holistic, orchestrated systems, they will unlock new modes of personalization, real-time campaign optimization, and unprecedented scalability. Embracing these use cases now not only delivers immediate benefits but also lays the foundation for a future in which generative AI drives more fluid, data-driven, and customer-centric commercial strategies.
1. Generative Copy: Speeding Time to Market
As generative AI gains traction in pharmaceutical marketing, many organizations are eager to harness it for copywriting—everything from sales aids to consumer-facing content. While many companies’ early experiments have demonstrated promise, few have approached AI-driven copy in a methodical, evidence-based way. Through collaboration with multiple clients, we’ve developed a formalized research protocol to address this, identify best practices, and pinpoint where human intervention is essential.
In a blinded study, a hybrid human + AI approach reduced time spent on medical copywriting over 70% with no loss in MLR approval rates or HCP-perceived quality.
In one controlled study, mentioned above, we ran a blinded test with three groups: human-only copywriters, AI-only copy, and a hybrid approach where copywriters leveraged AI outputs but retained final oversight. The results underwent evaluation by both an MLR review team and a separate panel of HCPs—neither knew whether they were assessing AI, human, or hybrid work. The findings were instructive. AI-only copy had a mere 20% success rate in clearing MLR, compared to 89% for human teams and 90% for the hybrid teams. The shortfall for AI was partly because it couldn’t engage in back-and-forth discussion with MLR stakeholders, thus failing to address nuanced feedback in real time.
Quality, as rated by HCPs on a 6-point scale, was slightly higher for AI-involved copy than for purely human-generated copy (5.75 for both AI and hybrid vs. 5.65 for human-only). However, time emerged as the biggest differentiator: human-only writing took an average of 420 hours, while AI-only required just 101 hours. The hybrid approach landed at 121 hours—over 70% faster than the human-only process, yet delivering nearly identical MLR success and a small boost in perceived quality.
This hybrid advantage consistently surfaces in other client engagements. While AI can generate solid drafts quickly, human professionals remain essential for guiding direction, ensuring compliance, and refining tone. Looking ahead, fully autonomous copywriting tools may someday be viable, but our data suggest that, for the near future, human oversight remains a decisive factor. The most effective strategy is to combine the best of both worlds: leveraging AI’s speed and scale while relying on human expertise to navigate regulatory nuances, brand voice, and evolving clinical information.
2. Generative Imagery: Transforming Creative Production
Creating compelling visuals for pharmaceutical campaigns has traditionally involved substantial budgets, lengthy photo shoots, or illustration commissions, all subject to complexities in IP management and regulatory approvals. Generative AI changes the game, allowing teams to ideate and experiment with an array of creative concepts, often generating dozens of near-finished visuals in hours rather than weeks.
Beyond saving on hard costs (some teams report up to 75% reductions compared to traditional photo shoots), the adoption of generative imagery workflows reshapes the roles of graphic artists and designers. Instead of spending considerable time searching digital asset libraries, coordinating logistics for photo shoots, or manually editing images, these professionals can focus on high-value activities like creative direction, brand strategy, and nuanced aesthetic refinements. For example, AI-driven tools can handle routine tasks—color correction, background removal, object replacement—in a fraction of the usual time, sometimes cutting editing cycles by half or more.
Concept art generation has likewise become more agile. Rather than commissioning multiple illustrators or orchestrating complex shoots, teams can quickly produce and compare a variety of concepts—each one tailored to a different patient profile, design theme, or campaign message. From there, designers can refine the best outputs, adding brand elements and ensuring adherence to medical guidelines. The result is a more dynamic, iterative process that aligns creative decisions closely with real-time feedback and strategic objectives.
Generative AI has moved beyond internal use to customer-facing campaigns like this one with AI-generated imagery, thanks to maturing models and IP-protecting processes.
Yet these efficiencies introduce new compliance challenges. Ensuring that AI-generated images align with regulations around fair balance, disclaimers, and accurate portrayals of patient experiences remains paramount. Leading organizations mitigate risk by embedding compliance checks into generative workflows—whether it’s referencing approved brand guidelines or maintaining final human reviews to confirm medical accuracy and brand alignment.
Looking ahead, the same principles apply to short-form video, where tools like Runway, Sora, and Veo 2 are quickly closing the gap between static imagery and dynamic content. While not as high quality as static image generation yet, these solutions are improving fast, and already allow pharma teams to create and iterate videos in much the same way, again compressing time to market while retaining the human oversight vital for ensuring brand integrity and regulatory compliance.
