How Agentic AI Optimizes HCP Marketing and ROI in Life Sciences

HIT Consultant – Read More

Briggs Davidson, Senior Director, Digital, Data & Marketing Strategy, Life Sciences, at Capgemini Invent

Most life sciences companies may know more about their healthcare professionals (HCPs) than they realize, but too often they can’t use that data when it matters. For example, an HCP may have just attended a conference where a competitor showcased their drug’s promising results, published research, and shifted their prescriptions to a rival product in the past quarter. In most companies, legacy IT infrastructure and data silos keep this information in disparate systems across CRM, events databases and claims data. Chances are, none of that information was accessible to sales reps before they met with the HCP. Unifying and leveraging this data can enable personalized communications, drive medical sales representative impact, and leverage data to better understand marketing ROI.

Agentic AI provides life sciences companies with a powerful solution to deliver a unified view of HCPs and extract actionable insights from data to drive business outcomes. By enabling smarter decision-making and streamlined execution, agentic AI empowers marketing teams, even those with lean resources, to operate more efficiently on tighter budgets. Its advanced process optimization and orchestration capabilities help maximize impact while minimizing effort. According to a recent report, “AI agents could generate up to $450 billion in economic value through revenue uplift and cost savings” globally by 2028, with 69% of executives planning on using agents in marketing processes by the end of 2028. Let’s take a deeper look at how agentic AI can enhance marketing efforts aimed at busy HCPs.

A different framework: the orchestration imperative

One of the biggest challenges for Life Sciences marketers is obtaining a single view of the HCP. Taking an omnichannel view enables life sciences companies to coordinate experiences across channels. This is increasingly important as sales representatives have fewer opportunities to meet in person with providers than in the past, a trend accelerated by COVID. As a result, representatives need to make the most of each meeting, starting with specific intelligence that is tailored to individual HCPs.

Siloed data makes it difficult or impossible to gain a comprehensive understanding of the HCP. Sales representatives are left to attend valuable in-person meetings without customized guidance they can use to provide consistent experiences for the HCPs. In that way, data fragmentation stands in the way of both providing an omnichannel experience and understanding marketing ROI.

Agentic AI can’t solve the issue of HCP access however it can help unify siloed data in a way that makes access more effective by helping reps and marketers to better understand their HCP audience. Instead of having a data engineer build a new pipeline, an AI agent could autonomously query the CRM and claims database to help answer business questions. For example, it could ask “Identify oncologists in the Northwest who have a 20% lower prescription volume but attended our last medical congress.” Agentic AI’s data unification capabilities can also make it easier to calculate ROI.

Agentic AI in the marketing workflow

What does a marketing campaign look like with agentic AI unifying the data and optimizing processes?

Imagine a world where a sales representative has an agent that assists them with call and visit planning. The sales representative could ask questions such as, “What messages has my HCP responded to most recently?” “Do we have data on prescription patterns?” and “Can you create a detailed intelligence brief on my HCP?” Agentic AI can bring the data together in one place, so the sales representative can gather information quickly on:

Their most recent conversation with the HCP
The HCP’s prescribing behavior
Thought leaders the HCP follows
Relevant content to share with the HCP

The HCP’s preferred outreach channels, such as in-person visits, emails, webinars, etc.

AI can further assist the sales representative by creating a custom call plan for each HCP based on the information in their unified profile. This allows the sales representative to offer personalized value to each provider in a way that respects their time and communication preferences. After each outreach, the AI agent can recommend follow-up steps based on the outcome of the engagement, to maintain a consistent experience for the provider.

Preparing for agentic AI implementation

Agentic AI systems are about driving action, graduating from ‘answer my prompt,’ to ‘autonomously execute my task.’ That means evolving the sales representative mindset from asking questions to coordinating small teams of specialized agents that work together: one plans, another retrieves and checks content, a third schedules and measures, and a fourth enforces compliance guardrails—all under human oversight.

A successful agentic AI project starts with AI-ready data. This data is standardized, accessible, complete and trustworthy. AI-ready data enables:

Faster decision making. Predictive analytics enables near real-time alerts on what’s about to happen. This will enable sales representatives to act proactively to drive business value.

Personalization at scale. You can deliver customized experiences to thousands of HCPs simultaneously with a small human team enabled by a team of specialized agents

True marketing ROI. Instead of monthly reports with historical data, you can finally answer what marketing activities are driving prescriptions.

Agentic AI success starts with both marketing and IT aligning on your initial use cases. That will ensure that there is an agreed upon definition of tangible value. As part of the use case planning process, stakeholders need to identify KPIs that will demonstrate tangible outcomes, such as a specific percentage increase in HCP engagement or sales representative productivity. Setting KPIs early is important to securing funding for your agentic use case and to setting appropriate leadership expectations.

Agentic AI is about driving action. Take a learnings-based approach to ensure your agents are delivering value and enabling the efficiency and effectiveness of your marketing team. This will also lay the foundation for scaling up and adding more use cases. For global organizations, these use cases can and should be tailored to fit each market’s maturity for maximum ROI.

Accelerating marketing success through agentic AI transformation

Agentic AI is not simply another technology-led capability; it’s a new operating layer for commercial teams. However, agentic AI’s full value only materializes with AI ready data, trustworthy deployment and workflow redesign. Agentic AI can transform your marketing organization by making it easier for your sales reps to connect effectively with HCPs, give them the resources they need, and take follow-up steps that drive engagement and sales. Your teams can unlock value in your existing data with an agentic strategy that prioritizes data quality, platform efficacy, real world use cases, and measurable outcomes. This will lead to value for both the HCP and the marketing team as the HCP receives directly relevant content and the marketing teams can drive increased HCP engagement and conversion.

About Briggs Davidson

Briggs Davidson is Senior Director of Life Sciences at Capgemini Invent, where he advises C-suite leaders on leveraging data, analytics, and digital strategy to drive transformation and marketing impact. With over 20 years of experience, he leads initiatives across omnichannel orchestration, generative AI, and marketing science, delivering measurable results for global life sciences and healthcare clients. He’s also a published thought leader on performance marketing and first-party data strategy.