The AI Prescription: Rewriting Medico: Marketing for a New Era – Brand Management

The AI Prescription: Rewriting Medico-Marketing for a New Era – Brand Management

Preamble: The AI Prescription

The field of medico-marketing is undergoing a profound transformation. As we step into a new era, the traditional playbook is being rewritten by the power of artificial intelligence. This essay explores how Gen AI models are serving as a new “prescription,” enabling marketers to craft patient-centric narratives with unprecedented speed and precision, fundamentally changing how health information is communicated.

The other day, just before commencing to write this chapter of my book, I asked ChatGPT:

“Can you create a pithy and sharp tagline for a new branded butter? The butter has a rich, creamy flavor. It is soft, yet firm at room temperature.  Please give me three options”. 

ChatGPT replied,

1. Indulge in Elegance: Unveil the Richness, Embrace the Creaminess.
2. Whisked to Perfection: Where Soft Meets Firm in Every Bite.
3. Butter Bliss: Elevate Your Taste, Embrace the Creamy Sophistication.

Unimpressed with the initial suggestions, I politely requested three more options from ChatGPT. Thankfully, they delivered!

1. Smooth Decadence, Unyielding Quality: Taste the Refined Essence
2. Velvet Luxury Unleashed: Soft, Firm, and Rich Beyond Compare.
3. Creamy Symphony: Softly Unveiling the Art of Flavorful Elegance

I was frustrated. So, I decided to change my copywriter and asked the same question to Bing.  Here are the options. I repeated the same questions.

Pat came the reply: “Sure, I can help you with that! Here are three tagline options for your new branded butter”. And it came with an explanation.

• Indulge in the richness of our butter – This tagline emphasizes the rich and creamy flavor of your butter, inviting customers to indulge in its luxurious taste.
• Soft, yet firm – just like our butter – This tagline highlights the unique texture of your butter, which is soft and spreadable yet firm enough to hold its shape at room temperature.
• Experience the buttery bliss – This tagline is a playful and catchy way to describe the delicious taste of your butter. It’s short, sweet, and memorable.

These were definitely better, but I still asked for more options. Sure, here are three more tagline options for your new branded butter.

1. Spread the love with our butter – This tagline emphasizes the idea of sharing and spreading love, which is a great way to market your product.
2. The perfect butter for every occasion – This tagline highlights the versatility of your butter, which can be used in a variety of dishes and recipes.
3. Experience the richness of our butter” – This tagline is similar to the first one I suggested, but with a slightly different emphasis. It still emphasizes the rich and creamy flavor of your butter, but with a focus on the experience of enjoying it.

I hope these additional taglines help you find the perfect way to market your new butter brand. Let me know if you need any more help.

The options from Bing (now Copilot) were certainly better but once again I changed my copywriter and appointed Claude.

Claude gave me these options with an explanation. 

Here are three sharp taglines for your butter:

“Butter perfected.”

“Rich. Soft. Right.”

“Cream of the crop.”

Each plays on different strengths – the first suggests you’ve achieved the ideal butter, the second captures the key attributes in a punchy rhythm, and the third uses a classic phrase that works literally (cream) and figuratively (excellence) while suggesting premium quality.

Oh no! I told Claude: “Not very happy. Please make it emotional and give a human touch”.  And in flat 0.3 seconds came the response.

Here are three more emotionally resonant taglines with human warmth:

“Made for moments that matter.”

“The butter your grandmother would choose.”

“Spread love, not just butter.”

These connect to the emotional side of food – the first ties to special occasions and memories, the second evokes trust and family tradition, and the third plays on the idea that good food is an act of care for the people we feed.

But were these anywhere near the tagline created by Sylvester D’cunha in 1966 for Amul Butter?

“utterly butterly delicious”

The Wonders of Generative AI

Generative AI (Gen AI) is a type of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that can create new content like text, images, music, audio, and videos. 

Gen AI uses machine learning techniques like deep learning and neural networks to create content that resembles human-created output. These algorithms discern from pre-existing data patterns, trends, and relationships within the training data to generate coherent and meaningful content. This ground-breaking technology will reshape pharma advertising. It can unlock novel possibilities for creativity, personalization, and efficiency. And personalization can help you to improve padocumer relationships, which in turn can help you generate more prescriptions, thus making your brand healthier.