3. Interactive Rep Training: Simulated HCP Encounters
Training pharmaceutical representatives has always been critical, given the need for precise clinical knowledge, strong communication skills, and the ability to handle objections. Historically, these training programs have relied on scripted role-play sessions or broad e-learning modules. Generative AI is poised to elevate this model significantly with dynamic, simulated interactions. Picture a virtual HCP simulation powered by data from a broad physician database—such as Klick’s MedOcean—where the AI persona is tailored to a specific specialty, prescribing behavior, or personal preferences. Representatives can practice delivering brand messages to a simulated oncologist who challenges them about side effects, or to a busy primary care physician who prioritizes cost considerations. The AI’s responses evolve in real-time, meaning each conversation is unique. Immediate feedback loops highlight where the rep excelled or faltered, reinforcing learning with practical, scenario-based insights.
This approach offers a progressive difficulty curve. Reps can begin with relatively approachable conversations, building confidence and refining core messaging. Over time, they advance to more challenging scenarios involving policy objections, specific competitor references, or complex payer landscapes. The result is a more competent, adaptable field force—better equipped for real-world interactions.
Moreover, AI-driven role-reversal modes let reps adopt the persona of an HCP to understand how brand messaging comes across from the physician’s vantage point. This shift in perspective fosters greater empathy for clinical decision-making. Early adopters report significant improvement in rep readiness, engagement, and knowledge retention. For pharma companies aiming to differentiate through better salesforce effectiveness, generative AI–based simulations are emerging as a powerful, cost-effective tool that far surpasses traditional training in both realism and adaptability.
4. Market Research Simulation: Faster Insights
Market research remains a cornerstone of pharmaceutical commercialization, informing everything from brand strategy to messaging and promotional tactics. Conventional research, however, is expensive, time-consuming, and limited by logistical constraints. Generative AI promises a new paradigm, allowing marketers to run simulations that provide qualitative and quantitative feedback within days rather than weeks or months.
By leveraging robust datasets—including years of prior survey data, prescribing behavior insights, and demographic information—AI can build virtual “audience proxies” that respond to marketing stimuli in ways that closely mirror real-world segmentation. Klick’s Simulated Market Research approach, for example, can spawn thousands of these AI-generated participants, each capable of “reacting” to new messaging or product positioning. In many cases, the outputs show upwards of 75% agreement with findings from traditional research methods. While not a full replacement for live market testing, these simulations significantly compress feedback loops, enabling rapid iteration before broader market rollouts.
The cost advantages are equally compelling. Traditional qualitative research involving focus groups or in-depth interviews might run into six figures, whereas AI-driven simulations can be executed at a fraction of that cost. Marketers can test multiple angles—message recall, perceived benefits, competitive differentiation, and more—over a single week. This agility allows life sciences companies to refine messaging and pivot to new strategies swiftly if initial feedback is lukewarm.
Moreover, repurposing existing data assets provides an additional layer of value—most pharmaceutical organizations already possess a wealth of market research, prescription data, and audience insights from past campaigns. By feeding these historical datasets into generative AI tools, teams can create simulations that more accurately emulate real-world behaviors and preferences. This approach not only helps marketers glean deeper insights from assets they’ve already invested in, but also lays a foundation for continuous improvement: each new study contributes additional data, which in turn further refines future simulations. As a result, every research cycle becomes an opportunity to strengthen decision-making and predictive power.
Ultimately, these simulations should complement—rather than replace—real-world market research. Yet, in a competitive landscape where time to market is vital, the capacity to gather near-instant feedback confers a strategic edge. By layering generative AI simulations on top of traditional research, organizations can fine-tune their market approach with unprecedented speed and agility.
5. Compliance Automation: Streamlining MLR Reviews
No discussion of pharma marketing is complete without addressing MLR reviews—a frequent bottleneck in commercial workflows. As generative AI accelerates content creation, review teams face a potential flood of new assets requiring approval. Without extra support, these challenges only escalate, risking both delays and inconsistencies.
