How Does AI Fit in Medical Affairs?

Author(s): Enio Polena & Albert Balkiewicz

Medical Affairs professionals find themselves caught between two narratives: “AI will revolutionize everything” or “AI is overhyped and risky.”

The reality sits somewhere in between. AI is genuinely useful in Medical Affairs, but the bar for accuracy and compliance is considerably different and arguably higher than in commercial marketing. Off-the-shelf tools don’t account for MLR review, source traceability, or therapeutic-area nuance. The use cases that work are the ones built around those constraints, not despite them.

AI is now present on both sides of the desk. Teams use it to produce and distribute scientific content. HCPs are increasingly using it to find that content, often turning to ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini instead of PubMed. These aren’t separate conversations with separate answers. How a team uses AI internally and how HCPs encounter scientific content through AI are connected questions, and getting both right requires thinking about them together.

Where does AI actually make sense in Medical Affairs?