If you don’t know your padocumer’s, you can’t give them what they want. Personalization shows that you can understand your padocumer’s and what they need to solve their problems. Personalization helps you gain insights into their preferences and intent through data, so you can offer them tailored experiences.

Gen AI can create educational materials such as brochures, pamphlets, or guides that convey important medical information in a clear and accessible manner. It can develop advertising copy for both online and offline platforms.

Gen AI can address pain points of the padocumer’s and highlight key benefits in a persuasive language to encourage your target audience to take the desired action. You can use it to create blog posts and medico-marketing promotional material to that highlight the latest medical research, breakthroughs, or trends. You can summarize complex medical information in an easy-to-understand and compelling manner which both your internal customers and external customers will love. 

The Flipside of Generative AI

But Gen AI is not magic. While Gen AI can be a powerful tool for creating medico-marketing promotional material, there are several potential downsides and ethical considerations you need to consider.

The first is accuracy and reliability. Gen AI models are trained on vast amounts of data, but they may not always produce accurate or reliable information. There’s a risk of generating content that is factually incorrect, misleading, especially in medical contexts where accuracy is crucial.

Gen AI may not generate the right sentiments and emotions. Gen AI lacks the nuanced understanding and insight that you and I possess. It may not be able to capture the context, empathy, or emotional intelligence required in sensitive medico-marketing communications. Besides, you are aware that medico-marketing often involves building relationships and trust with doctors and patients. Over-reliance on AI-generated content may result in a loss of the personal touch that human-created content can provide.

Then you may have ethical and medico-legal issues. Copying content generated by Gen AI without proper verification or through oversight, may lead to ethical concerns. It’s important to ensure that the generated content conforms to copyright laws of your country. You have to be sure you do not promote misinformation or unverified claims inadvertently.

And what about image creation?

I asked Bing AI Creator to have a photograph of mine, Vivek Hattangadi, when I joined Carter-Wallace as a medical representative in 1974 at Ahmedabad. Here are the four best outcomes.

What are your thoughts on this? Would you use these or such generated photographs for your medico-marketing promotional material?

Do you remember Robinson Crusoe and his ‘Man Friday’? ‘Man Friday’ is Crusoe’s subordinate and always refers to Crusoe as “master”. He is a human companion.  It was more or less the colonial master-servant relationship between them. 

This is exactly the relations you as a brand manager must have with Gen AI. Use Gen AI as your servant or as a slave and not as you master.

Is there a difference between the free version of ChatGPT and the subscription version ChatGPT Plus?

This question always bothered me. Do I need to subscribe it? I wanted an honest answer. And who can give an honest but ChatGPT itself, Microsoft Bing, Google Bard, and student of mine Yuvraj Patil who is an actual user of the subscription model, to get an answer!

ChatGPT is an AI-powered chatbot that can answer questions and generate creative content. There are two versions of ChatGPT: 3.5 (Free) and Plus (Subscription based). The Free version is available to anyone, but it has some limitations and drawbacks. The Plus version requires a monthly subscription fee, but it offers more features and benefits.

Here are some of the main differences between the two versions:

• Access: The Free version may have delayed or restricted access during peak hours, while the Plus version has instant and unlimited access at any time.
• Response time: The Free version may have slow or inconsistent response time, while the Plus version has fast and smooth response time.
• Customization: The Free version has limited customization options, such as changing the chatbot’s name, color scheme, and language, while the Plus version has advanced customization options, such as changing the chatbot’s avatar, conversation style, and personalized greetings
• Upgrades and New Features: The Free version may have delayed access to new features and upgrades, while the Plus version has priority access to new features and upgrades.
• Customer Support: The Free version has basic support via email and FAQs, while the Plus version has advanced customer support, including personalized consultations with technical support specialists.
• Information Lag: As of January 14, 2024, the free version of ChatGPT 3.5 still relies on data trained up to January 2022. However, ChatGPT Plus boasts a groundbreaking feature: the ability to directly access and integrate current, authoritative information from the internet, complete with source links. This removes the prior limitation of pre-2022 data and allows ChatGPT Plus to stay consistently informed. Sources like Google Bard, MS Bing, MSN, Forbes, Inc., BBC, and more are all within its reach.

Based on these differences, the ChatGPT Plus version is information is updated, more reliable than the ChatGPT Free version, as it provides more consistent, high-quality, and personalized service. However, the choice between the two versions depends on your needs and budget. If you are looking for the best possible experience with ChatGPT, the Plus version is the way to go.

