By Franklin Williams, Executive Director of Experience Design, AREA 23 & McCann Health New York
The world of chatbots and virtual assistants has evolved and like QR codes that gained massive popularity after its naïve incorporation into consumer handheld devices, AI-driven chatbots and virtual assistants are starting to revolutionize the way pharmaceutical companies interact with healthcare professionals and patients due to their ubiquity across all digital platforms.
These intelligent systems are not only offering 24/7 support, answering questions, providing drug information, and even reminding patients to take their medications, but they are also doing it with incredible accuracy that is now truly useful. This enhanced engagement is crucial in a sector where timely information and support can significantly affect treatment success.
As AI technology evolves, these chatbots and virtual assistants will continue to become more sophisticated, offering more accurate feedback, and continue to benefit the lives of all those who use them.
Now as we look to the near future, one area that will gain traction will be the increase in more accurate and real-time, real-world evidence collection. As we’ve seen at CES this and last year, so much of the industry is focused on at home diagnostic medical devices that create less reason to head to your local physician. These are connected tools that will be shuttling tons of data to cloud servers far and wide and that data will become gold for AI tools looking to understand the real-world use and implications of drug therapies and treatments.
With this new analysis superpower, our ability to right size treatments, push for better drug development and support drug regulation and access will ideally help to create a more equitable environment to increase the overall benefit and outcomes for those patients on these treatments. Of course, this remains to be seen, but I’m hopeful.