AI-driven compliance solutions act as powerful assistants—equivalent to giving content authors and MLR reviewers superpowers. Tools like Klick’s Guardrail can be integrated during the content development stage, automatically referencing prior claims, prescribing information, and brand guidelines to ensure that any new copy or creative asset is set up for success. By the time assets reach MLR teams, they’re far more likely to earn approval on the first pass. Rather than replacing reviewers’ judgment, these platforms offer immediate, data-driven insights—highlighting risk areas, proposing references for novel claims, and applying a rules-based engine that checks for alignment with regulatory and brand requirements. This approach yields several tangible benefits. First, writers and marketers receive near-instant feedback on whether their new or modified claims meet established thresholds for evidence and compliance. Second, any potential red flags—such as language that could imply unproven comparative efficacy or run afoul of local regulations—are flagged early, minimizing the back-and-forth between authors and reviewers. Third, the system documents its rationale, delivering a transparent “glass box” explanation (rather than an opaque “black box” decision) that fosters trust among regulators, brand managers, and MLR stakeholders.
For instance, the engine might warn that a phrase like “breakthrough therapy” requires a specific FDA designation or robust clinical data, explaining precisely why this wording could be problematic. Armed with these insights, human writers and reviewers remain firmly in control—they focus on the most critical decisions and nuanced interpretations, rather than sifting through repetitive boilerplate. By preemptively tackling compliance concerns, teams can finalize content in days rather than weeks.
Crucially, AI can go beyond merely speeding up reviews; it can also bolster regulatory rigor by systematically applying best practices and helping identify details that might otherwise slip through the cracks. This doesn’t diminish the vital role MLR professionals play—on the contrary, it elevates their impact by allowing them to concentrate on strategic oversight and complex judgment calls. In this model, AI-assisted compliance checks serve as a powerful complement to human expertise, enhancing overall consistency, accuracy, and confidence throughout the review process.
Ultimately, combining AI-driven compliance checks with human oversight accelerates time to market while supporting and even enhancing the regulatory rigor essential in pharma. When implemented thoughtfully, compliance automation empowers MLR experts to spend more time on high-level analysis and less on mundane checks, ensuring that both brand teams and reviewers can operate with greater speed, clarity, and confidence.
With Klick’s Guardrail, clients can now rapidly compile claims libraries from existing assets—a significant accelerant for developing future materials.
Klick’s Guardrail uses generative AI and a decision-intelligence engine to evaluate new claims against FDA, company, brand, and review team guidelines and preferences, providing a transparent, explainable recommendation and score.
6. Derivative Asset Production: Expediting and Customizing Materials
In pharmaceutical marketing, a single approved campaign concept often needs to be turned into a host of related deliverables—banner ads, social media posts, emails, and more. Traditionally, generating each derivative asset required a new round of creative work and compliance checks. Specialized AI workflows now dramatically streamline this process, assembling nearly complete, ready-to-publish materials based on existing approved assets—always with human oversight at critical decision points.
For example, once a master brand campaign has passed MLR, Klick’s Pharma Flow can automatically assemble relevant copy, imagery, and design components into complete assets—including HTML, layout, and annotations referencing original approvals. A human operator guides the system throughout the workflow, confirming that suggested visuals and copy accurately reflect the brand’s tone and compliance requirements. This operator also applies any final adjustments, ensuring finished products respect brand strategies and preferences. While AI handles the repetitive tasks, human expertise ensures the end product meets the highest standards.
This hybrid approach frees brand teams and their agency partners to focus more on high-level strategy and creative innovation. Instead of painstakingly customizing each piece of collateral, they can let AI handle the repetitive assembly work—whether resizing banners or converting existing campaigns into social media formats. Marketers also gain the flexibility to experiment with additional channels or hyper-targeted segments, confident that derivative assets can be produced quickly and compliantly.
To maintain a single source of truth, AI-based solutions tie each derivative asset back to core brand guidelines and references. If a set of assets requires safety information updates due to a label change, or if new clinical data becomes available, the AI can rapidly update all related materials at scale. Meanwhile, the human operator has the final say to ensure strategic and regulatory alignment.
In short, AI-driven derivative asset production transforms how pharma companies roll out campaigns. By automating repetitive tasks but retaining human oversight at critical junctures, teams can deliver more targeted content in more markets—faster—while reallocating time and resources to the strategic and creative aspects that truly drive commercial success.
Klick’s Pharma Flow uses generative AI to create derivative assets through an automated step-by-step process overseen by a human operator. It leverages previously approved materials to write, design, and produce assets including banners, social posts, and emails.
