The world’s biggest pharmaceutical company by revenue shed light on its AI strategy.
What’s new: Johnson & Johnson, after experimenting broadly with generative AI, settled on a short list of projects that aid in sales, drug development, supply-chain management, and internal communications. A company executive described the process and results to the venture-capital firm Greylock and The Wall Street Journal.
How it works: The 140-year-old medical company spent roughly a year experimenting with various AI applications throughout the company, according to Chief Information Officer Jim Swanson. A centralized governing board oversaw as many as 900 experiments. After finding that 10 percent to 15 percent of use cases drove about 80 percent of the value, the company shifted responsibility for AI projects to specific departments to focus on high-value applications. In the end, the criteria for choosing a project was threefold: (i) how readily it could be implemented, (ii) how useful it would be throughout the company, and (iii) how much it would benefit the business.
- A division that develops cancer treatments integrated a sales copilot into its customer relationship management system. The system supplies medically validated, legally reviewed information about products and information about particular customers. The application is being adapted for salespeople who sell hardware such as robotics and artificial hip joints.
- AI systems are accelerating drug development. One system helps design chemical processes, such as determining the optimal moment to add a compound that will turn a liquid into a solid. An image-analytics model helps identify compounds that are safe and effective.
- The company developed a system that monitors and predicts risks to supply chains, such as a fire that may affect supplier locations, materials, or products. The system provides early warnings that helps managers anticipate and mitigate disruptions.
- AI tools are helping to organize and execute clinical trials more efficiently. Models that identify patients who qualify for trials help ensure that trial populations are sufficiently diverse. A model that helps enroll patients in trials more than doubled enrollment in some cases.
- The Global Services department implemented a chatbot to answer employees’ questions about benefits, policies, and procedures and sends links to relevant documents.
- Separate organizations that oversee AI development and data management help keep projects moving forward, meet ethical standards, and scale appropriately. Meanwhile, employees undergo “digital boot camp” training (including a course in generative AI).
Behind the news: Generative AI is expected to bring in up to $110 billion in annual revenue across the pharmaceutical industry, according to McKinsey. The consultancy breaks down this number into the following categories, in order of their contribution to the total: commercial (AI for sales and marketing), research (AI for designing, screening, and manufacturing molecules), clinical (AI to facilitate trials), enterprise, operations, and medical (processing medical literature).
Why it matters: Johnson & Johnson’s experience offers a peek into AI development at a major legacy company in a key sector. The company has identified high-value opportunities in enterprise-wide operations, departmental priorities, and core products. It’s pursuing all three.
We’re thinking: Notably, this medical stalwart is building AI applications for human resources, sales, and supply-chain management. Similar opportunities exist at companies old and new, big and small, far and wide.