And this is the line from ChatGPT I liked the most!

“However, the choice between the two versions depends on your needs and budget. If you are on a budget or just want to try out the platform before committing to a paid subscription, the Free version is a great option.”

Benefits of ChatGPT Plus

• Priority access during high-traffic periods: Fewer interruptions even when demand is high.
• Access to higher GPT-5 limits: Use OpenAI’s most advanced model, capable of understanding text, images, and audio.
• Access to GPT-4o: Continue using OpenAI’s previous flagship model.
• Faster response speeds: Enjoy quicker replies in conversations.
• Expanded features: Voice conversations, image generation, file uploads and analysis, which means you may even upload files from shop audit data (like Pharmarack or IQVIA), prescription audit data (like CMarc or SMSRC), internal MIS and do a comprehensive data analysis

In a surprising turn of events, just 18 days after the launch of first edition of the book “The Ailments in Medico-marketing Copywriting: The Rx” on February 8th, 2024, Google unveiled an advanced language model called Gemini. This development necessitated a revision of the first edition.

From Bard to Gemini: A Leap in AI Capability

This is straight from the horse’s mouth – Gemini. 😊 Bard is now Gemini. But this isn’t just a cosmetic update. Gemini represents a significant evolution in AI technology, offering a range of advantages and benefits over its predecessor.

Here’s a deeper dive into why Gemini stands out:

1. Broader and Richer Dataset:

Bard primarily relied on text-based data for training. Gemini, however, takes a giant leap forward by incorporating a much larger and more diverse dataset. This includes:

• Text: News articles, books, code, webpages, and more – in multiple languages – provide a vast foundation of knowledge.
• Images and Audio: By processing visual and auditory information, Gemini gains a richer understanding of the world and the relationships between concepts. Imagine it “seeing” a picture and understanding the emotions it conveys, or “hearing” the tone of a voice message.

This comprehensive training allows Gemini to grasp complex topics, cultural nuances, and subtle emotional cues within language, leading to more insightful and relevant responses.

2. Advanced Neural Network Architecture:

While Bard relied on simpler recurrent neural networks, Gemini leverages more sophisticated architectures like transformers. These networks excel at analyzing the connections between words within a sentence and across larger stretches of text. This allows for:

• Deeper Contextual Understanding: Gemini can not only grasp individual words but also understand the relationships between them, the flow of ideas, and the overall sentiment of a passage.
• Nuance and Inference: The ability to analyze subtle variations in language allows Gemini to pick up on implied meanings, sarcasm, and other nuances that might have escaped Bard.

3. Enhanced Real-World Integration:

Bard primarily operated in a self-contained world. Gemini bridges the gap by integrating with Google Search in real-time. This means it can:

• Access Up-to-Date Information: Gemini factors in the latest search results when responding to your queries, ensuring the information it provides is current and relevant.
• Tailor Responses to Your Needs: Based on your search history and current context, Gemini can personalize its responses to better suit your specific interests and requirements.

Imagine asking Gemini about a current event. It can not only give you a summary but also incorporate the latest news articles and analysis from reputable sources.

4. Tackling Complex Tasks:

Bard was primarily designed for conversational interaction. While Gemini excels at that as well, it unlocks the potential for more intricate tasks:

• In-Depth Research: Need to delve deep into a specific topic? Gemini can analyze vast amounts of information, identify relevant sources, and synthesize key points to provide a comprehensive overview.
• Creative Writing Projects: Stuck on a creative writing piece? Gemini can help brainstorm ideas, suggest different narrative structures, and even generate creative text formats like poems or scripts.

5. A More Natural and Engaging Experience:

By combining its advanced language processing capabilities with a richer understanding of context and emotions, Gemini fosters more natural and engaging interactions. It can:

• Respond with Appropriate Tone: Whether you’re asking a serious question or making a light-hearted joke, Gemini can adjust its tone accordingly, creating a more human-like conversation.
• Generate Compelling Content: When tasked with creative writing or summarizing information, Gemini can produce outputs that are not only factually accurate but also engaging and stylistically sound.

Gemini thus represents a significant step forward from Bard. Its broader training data, advanced architecture, and real-world integration make it a more powerful and versatile tool. Whether you’re looking for insightful answers, help with complex tasks, or simply a more engaging conversation partner, Gemini offers a superior AI experience.

And this brings us to another interesting aspect you ought to know, In fact every pharma brand manager needs to know!

