The Future Relationship Between AI and Field Reps

Over recent years, the pharmaceutical industry has generally embraced AI. Due the nature of the technology, various companies have implemented it across multiple sectors. Now, the question that everyone is asking is: where is AI having an actual impact?

In March of this year, ACTO co-founder and CEO Parth Khanna wrote a piece for Pharmaceutical Executive discussing an area where he sees AI making a major impact. According to him, digital health solutions allow companies to both gather larger amounts of data and then derive actionable insights from that data.

Khanna recently spoke with Pharmaceutical Executive, where he elaborated on this topic, while also discussing how things have evolved in the months since he initially wrote his original piece.

Pharmaceutical Executive: What is the future of field reps and their relationship with AI?
Parth Khanna: Based on our conversations with customers and our own thinking, we believe the role of the sales rep — and the way reps create value — is going to fundamentally evolve.

There will continue to be a very important role for humans in the field. But the job description of a sales rep is going to change in a meaningful way. The tasks that are currently done manually or in a human-only way will increasingly be augmented by compliant, empathetic agents. And that augmentation will free reps to go further and deeper into areas of work they can't fully access today.

We also think there's a world where the sales rep and MSL roles become hybridized — though the regulatory environment will need to catch up to that possibility. The fundamental driver is this: agents that perform at the periphery of human cognition allow humans to do more. That might mean taking on more complex clinical questions with healthcare professionals, spending more time building genuine relationships, or developing a deeper understanding of how a physician actually runs their practice. There are likely ways that role will evolve that we haven't even imagined yet.

What we can all agree on is that the future sales rep will be one who creates more value for physicians — capable of doing more, both cognitively with the help of agents, and with the time that gets freed up when agents handle the work that doesn't require human judgment.