The Write Side Of AI: Helping Hands, Not Replacement Plans

By Jenny Minigh, inSeption Group

A quick review of the presentation agenda at the 2023 American Medical Writers Association annual conference left no doubt: medical writers want to know more about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the pharmaceutical industry and its effect on their future employment. The conference welcomed multiple vendors offering promising AI solutions to fulfill medical writing needs. While most of those solutions are not based on “true” AI systems (they are programming-related templates), they still promise to write a clinical study report first draft in a matter of hours—something that could take a trained medical writer weeks to complete.

Additionally, the conference was abuzz with news of several major pharmaceutical companies being leaps ahead with AI technology, having developed ring-fenced versions of their preferred AI systems to protect against confidentiality problems. Accordingly, many medical writers left the conference feeling anxious about their futures as a specific question lingered on their minds: Will AI replace me?

The short answer is: Not any time soon. As AI continues to offer new opportunities and capabilities across the medical writing profession, writers may experience a disruption to our traditional ways of doing things. Adapting to this rapidly changing landscape will require us to redefine our roles and responsibilities. And who better to lead this change than the writers themselves?