There’s a Growing Confidence Among Pharma for 2025-26 Budgets

Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly leveraging digital solutions to drive patient engagement while simultaneously preparing for a transformative shift powered by artificial intelligence (AI). As digital health adoption reaches new highs, pharma brand marketers, innovation leads, and patient access teams are examining where AI can create meaningful interventions and operational efficiencies.

Latest industry data reveals a growing confidence in AI for the 2025–2026 horizon, particularly for applications in workflow automation, personalized messaging, and real-time support.

Rising Expectations Around Patient Engagement in a Digital Era

Patients today demand more than just medications; they seek seamless, personalized experiences that mirror those found in consumer-driven industries.

For pharma companies, this has accelerated the development of digital solutions aimed at delivering information, encouragement, and support that extend beyond the prescription. In a landscape saturated by apps, chatbots, and digital health monitors, the onus is on pharma to demonstrate real value and relevance. Medisafe’s research indicates that digitally engaged patients are 62% more likely to adhere to treatment compared to those without digital support.

This underscores a critical opportunity for brand marketers and patient support teams to deploy timely, hyper-personalized interventions that encourage sustained medication adherence. Digital tools are no longer peripheral accessories; they are central pillars in patient treatment journeys.

Pharma innovation strategies now routinely include patient apps, digital therapeutics, and AI-driven assistants as integral components of launch plans. These tools provide opportunities to establish ongoing touchpoints with patients, gather real-world data, and deliver dynamic care pathways that evolve with individual patient behavior. In turn, these digital interactions help fine-tune messaging, ensure continuity of care, and reduce patient drop-offs in complex treatment programs.

Despite increasing digital sophistication, many patients still encounter fragmented experiences, with disjointed communication between healthcare providers, pharma programs, and digital interfaces. The next phase of digital engagement lies in unifying these touchpoints into a singular, intelligent experience—hyper-personalized and scalable through AI.

Pharma’s Evolving AI Strategies for 2025 and 2026

AI adoption within life sciences is at an inflection point. As of 2024, over 60% of pharma executives report some form of AI integration in either commercial or clinical divisions. However, plans and confidence levels for the 2025–2026 timelines show even more ambitious goals. According to recent surveys by Deloitte, over 80% of large pharmaceutical firms anticipate that AI will be a primary driver in patient engagement strategies within two years. These trends reflect a maturation in AI strategy, transitioning from experimentation to implementation. Pharma organizations foresee specific AI-driven transformations in the following ways:

• Automated patient outreach that adapts in real time to behavior and medication adherence patterns.
• AI-empowered field teams and call centers using predictive insights to triage patient needs effectively.
• Personalized content delivery based on stages of treatment, comorbidities, or emotional readiness.
• AI-driven dashboards for patient support teams to monitor intervention effectiveness and course-correct.

In parallel, AI is being piloted for critical internal applications—like accelerating content review through NLP (natural language processing) or reducing compliance bottlenecks. For innovation and brand teams, these efficiencies support faster product launches and more agile marketing campaigns. For patient access teams, AI is proving instrumental in overcoming formularies and reimbursement barriers via predictive affordability insights and preemptive enrollment nudges. The biggest hurdle is no longer about AI capability—it’s integration speed and establishing trust among both primary users and end patients.

Bridging Patient Support and AI-Powered Interventions

Patient support programs have evolved significantly in recent years, moving from call centers and brochures to multichannel experiences. With AI, pharma can bring scale, personalization, and proactivity to these programs like never before. Medisafe’s Just-in-Time-Intervention (JITI) AI, for instance, identifies emotional readiness markers and delivers interventions at the moment of maximum receptivity.

This redistribution of intelligence across engagement channels enables patient support teams to move from being reactive to predictive. For example, AI models can flag patients at risk of abandoning therapy even before they miss a dose.

This allows pharma to intervene with motivational reinforcement, financial assistance suggestions, or educational content in formats that align with individual learning preferences. Voice interfaces, too, are creating inclusive support structures for populations less comfortable with mobile apps or web interfaces, offering human-like conversational experiences via AI voice agents.

This is especially valuable in chronic conditions where long-term engagement is crucial but can suffer due to patient fatigue. The challenge for pharma is aligning patient engagement strategies with these technological shifts.

Siloed teams—brand, access, support—must collaborate to deliver coordinated, AI-supported journeys that not only respond to patient behavior but also influence it. AI alone won’t change the game; it’s the orchestration of content, timing, and channel that transforms outcomes.

From Digital Tools to Integrated AI Ecosystems

The future is not about standalone apps or omnichannel campaigns—it’s about cohesive ecosystems where AI facilitates fluid, responsive journeys across multiple touchpoints.

For true transformation, pharma companies must shift from fragmented initiatives to holistic engagement systems where AI operates across the full spectrum of touchpoints: initiation, onboarding, adherence, and retention. In this integrated model, AI drives personalization not just by mining patient data, but by learning from each interaction. It enables the same precision seen in R&D innovation to be replicated in patient-facing efforts.

This includes real-time optimization of outreach sequences, adherence risk stratification, and even emotional sentiment detection – dynamically personalizing the experience at scale. Medisafe’s model highlights that AI-enhanced support doesn’t have to come at the expense of a human touch. Instead, AI augments human capabilities, allowing support teams to intervene where needed and automate when possible, creating effective use of resources and higher patient satisfaction.

Innovation and brand teams that think ecosystem-first are better positioned to create sustained value—not only in patient outcomes but also in brand loyalty, formulary traction, and better data collection for real-world evidence generation.

Conclusion

As digital adoption in healthcare continues to accelerate, pharma marketers and innovation leaders face a pivotal moment: how to harness the full power of AI to enhance patient engagement meaningfully.

The convergence of patient needs, technological capability, and organizational readiness is culminating in a new paradigm—one where intelligent engagement is real-time, adaptive, and hyper-personalized. Strategies for 2025 and 2026 must reflect this shift. Whether through AI-driven apps, voice interfaces, or dynamic content engines, the goal remains constant: delivering sustained support that improves outcomes and reduces friction.

Companies that prioritize cross-functional alignment and invest in AI ecosystems rather than fragmented tools will lead the next wave of patient engagement innovation.

More from Medisafe:

• Get a call from Medisafe’s AI Voice Agent: https://www.medisafevia.com
• More on Medisafe’s Just-in-Time-Intervention AI Solutions: https://www.medisafe.com/jiti
• See all Medisafe Solutions: https://www.medisafe.com/solutions