Prompt Engineering / Prompt Writing

What is prompt engineering? / Prompt Writing

It is the skill of designing and creating effective prompts that guide ChatGPT or any platform of Gen AI to produce the best possible output for your task. It is also the art of crafting powerful and forceful prompts to extract the desired output from AI language models. By understanding the intricacies of AI behavior and using best practices, you can unlock the full potential of ChatGPT for various use cases, such as generating code, writing marketing copies, composing emails, and more.

Can leveraging prompt engineering in Gen AI models fully eliminate the need for human intervention?

Prompt engineering cannot totally eliminate the need for human intervention, for at least four reasons.

First, neither ChatGPT nor any other models of Gen AI are a perfect model; it may generate inaccurate, irrelevant, or harmful outputs that require human verification and correction.

Second, ChatGPT and other models of Gen AI  do not have any inherent goals or values; it responds to the prompts given by the user, which may not align with the user’s intentions or expectations.

Third, ChatGPT and other models of Gen AI is not a creative agent; it can generate novel and diverse outputs, but it cannot invent new concepts or domains that are beyond its training data.

Fourth, the prompts have to be given by humans using human intelligence. ChatGPT Plus “cannot think”. It is a machine learning model. While it is a powerful and versatile language model, it doesn’t “think” in the way humans do. Instead, it processes and generates text based on patterns it learned from diverse and extensive training data.

ChatGPT and other models of Gen AI are Generative AI model that can produce natural language texts on almost any topic, given a few words or sentences as input. However, ChatGPT is not a mind reader, and it needs clear and specific instructions to understand what you want it to do. That’s where prompt engineering comes in.

Why should you care about prompt engineering? Because prompt engineering can make a huge difference in your experience with ChatGPT and other Gen AI models. With prompt engineering, you can:

• Achieve better results: Prompt engineering can help you get more accurate, relevant, coherent, and diverse outputs from ChatGPT. For example, if you want ChatGPT to write an article about the benefits of adopting rescue pets, you can provide a detailed prompt that specifies the word limit, the tone, the focus points, and the structure of the article.
• Save time and money: Prompt engineering can help you reduce the number of trials and errors you need to do to get a satisfactory output from ChatGPT. This can save you time and money, especially if you are using a paid service or API. For example, if you want ChatGPT to generate a table of 10 suggestions to improve a text, you can use a sequence prompt that provides ChatGPT with options and examples.
• Explore new possibilities: Prompt engineering can help you discover new ways to use ChatGPT for various tasks and domains. You can use prompt engineering to create your own applications, such as question-answering systems, conversational AI agents, sentiment analysis tools, and more. You can also use prompt engineering to learn from ChatGPT itself by asking it for tips and tricks.

How can you learn prompt engineering?

There are many resources available online that can help you master this skill. You can start by reading some guides and tutorials on prompt engineering for ChatGPT or taking some courses and certifications on this topic. You can also learn by trying out different prompts on ChatGPT playgrounds comparing the outputs, and tweaking the parameters until you get what you want.

Look at both – the delightful wonders of Gen AI and also its downsides. It is essential to carefully review and edit the generated content to ensure accuracy, compliance with regulations, and alignment with your brand messaging. Additionally, keep in mind the ethical considerations associated with AI-generated content, especially in sensitive industries like healthcare.

To leverage Gen AI responsibly in medico-marketing, it’s crucial to supplement AI-generated content with human oversight, verification, and adherence to ethical and regulatory standards. Combining the strengths of AI with human expertise can help mitigate these challenges and ensure the creation of high-quality, accurate, and ethical promotional material.

Here are some links from where you can learn prompt engineering either free or at modest fees.

1. A Guide to Prompt Engineering · GitHub

• Free Tutorial – ChatGPT Prompt Engineering ( Free Course ) | Udemy

• What is prompt engineering? | McKinsey

• https://skills.yourlearning.ibm.com/activity/PLAN-7913EE1DB030

• Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT | Coursera

Before you invest heavily on learning prompt engineering, think twice or thrice. I remember this quote, my favorite: “Anyone with $10 worth of knowledge is currently trying to resell their techniques for $100”.

By using the correct prompts in ChatGPT Plus, you can conduct a Comprehensive Data Analysis (CDA) of your brand. Simply feed in prescription audit data, shop audit data, internal MIS data, and data generated during fieldwork. With the right prompts, you’ll have analytics ready for your interpretation or for modifying interpretations generated by ChatGPT Plus. This feature is not available in the free version.