Step 1 | Generate and Select Copy
Step 2 | Select and Crop an Image
Step 3 | Generate the Banner Ad
Step 4 | Output the Annotated Screenshots
Looking Ahead: Agents and Orchestrators
Everything we’ve discussed so far—like hybrid AI + human copywriting, interactive rep training, and AI-driven market simulations—stems from models that are largely reactive. They produce brilliant outputs when prompted, but do not “act” on their own. The next leap, which we anticipate AI companies launching broadly in early 2025, is agentic AI: technologies capable of navigating software environments, making strategic decisions, and coordinating tasks across multiple steps with minimal human intervention.
Leading AI firms are already developing prototypes in this area. For example, Anthropic’s “Computer Use” feature allows its models to autonomously click through websites, fill out forms, and gather data. Google’s Gemini 2.0 has been designed with agentic behaviors front and center, with demonstrations of its capabilities in Project Mariner (web use) and Project Astra (universal agent that can see and hear what a user does). Meanwhile, OpenAI is reportedly planning to launch an agent framework called “Operator” in early 2025, with Sam Altman stating that AI agents will join the workforce this year.
Agentic systems like Anthropic’s “Computer Use” will allow AI agents to perform any task in browsers and apps that humans can do.
Image Credit: Anthropic
In practical terms, agentic AI can handle not just a single task—like generating marketing copy—but an entire workflow, such as drafting copy, automatically kicking off compliance checks, creating visuals, and then notifying a brand manager for final review. Teams will likely employ human “orchestrators” who oversee these AI-driven processes. Consider an account director or marketing strategist guiding multiple AI agents: one specialized in copywriting, another in image generation, and a third focused on MLR compliance. For now, it’s unlikely we will have a single “all-purpose” agent; instead, we’ll see specialized agents working in tandem—each excelling at its piece of the puzzle while an orchestrator ensures cohesion.
AI is good at tasks, but not yet at entire jobs. As agentic models improve, more tasks become feasible for AI, and the human role evolves into a higher-level supervisory and relational one.
Why will this model matter so much in pharma? Because AI will handle entire workflows that currently consume thousands of hours across teams. For example, an orchestrator could define a brand’s high-level messaging strategy, while AI agents handle routine tasks—everything from localizing that messaging across 20 geographies to scheduling MLR reviews and preparing final market assets. Each piece can be delegated to the right combination of human talent and AI agents. The core areas we’ve explored—such as copy creation, imagery generation, market research, and compliance—will likely remain the cornerstone use cases in the near future, expanded and enhanced by agent-driven workflows. But we’ll also likely see new use cases enabled by more powerful and autonomous AI systems.
As agentic AI models improve, the role of orchestrators becomes even more critical. Human oversight won’t vanish. In heavily regulated industries like life sciences, strategic direction, complex ethical considerations, and final compliance sign-offs will remain vital. AI is good at tasks, but not yet at entire jobs. As agentic models improve, more tasks become feasible for AI, and the human role evolves into a higher-level supervisory and relational one—ensuring quality, resolving ambiguities, and managing stakeholder relationships. The net effect will be to expand capacity, shrink production cycles, and create far more agile commercial organizations.
For life science companies aiming to stay ahead, the time to prepare is now. Mapping existing workflows, identifying tasks suited to near-future AI agents, training a cadre of orchestrators, and working with partners well-positioned to capitalize on this future will position you to harness these capabilities at scale in 2025 and beyond. Successful organizations will combine mastery of AI technology with deep pharmaceutical expertise, a culture of innovation, and the ability to coordinate complex, multidisciplinary teams—human and machine alike. While we do not expect entire job functions to vanish overnight, the portion of every role that can be efficiently automated by AI agents will grow, and the companies that adapt fastest will reap the largest benefits.
Will Agents Replace Agencies?
Given agentic AI progress, a natural question arises: Won't agentic AI replace agencies?
Over a long enough timeline, anything is possible, but we see this as unlikely within the next decade. Instead, we believe agencies that harness the power of agentic AI will displace those that do not.
There are a few near-term barriers to fully autonomous marketing. As described above, the tools don't yet exist to autonomously produce broadcast-quality production content with AI. Even if this becomes possible, we believe the multidisciplinary conceptual and creative work that defines successful pharmaceutical campaigns will be beyond the capabilities of agents for some time. At the current pace of technological development, autonomous tools remain primarily suited for routine tasks. Creating truly compelling content requires specialized knowledge, complex coordination, and a keen sense of both brand and regulatory context—areas where human teams, supported by powerful AI, truly excel. In industries as regulated and fast-moving as life sciences, strategy, insight, and ethical judgment remain irreplaceable.
