AI isn’t replacing search—it’s moving earlier in the journey. OpenAI data shows only about 2% of ChatGPT prompts mention purchasable items, yet product suggestions appear in nearly one-third of prompts unrelated to shopping. For health and productivity queries, those rates jump above 40%. Meanwhile, AI minutes have quadrupled year over year while Google search usage remains slightly up, meaning AI is adding a new discovery layer, not cannibalizing intent-based search. For marketers, this creates a new upstream battleground where LLMs shape category awareness before comparison shopping begins. Brands must map the non-shopping conversations where their products naturally surface.

The FDA is introducing agentic AI to help its drug reviewers, investigators, and scientists carry out more complex tasks and develop AI-driven workflows. Its move into agentic AI signals that AI-driven review is becoming a regulatory norm.

More than half (53%) of US physicians plan to significantly increase AI use over the next year, per a DHC Group and Sermo study in November. As physicians increasingly rely on AI for support, the information they encounter will be shaped by the quality of the science-based content that AI systems will surface.

Digital health tech funding continues to rebound in 2025, bolstered by AI deals. Funding reached $3.9 billion in Q3, already surpassing last year’s total, per PitchBook. AI is driving a new wave of digital health investment, and both healthcare systems and providers will feel pressure to adopt AI-assisted tool, not just experiment with them.

Two-thirds (65%) of pharma marketers are wary of AI use for creating regulatory filings, according to a new Klick Health and Momentum Events survey. While AI-assisted review is likely to become a standard part of regulatory workflows for both industry submissions and agency evaluations, human oversight will remain important.

AI scribe tools that transcribe doctors’ notes save doctors only a minimal amount of time, according to a recent UCLA Health study. Healthcare AI scribe developers already face high provider churn due to a crowded market and the ease of switching between competing products. They must now prove their product's value extends beyond time savings (modest or significant) to include areas like improving patient care, enhancing the patient experience to drive retention, or ensuring more accurate clinical notes for billing and coding.

The majority (86%) of healthcare professionals say AI affects their treatment decisions, although the degree ranges from significant to slight, per a recent DHC Group survey. Healthcare professionals are open to more AI use in medical practice, but they still prefer it as a support tool. Pharma companies should focus on advisory, not decision-making solutions that can help save physicians’ time and add clinical context.

Agentic AI company Infinitus is rolling out new tools designed to boost pharma companies’ direct-to-consumer (D2C) platforms. As pharmaceutical companies move to sell drugs directly to patients, the immediate next step is raising awareness and making their online platforms easy to use. It’s not just about selling a medicine—it’s about building relationships, ensuring patients don’t discontinue treatment, and providing a better healthcare experience than what consumers are typically used to.

Healthcare organizations are implementing commercial AI solutions at more than twice the rate (2.2x) of the broader US economy, according to a recent report from Menlo Ventures. Hospitals and health systems dominate AI adoption in healthcare, accounting for 75% of the spending total. The greatest current demand for AI in healthcare is among provider organizations that must improve doctors’ workflows and cut admin waste. AI startups and incumbents will compete by delivering revenue-driving tools that go beyond note transcription and earning physician trust through models that enhance diagnostic accuracy.

Eli Lilly is partnering with chipmaker NVIDIA to build the pharma industry’s most powerful supercomputer. Lily claims it will be the largest AI factory owned by a pharma company and will be up and running in January 2026. Lilly’s partnership with NVIDIA highlights the shift pharma companies are making to rely on tech firms who have the computing power and AI expertise pharma needs to stay competitive.

Half of oncologists note their cancer patients are turning to AI tools for information before, during, and after their diagnosis and treatment, according to a recent survey of oncologists from Impiricus and Klick Health. As patients adopt more AI for health information, pharma marketers have a growing opportunity to help physicians navigate the new dynamic. Marketers can offer physicians training on how to discuss and correct AI-generated information, and by providing credible, easy-to-understand resources grounded in evidence.

Approximately 35% of US adults report using AI tools to learn about and manage aspects of their health and wellness, according to a recent study conducted by The Vitamin Shoppe and Talker Research. As more people grow to trust AI for health information, they may move away from social media and influencer-driven health content that they have never found very reliable. Consumers will increasingly value AI that links to verifiable sources over social videos that often lack accountability. Healthcare and pharma marketers shouldn’t make any drastic pivot away from social media, but should closely track shifts in how consumers engage with social and influencer health content.

