Where AI Is Having the Most Impact and Where Gaps Remain

As AI moves from promise to proof, the question for pharmaceutical commercial teams is shifting from whether AI delivers value to where that value is greatest. In this Peer Exchange® episode, Shankar Narayanan, CEO of Real Chemistry, Zoe Lazarra, CMO of Genetech, and Claudia Ciciliano, VP Digital Strategy & Product Operations at Bayer, discuss where AI is already having the most impact across brand life cycles and where the biggest gaps remain. Lazarra describes a progression from cost savings and productivity toward growth driven by smarter targeting and personalization. She illustrates this with content customized to each stage of a breast cancer patient’s journey, from pre-diagnosis and fertility planning to treatment and preventing recurrence.

Ciciliano points to the value of connecting disparate data sets so that customer journeys no longer depend on representatives manually logging information. She also describes reimagining content development from planning and briefing through review, approval, and handoff. The goal would be to create faster and smarter content rather than more content. Future opportunities lie in areas that are harder to measure: demand generation, targeting, and workforce productivity.

Lazarra identifies an agentic layer that connects insights, content, measurement, and omnichannel agents as a major opportunity. Narayanan adds that traditional machine learning has long supported work such as targeting and patient identification in rare diseases, while generative and agentic AI now apply across insight generation, strategy, content, activation, and measurement. He highlights omnichannel activation as an area where compressing cycle times that once took weeks or months could unlock strong value.