Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a key buzzword in the pharmaceutical industry, with most, if not all, companies looking to incorporate the technology into their workflow across R&D, data management and commercial operations.
At the 2025 Veeva Commercial Summit, held at the Madrid Marriot Auditorium from 5-6 November, a central theme was not just the use of AI, but its comprehensive integration into day-to-day operations.
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This includes the emerging movement toward agentic AI, which is designed to perform tasks with minimal human intervention.
In conversation with Pharmaceutical Technology, Stefan Schmidt, digital capability lead of field engagement at Bayer, noted that, while agentic AI holds great promise, the company is not yet able to use it to execute administrative tasks.
To achieve this, Schmidt is looking to focus on augmented AI before employing next-generation agentic tools, as the latter requires full user trust, as well as confirmation that the technology is “doing the right thing and gathering suitable information when used autonomously”.
“I believe we should not try to achieve everything at once. Instead, we should follow this journey in steps – starting smaller with augmented and moving towards agentic with time,” Schmidt commented, adding that this could take Bayer as little as a couple of months.
In the commercial setting, Schmidt mentioned that Bayer has already created an AI-powered coaching agent internally. This tool is designed to be an interactive educational tool for the newly approved, non-hormonal menopause drug, Lynkuet (elinzanetant), and works by pulling information from proof documents so patients can ask specific questions about the drug.
Moving forward, the German pharma’s future vision for its AI capabilities centres around creating a “one-stop shop for the field rep,” which allows the user to execute all relevant tasks relating to customer relationship management (CRM). “This could include training, governance and expense topics; we want to create something that can really support our field users,” Schmidt stated.
Driving productivity with agentic AI
Schmidt’s sentiments on agentic AI were echoed by Veeva’s VP of European commercial strategy, Philipp Luik, in a keynote session from the first day of the conference. This follows Veeva’s recent bid to integrate the technology into its core offerings. During the talk, Luik noted that the “deep embedding” of AI is necessary for its long-term success in the field.
“As you enter the next wave of AI, the focus must change to achieve vertical percent productivity gains,” he commented.
In the session, Luik noted that the layering of AI is no longer enough, meaning the technology should now be comprehensively integrated into a company’s day-to-day activities, while “respecting the same compliance tools and access control”.
He also mentioned that AI technologies should be “future-proof”, meaning they are able to keep up with the “exponential” evolution of the space.