Agentic AI

What Does “Agentic” Mean?

The term “agentic” comes from “agency,” a concept rooted in philosophy and psychology. An agentic being is one that can:

• Act with intention or purpose
• Make autonomous decisions
• Adapt to changing environments
• Learn from feedback and past experiences

In contrast to static or rule-bound systems, agentic systems exhibit initiative, contextual understanding, and goal pursuit.

AI’s leap from helping to doing is here – Agentic AI. Agentic AI is stepping out of the passive role and into the driver’s seat, designed to autonomously plan, execute, and adapt to make autonomous decisions based on its environment and carryout tasks within its operational scope. This potential for proactive, goal-oriented problem-solving holds immense promise for tackling intricate challenges across various domains. Here’s what you need to know.

How does IBM define Agentic AI?

Agentic AI refers to artificial intelligence systems that mimic these traits. Agentic AI can accomplish a specific goal with limited supervision. It consists of AI agents—machine learning models that mimic human decision-making to solve problems in real time. In a multiagent system, each agent performs a specific subtask required to reach the goal and their efforts are coordinated through AI orchestration.

Unlike traditional AI models, which operate within predefined constraints and require human intervention, agentic AI exhibits autonomy, goal-driven behavior and adaptability. The term “agentic” refers to these models’ agency, or, their capacity to act independently and purposefully.

Agentic AI builds on generative AI (gen AI) techniques by using large language models (LLMs) to function in dynamic environments. While generative models focus on creating content based on learned patterns, agentic AI extends this capability by applying generative outputs toward specific goals. A generative AI model like OpenAI’s ChatGPT might produce text, images or code, but an agentic AI system can use that generated content to complete complex tasks autonomously by calling external tools. Agents can, for example, not only tell you the best time to climb Mt. Everest given your work schedule, it can also book you a flight and a hotel.

Think of it like giving an AI a task (“organize a meeting”) and it figures out the details—checking calendars, sending invites, and following up—without you telling it each small step.

In short: Agentic AI doesn’t just respond; it acts.

Here’s a simple everyday-life example

Imagine you tell a normal AI:
“I want to go on a trip to Jaipur.”
It will just give you information—like the best places to visit or some train timings.

But if you tell an agentic AI the same thing, it can actually:

• Check your free days in your calendar.
• Compare travel options (flight, train, bus).
• Book the tickets.
• Reserve a hotel.
• Even suggest a packing list!

So instead of only giving answers, it does the work for you.

How can you apply this idea in pharma brand management?

Here’s how Agentic AI could work in pharma brand management:

Suppose you tell the AI: “I want to increase prescriptions for my brand in Mumbai.”

A normal AI might just give you ideas—like run CMEs, meet KOLs, or improve digital campaigns.

But an agentic AI could actually:

• Analyze prescription data from Mumbai.
• Identify top doctors writing in your therapy area.
• Suggest the best engagement plan (like webinars, field visits, or digital reminders).
• Draft ready content for medical representatives to use.
• Track results and tell you what’s working or not.

It doesn’t stop at advice—it takes steps, learns, and improves.

Here is a short story with a young Group Brand Manager, Samikshya, from Ahmedabad.

She is in the CNS division of Canopus Pharmaceuticals, Ahmedabad, which is a top 5 company in India. She handles the brand Calmex, which is an anxiolytic.

Samikshya stared at the target on her laptop. “We need more prescriptions for Calmex in West Ahmedabad this quarter,” she told her team, feeling the familiar tug of worry and hope.

Instead of another meeting, Samikshya opened the agentic AI on her dashboard and typed one sentence: “Increase Calmex prescriptions in West Ahmedabad. Time: 12 weeks.”

The AI replied, briefly and clearly: “I will create a plan, execute key steps, and report weekly. Shall I proceed?” Samikshya clicked Go.

What happened next felt almost like teamwork with a very organized colleague!

First week — discovery

The AI quietly pulled together prescription data, clinic footfall, and retailer stock reports. It found three micro-areas where prescriptions were falling and flagged five doctors who had stopped writing Calmex. It also spotted that a rival had launched a small local promotion in two hospitals.