Alphabet subsidiary Verily is launching a free health app offering personalized guidance from clinicians. The Verily Me app will also have an AI agent to answer people’s health questions based on their medical records. Verily’s competitive advantage over bigger companies with brand-name is that it has clinician partners and access to some medical record data. The company should leverage its network of doctors to endorse Verily Me to their patients, using real-world examples to demonstrate the benefit of combining a person’s health history with a medical expert’s view for individualized guidance.

Leading healthcare AI startups, including OpenEvidence, Abridge, UpToDate, and Doximity, are rolling out new products and capabilities in the race to compete for physician adoption and investment funding. Companies could gain an advantage by making their products easily integrated into clinicians’ existing workflows, such as their EHRs. Startups should also showcase the outcomes of their technology to influential stakeholders like medical associations to help establish credibility at the clinician level.

OpenAI created an Expert Council on Well-Being and AI—a panel of eight behavioral and mental health specialists tasked to guide how AI tools like ChatGPT and Sora interact with users, per Ars Technica. CEO Sam Altman also announced on X that, “now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.” OpenAI’s loosening guardrails shift responsibility to brands and users who must now share in the responsibility to define and enforce their own ethical boundaries.

Lyra Health is debuting a generative AI (genAI) chatbot for mild to moderate mental health challenges like burnout, sleep or stress. AI chatbots for mental health will likely keep growing as consumers, especially younger generations, seek more affordable, lower-pressure alternatives to traditional in-person therapy. Lyra’s measured rollout shows how AI therapy could be deployed responsibly: limiting chatbot use to lower-risk mental health issues and emphasizing safety.

OpenAI has refuted legal claims that ChatGPT is at fault for a teenager’s recent suicide. Scrutiny of AI tools being used for emotional and therapeutic support will only intensify. Both general-purpose platforms and specialized healthcare AI tools should proactively take action to impose age restrictions, automatically end sessions at the first sign of emotional distress, and clearly direct users to mental health resources when appropriate.

OpenAI may build its own consumer health tools, such as a personal health assistant or a product that aggregates users’ health data, per a Business Insider report. A range of healthcare and tech companies—from Verily to wearable makers like Oura and Fitbit—are developing AI-powered health coach and assistant tools. A comparable OpenAI product could immediately threaten existing solutions due to its massive scale, provided it gains access to patient data. However, makers of health-tracking devices and some digital health companies could also be strong partners for OpenAI in creating a product that combines advanced AI with user health data.

CVS Health’s Aetna is adding conversational generative AI (genAI) to its insurance website and mobile app. Aetna’s move highlights how insurers can use genAI to become more attractive to employer benefit packages.

EHR giant Epic is being sued by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who alleges the company blocks competition and restricts access to patient health data. The lawsuit adds to recent public and private sector signals that call for hospitals and patients to have better access to health data. While Paxton might have political motives outside of the health tech realm the lawsuit’s outcome could open the market to more Big Tech and digital health/AI players to create solutions that strengthen consumers’ and providers’ ability to access and share medical data across entities.

Due to the Trump administration's crackdown on direct-to-consumer (D2C) pharma advertising, drugmakers face a greater need to develop strong strategies to effectively reach the healthcare professionals (HCPs) who prescribe their treatments. Pharma marketers must use digital tools and channels, including social media and AI, to create credible engagement strategies that offset decreased consumer exposure to drug ads.

AI chatbots most often use health media sources like Mayo Clinic and Healthline in answering consumer health-related questions, according to an Outcomes Rocket study. There’s an opportunity for marketers to grow chatbot attention with quality content. Create credible and user-friendly content and avoid overly complex or jargony material to appeal to the way chatbots are constructing answers. Cater to the preference for recent data and summarized content by updating content frequently and offering condensed takes at the top of posts.

OpenAI detailed new ChatGPT mental health safety measure results on Monday, alongside an internal analysis that shows potentially millions of users’ conversations indicate emotional reliance on the chatbot. Marketers should educate parents of teens and young adults about safe AI use, and emphasize best practices like clinician collaboration, backup safety measures, and transparent data policies to build credibility and trust.

Health insurer Highmark Health will cover the cost of Noom’s weight management programs as part of plan members’ medical benefits starting next year. Digital health tools like Noom offer a solution to rising healthcare costs for insurers and employers, but they must boost member engagement to deliver ROI for customers. The companies should collaborate on targeted outreach—using AI and analytics to identify eligible members, promoting no-cost programs via text and email, and highlighting benefits through clear messaging, case studies, and testimonials.