Last week in Vienna, 250+ pharma people spent two days at NEXT CX & AI. My unofficial count: “agentic” was mentioned almost as often as “HCP”. Almost.

Reading everyone’s takeaways since, one thing stands out. Nobody is asking anymore whether AI works. Content in seconds, AI roleplay before the first call, next best action, agents starting to talk to agents. The technology is here.

The harder question is what we use it for. If HCPs still feel our engagement misses their needs, doing more of the same is not a strategy. AI on broken foundations just gets us to the wrong place sooner.

After Berlin I wrote that AI on its own is not a new model. Vienna made me think about what comes next.

In McKinsey’s terms, most of the industry is still in horizon one: using AI to do today’s work more efficiently. Some of us are well into horizon two, redesigning the work itself: who owns the customer across brands and functions, what we reward, and which activity metrics we finally stop tracking. Horizon three is a different game altogether: reimagining the value chain and even the business model, not just how we engage. Horizon two is where it gets uncomfortable. Horizon three is where it gets super interesting.

Funny enough, the more we talked about AI, the more it came down to people. And the people were the best part: meeting good old friends, industry peers and partners, and quite a few new faces.

I was honoured to be named Best Panelist, and I am grateful to the NEXT Pharma Summit team for two days of honest conversations.

Next stop: horizon three.

Source: McKinsey Quarterly, “From adoption to impact: Three horizons of AI transformation”, July 2026.