Second week — personalised actions

The AI scheduled the top-priority field visits for the medical reps, putting the highest-value doctors at the top of each rep’s route. It drafted short, evidence-backed talking points for each doctor — one-liners that matched their interests (Calmex as an adjuvant therapy with amlodipine and valsartan for cardiologist Dr. S. M. Rao, side-effect profile and tolerability studies for trend-setter Professor of Cardiology Dr. (Professor) Suryaprasad Mehta of V. S. Hospital and NHL Medical College).

It prepared a two-slide clinical meeting outline and booked a small evening session at V. S. Hospital and SAL Hospital.

Third week — outreach & follow-up

The AI created WhatsApp reminders for pharmacists, a one-page digital hand out for patients, and an email to hospital pharmacists explaining proper stocking levels. It even drafted a polite follow-up message for Medical Representatives to send after each doctor visit but making sure that permission was taken from these doctors for the WhatsApp messages.

On-going — learning and improving

Each week the AI tracked new prescription numbers and feedback from the Medical Representatives and the District Managers. When one message didn’t get adequate prescriptions, the AI adjusted — changing the talking point, shifting a Medical Representatives schedule, or suggesting a clinical meeting in V. S. Hospital and SAL Hospital instead of a dinner meeting

At eight weeks, Samikshya looked at the dashboard: a steady rise in prescriptions in the three suburbs of West Ahmedabad. Her team felt energized; the Medical Representatives loved the tailored routes and ready-made content. The small clinical meetings drew a crowd of engaged doctors. Most importantly, more patients were getting the medicine they needed.

Samikshya smiled. “It’s not magic,” she told her General Manager, “it’s focus — and a smart helper that actually does the work with us.”

The AI’s final weekly note was simple: “Goal on track. Next: scale to two more suburbs of Ahmedabad – Bopal and East Ahmedabad. Do you want me to proceed?”

Samikshya nodded. She felt lighter, bolder, and more confident that her brand Calmex — and her patients — were in good hands.

There are platforms in India (or usable from India) that support agentic-AI features, or are building toward them. Some are very mature, others are early stage. I’ll list a few, along with what they offer and what to watch out for, so you can decide which might work well for pharma brand management.

Indian / India-friendly Agentic AI / Autonomous Agent Platforms

Platform / Company		What They Do That’s Agentic / Autonomy / Useful		Useful For Pharma Brand Managers		Things to Check / Limitations
NewgenONE AI Agents		Low-code platform. Agents can access company data, make decisions, integrate workflows.		Good if you want to automate internal business processes, field rep workflows, customer/physician communication, etc. Helps quickly build custom agents without too heavy technical build.		Make sure data privacy, regulatory compliance (e.g. pharma rules), audit trails are supported. Also check how mature their “reasoning” and adaptiveness is.
Wipro Agentforce / AI Agent Solutions		They offer autonomous agents for healthcare / healthcare operations via “Agentforce” — reducing admin burden, improving CX, etc.		Useful to offload repetitive or logistic tasks—e.g. managing provider or patient queries, automating follow ups, operational tasks in pharma companies, etc.		Check how customizable they are; whether they support your local language(s), integrations with your existing systems; and costs.
LTIMindtree BlueVerse		An AI-native ecosystem with intelligent agents + modular architecture + “trust” built in. Means they are thinking of the agentic workflows in enterprise scale.		If you need agents that scale (for many users, many functions), and want an ecosystem that supports growth & governance, this is promising.		As always, check about compliance, data locality (where is data stored), how strong the agentic autonomy is (how many steps it can plan & act on) vs. just automating simple / predictable flows.
Gnani.ai	They have a tool “Inya” for building agents (voice, chat, SMS, etc.), with templates and connectors. They support local languages, voice etc.		Very useful if you want customer / physician engagement agents (voice / chat), especially in local languages. Could help with patient education, helplines, or simple field queries.		These might be more narrowly focused on communications rather than full operational/strategic agents. Also, how much control & learning/adaptiveness is embedded might vary. Also, cost & reliability matter.
Sarvam AI	They have voice-enabled, multilingual agents deployable over phone, WhatsApp etc. Also open-source language model work (Indic SLMs), which helps with local adaptation.		Good for customer-/patient-facing communication, multilingual support in India. If you want outreach, follow-ups, automated responses in local languages, this helps.		Probably less suited (out of box) for deep backend tasks or integrations unless you customize. Also check their compliance / audit capabilities.
Jeeva.ai	An agentic AI that automates top-of-funnel sales/marketing work, including lead discovery, objection handling etc.		If your brand team has a strong sales/marketing component, this could help automate tasks for field reps, or initial outreach, freeing them for more strategic engagement.		Might not cover deeper medical/clinical tasks. Also, may need customization for pharma content / regulatory-safe messaging.

