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The future pharmaceutical field force has arrived

Using AI for agility and interconnectivity

Leaps in artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming the pharmaceutical (pharma) field force, unlocking the power of data and infrastructure investments. What was once aspirational is now attainable as autonomous, agentic AI disrupts legacy go-to-market models. Explore how to make your customer engagement more agile and interconnected—and realize tomorrow’s pharma field force today.

Leaving legacy models behind

Past limitations in technology made it difficult to support interconnected and customer-centric field organizations, resulting in:

  • Static targeting that treats all customers the same.
  • Cumbersome, manual account-coordination processes.
  • Significant time out of field for training and ride-alongs.

AI has closed that technology gap. Companies are now piloting autonomous, agentic AI that can enable seamless intra-field collaboration and truly agile, customer-centric engagement. The result? Field teams connect in real time, scientific narratives and sales pitches adapt dynamically to each customer’s needs, and new hires onboard quickly.

Adaptive, personalized, and real-time

Prioritize the highest value-add AI uses cases or application scenarios to enhance customer responsiveness.

Because agentic AI continuously scours customer data, it might pick up information, such as the announcement of a new keynote speaker for a major congress. AI would then analyze the abstract of the presentation paper, curate key product points, and dynamically adjust the Medical Science Liaison’s (MSL) call plan and route orchestration for the next morning.

Think digital call preparation tailored to each customer. For example, an AI coach can use the latest prescribing trends and segment insights to help sales reps prep for physician visits. After analyzing recorded meetings (with client consent), AI can deliver actionable feedback to help improve pitches, identify segment-specific selling points, and create customized collateral. Learnings from across the field can help guide the organization to scale up what’s working and coach where needed.

Imagine a field reimbursement manager’s (FRM) agentic AI companion taking independent, real-time action while educating a physician’s office staff. For example, it can automatically route a challenging patient access case to support-hub agents, generate an appeal letter specific to another patient, and update the office’s educational needs index by analyzing the types of questions the office staff asked the FRM.

Maximize value. Transform customer engagement.

In the end, combining agentic solutions with other technology-driven approaches—such as next best engagement, omnichannel marketing, and content supply chain—can transform your field organization into an agile field force of the future. It may also be useful to reimagine key personas through an agentic AI lens. Ultimately, mapping high-impact usage scenarios to each role can help drive greater efficiency, deepen health care providers’ omnichannel engagement, and boost incremental sales and cost performance.

Apply a multi-pronged approach to maximize value from these application scenarios:

  1. Identify and design the use cases with the highest potential for organizational value.
  2. Pilot the use cases with relevant businesses to show value and support change management.
  3. Implement and build the tech stack integrations.
  4. Audit to refine AI with human input based on proven market results.

This bold vision for transforming customer engagement can likely:

  • Drive higher win rates through hyper-personalized call plans.
  • Give reps more time to sell by reducing administrative burdens.
  • Raise customer satisfaction and loyalty by providing faster resolutions.
  • Enlarge manager span of control to boost effectiveness and efficiency.
  • Provide opportunity to expand customer base.
  • Unlock institutional access by increasing coordination across account roles.

Augment your field force with AI

As you start your transformation journey, keep in mind that human oversight is essential to fit technology around your needs, not the other way around. Moreover, while change is important, change management along the way can be equally significant.

To remain competitive, it’s important to keep pace with rapid technological innovation. The key is to tie your application scenarios to tangible business outcomes and sales metrics—like reach, win rates, and customer conversion.

The next-gen pharma field force is agile and firmly interconnected by AI. Its power to develop more dynamic and interconnected teams can help you shape a highly customer-centric experience.

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