Connect with Us
602 Park Point Drive, Suite 225, Golden, CO 80401 – +1 303.495.2073
© 2025 Medical Affairs Professional Society (MAPS). All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
Represented organizations are fairly equally distributed between segments divided at the 5B, 15B, and 30B USD revenue marks with medium/large companies (>~15B USD in revenue) accounting for ~47% of represented MA professionals. Most ambassadors sampled are in various levels of director roles with global remit.
This report summarizes results of the 2024 Medical Affairs Digital, Advanced Analytics and AI survey, reflecting 34 completed responses. This survey was fielded to inform a discussion at the 2024 MAPS Ambassador workshop on the current and future state of Digital, Advanced Analytics and AI in MA.
At present, MA teams continue to leverage traditional digital approaches while the maturity and use of more advanced tools remains low, especially across communication tools, regulatory activities, and evidence generation. More than half of respondents do not currently utilize automated chatbots for Health Care Professional (HCP) engagement and only half stated deploying social media for patient engagement and personalization support. Regulatory activities also have room for automation and digital transformation. More than half of MA organizations are not leveraging advanced tools for data privacy/ security and medical, legal, and regulatory review (MLR) automation. In the area of evidence generation and education, just ~10% of respondents use GenAI for medical evidence and education purposes. Furthermore, half of MA organizations do not use natural language processing (NLP) for literature review or big data for clinical trial interpretation. This current state represents a significant opportunity for MA to advance and modernize their organizations.
Medical teams continue to drive the use of more traditional tools (e.g., emails with HCPs, online medical education) within their own function, but they are also acting as driving forces for movement toward more advanced capabilities (e.g., GenAI for data analysis and scientific content creation). For regulatory capabilities (i.e., MLR automation, data privacy and security, overall regulatory intelligence), however, MA teams collaborate with other business units or 3rd parties.
Q1.2 For each digital channel and analytical capabilities you are leveraging, what is MA’s role?
Most MA respondents agree that Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) are the highest priority for their increased digital investment (~59% ranking KOLs as their number one priority). HCPs are number one or two priority for 74% of respondents. Patients and payers were also commonly prioritized as a top three priority stakeholder, and only ~15% of leaders would include patients’ advocacy groups in their top three interest groups for focused investment.
Q1.4 Please rank the following stakeholders to show who you plan to prioritize for increased digital investment (financially) over the next 1-2 years?
Similarly, at least 8 out of 10 Medical Leaders expect digital, advanced analytics, and AI to have a high impact on customer insights generation, Medical communication, and evidence generation. Leaders almost universally expect AI to have an impact on every MA area of work discussed. Scientific publications are expected to be the least impacted by digital and AI tools.
Q1.5 What areas of work in MA do you expect to be majorly impacted by digital/advanced analytics and AI?
Specifically with GenAI and Machine Learning (ML), MA Leaders foresee their three major objectives to be around driving more predictive insights (which approximately 1 in 3 of those surveyed rank as their #1 objective), faster evidence and content generation, and more efficient data analysis (each ranking in most leaders’ top three objectives).
Q1.6 What are your top three objectives for using GenAI/ML capabilities?
Beyond objectives, most Medical Leaders believe highest priority GenAI and ML use cases include data analysis and insights and scientific content generation. Nearly half of respondents also expect to use Gen AI/ML for real-time medical information. Only ~1 in 5 of those surveyed expect it to be used for compliance and regulatory support, or more personalized customer interactions.
Among MA organizations, there is a relatively high level of variation in whether and how teams measure the return on investment for their digital engagement activities. Overall, a low number of organizations measure ROI directly. For example, ~39% of leaders report measuring ROI on HCP engagement directly and an equal number indirectly. Only ~1 in 5 MA teams track ROI on medical education directly and almost half of respondents do not measure ROI on payer engagement at all.
Q1.8 How does your Medical Affairs organization measure the return on investment (ROI) for the following digital engagement activities?
Medical Leaders perceive multiple internal and external barriers limiting advancement of digital/ AI initiatives. More than 80% of respondents believe that the lack of internal capabilities and capacity within their MA organizations creates challenges for adoption and integration of digital capabilities. Furthermore, they recognize legal and regulatory challenges as a significant barrier to progressing these initiatives. Finally, they often believe that limited data quality and availability, and proper tooling availability limit the opportunity to implement and optimize these solutions. While these challenges can be daunting, there is no perceived lack of leadership endorsement, vendor capability, or stakeholder acceptance to slow efforts to overcome them.
Expanding on the concern about internal capabilities, Medical Leaders reported significant skill gaps among their organizations in AI and analytical literacy. Developing these competencies will be crucial for seizing digital opportunities. While many respondents have confidence in their scientific agility and RWD capabilities, they have some concerns about their organizations’ ability to address the shifting stakeholder landscape.
Q2.3 What are the biggest talent gap areas/upskilling needs in your MA organization?
After the survey, 32 MA professionals came together at the Ambassador Alliance session to discuss opportunities and barriers to drive impact through digital/AI, use-cases and implementation. Here are key takeaways from the discussion including supplemental perspective:
The Ambassadors expressed strong interest in a variety of use-cases and explored potential benefits:
Internal capabilities were broadly highlighted as a challenge that will need to be addressed through a range of support:
Pace of change/implementation: In deciding whether to pursue change incrementally or with large jumps, MA Leaders have a range of perspectives. Starting small allows MA teams to show return on quick wins which helps build support for bigger initiatives in addition to simply being easier to manage. However, some AI use-cases will result in inherently significant changes to the way people do their work. They will have to be acknowledged and implemented as such. In these cases, communication, coalition building, and change management will be particularly important.
Process changes are inherently challenging for organizations as they can be disruptive, and new technologies are apt to encounter skeptics. Overcoming these natural concerns and embracing
a changing path to success will be key to advancing digital/AI initiatives.
Special thanks to BCG for their collaboration on this Benchmark Report, and to the MAPS Ambassador Alliance.
The Ambassador Alliance is part of MAPS’ Industry Partnership Program. For more information, visit the Industry Partnership Program page or contact Maria with MAPS at [email protected].