AI in Medical Affairs: 5 Investments to Win in an AI-Driven Healthcare Ecosystem

Authors: Jimmy Baudot, Sarah Jarvis, & Pranava Goundan

Medical affairs must move beyond AI pilots

For decades, medical affairs has evolved incrementally within a relatively stable scientific ecosystem. Evidence was generated through controlled trials, translated into scientific communications, disseminated through congresses, medical engagement, scientific exchange and acted upon by medical stakeholders.

But things are changing. As healthcare enters a new AI-driven era, medical affairs stands at a critical inflection point, as the scale and speed of disruption demands a structural shift. Yet most organizations have responded by focusing inwards, using AI to drive productivity and efficiency through multiple siloed pilots. As agentic AI begins to operate alongside people, the real shift is not deploying tools but redesigning how decisions and execution work together so intelligence can scale reliably across the enterprise.

Our CDIO research on scaling AI in pharma and biotech highlights how, despite a flood of pilots, only 40% of them make it to scaled deployment, resulting in just pockets of excellence and a persistent gap between experimentation and enterprise reinvention. Data readiness, technology layered onto legacy operating models, uneven leadership buy-in and budget pressures all continue to roadblock adoption at scale. And as valuable as proof of concepts are, they only optimize fragments of the operating model.