Agencies that harness the power of agentic AI will displace those that do not.
Instead, forward-thinking agencies will embrace these ever-improving tools for the use cases they are best suited for. These agencies will eliminate the drudgery of repetitive tasks, accelerate time to market, increase compliance rigor, and supercharge personalization and localization efforts—all without sacrificing the nuance that high-impact marketing demands.
Charting Your Path Forward
Generative AI in life science commercialization is no longer a futuristic concept—it is rapidly becoming a cornerstone of competitive advantage. From high-impact copy and imagery to interactive sales training and automated compliance checks, AI offers transformative potential for pharmaceutical sales and marketing. Yet, the window of opportunity is quickly narrowing. Companies that hesitate risk finding themselves outpaced by peers who move faster and embrace new capabilities more aggressively. So where should you begin? Consider the following calls to action:
Audit Your Current Workflows Identify bottlenecks and repetitive tasks—like creating derivative assets or searching for references in MLR reviews—that could be streamlined with AI.
Test Quick-Win Use Cases Pilot an AI-powered content project or market research simulation. Start small, but measure performance rigorously. Use success to build momentum and internal buy-in.
Adopt a Hybrid Approach Ensure that human expertise remains at the center. AI can handle the heavy lifting—such as drafting copy, generating visuals, running simulations—while human teams provide strategic guidance, regulatory insight, and final oversight.
Leverage Existing Assets Unlock incremental ROI by feeding historical data, past campaigns, and compliance learnings into AI-driven tools. The richer the data you provide, the more accurate and actionable your AI outputs will be.
Plan for Continuous Evolution Generative AI will keep advancing at breakneck speed. Processes that served you six months ago may be outdated today. Look ahead, stay agile, refine your approaches frequently, and be ready to integrate new releases and feature improvements as they arrive.
Reflect on your organization’s readiness. Are you using AI to accelerate content creation while maintaining regulatory rigor? Can you pivot quickly to test new channels or tailor messages to diverse market segments? If not, what would it take to close these gaps? By asking these questions—and acting on the answers—you position your company to thrive in an environment where AI isn’t just a novelty, but a decisive factor in commercial success.
Agentic AI capabilities are on the near horizon, promising even more automated workflows and intelligent task coordination. However, the fundamental lesson remains clear: the best results come from skilled people collaborating with advanced technologies. When wielded thoughtfully, generative AI can become the driving force behind faster launches, more personalized outreach, and sustained growth in a competitive, fast-evolving industry.
Ultimately, your path forward hinges on action. Embrace AI for its immediate impact on efficiency and impact, but do so in a way that keeps human judgment at the core. The time to experiment, iterate, and invest is now. By getting started today, you ensure that when the next wave of AI breakthroughs arrives—and it surely will—you will be ready to harness them as the engine of tomorrow’s commercial success.
How AI Is Transforming Life Sciences Commercialization
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Authors
Simon Smith
Executive Vice-President of Generative AI
As Executive Vice President, Generative AI, Klick Health, Simon leads the advancement of generative AI in healthcare, blending over 20 years of experience in life sciences strategy and technology. He has an outstanding track record of creating innovative digital strategies for drug launches and providing expertise in pharmaceutical marketing, including a stint as chief marketing officer for a biomedical AI startup. Simon is a recognized thought-leader in AI for healthcare, having contributed to numerous publications and spoken extensively on the subject. His role at Klick involves researching generative AI tools, consulting on AI solutions for clients’ challenges, and developing novel applications for the industry. Simon actively shares his insights and developments in generative AI on LinkedIn.
Brian Fox
President and Chief Growth Officer
Brian Fox is the President and Chief Growth Officer of Klick Group, where he helps life sciences companies bring new products to market and accelerate the growth of marketed products through innovative marketing, sales, market access, medical affairs, and clinical development programs. He also leads Klick’s Corporate Development efforts. Previously, as a Senior Partner at McKinsey, he spent nearly two decades leading global Commercialization and Private Equity Practices in Life Sciences. A founding member of Google’s Healthcare Advisory Board, Brian co-authored Pharma 3D: Rewriting the Script for Marketing in the Digital Age, judged the MM&M awards, and was named one of MM&M’s 50 most influential people in healthcare.
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