What is Perplexity AI?

Perplexity AI is an advanced AI-powered answer engine that combines real-time information search and natural language understanding to deliver precise, citation-backed responses to any query. For greenhorn pharmaceutical brand managers in India, Perplexity AI offers tools and insights that significantly streamline research, competitor analysis, trend identification, and strategic decision-making, making their professional journey more efficient and data-driven.

Perplexity AI in details

Perplexity AI is a modern search and research tool that uses artificial intelligence to give you direct, concise answers to your questions. It’s different from traditional search engines like Google in a key way:

• Traditional Search: You type in a question, and Google gives you a list of links (websites, articles, etc.) that might have the answer. You then have to click on each link and find the information yourself.
• Perplexity AI: You ask a question, and Perplexity AI instantly reads and summarizes the information from various sources on the internet. It then presents you with a clear, easy-to-read answer. Crucially, it also provides citations and links to all the original sources, so you can verify the information and dig deeper if you need to.

Think of it as a super-fast research assistant that not only finds the information but also organizes it for you and tells you where it found it.

Perplexity AI is an intelligent platform that leverages AI to answer questions directly, pulling information from live sources for timely, well-cited, and reliable insights. Unlike standard search engines, it provides structured answers instead of just a list of links, ensuring users find accurate data more quickly and efficiently. Its core advantage is the contextual understanding of queries, allowing deep dives into domain-specific information, and constantly updating from the daily web. 

How Perplexity AI Helps New Pharmaceutical Brand Managers

Perplexity AI is a game-changer for early-career pharmaceutical brand managers in several key ways:

• Market Research and Competitive Analysis: New managers can rapidly analyze competitor brands, marketing messages, and promotional patterns without spending weeks on manual research. The platform can identify trends, content gaps, and successful strategies among pharmaceutical competitors in India.
• Content and Campaign Strategy: The AI assists in developing content calendars, crafting messaging tailored for target audiences, and suggesting content ideas based on what resonates in the pharma sector. It ensures messaging is aligned with consumer interests and regulatory requirements.
• Data-Driven Decision Support: Perplexity AI organizes complex market data and interprets sales or prescription reports, helping managers make informed decisions. It enables data-based product positioning, launches, and targeted communication plans.
• Consumer Insights and Trend Analysis: By scanning social media, news, consumer reviews, and professional forums, the tool uncovers emerging consumer and HCP (healthcare professional) preferences, pain points, and sentiment shifts—all vital for brand positioning in India’s dynamic pharma market.
• Workflow Automation and Reporting: Repetitive tasks like summarizing large regulatory documents or creating meeting reports are automated, freeing up managers for higher-value activities like stakeholder engagement and campaign innovation.
• Why Perplexity AI Is Ideal for the Indian Pharma Sector

Pharmaceutical marketing in India is fast-paced, highly regulated, and very competitive. Junior managers often struggle with the vast volume of information and the urgency to act on it. Perplexity AI reduces time pressure by:

• Offering localized or global health market intelligence.
• Delivering actionable, up-to-date insights with clear citations for use in internal presentations or stakeholder reports.
• Easy integration with existing research processes, making it convenient for professionals of all experience levels.
• In summary, Perplexity AI equips greenhorn pharmaceutical brand managers in India with real-time knowledge, automated research, and actionable insights—empowering strategic thinking and rapid, confident decision-making in a complex industry

The final take-away message: ChatGPT Plus or any other version of ChatGPT, MS Copilot, Google Gemini, Agentic AI or Perplexity AI cannot eliminate human beings. These are all tools for natural language understanding and generation based on patterns learned from data. It is a machine learning model of AI, and it does not have any autonomous or physical capabilities. It relies on human-defined objectives and constraints.

Do you recall the term introduced in the 1980’s when PCs were just at the infancy stage? GIGO – meaning “Garbage In and Garbage Out”. This continues in the Gen AI era. Humans through their original thinking and learning from various sources must give precise prompts. Or else Gen AI platforms may not give you the accuracy and preciseness you need. So, learning and mastering prompt engineering from the right resource, whether free or paid, is essential for pharma brand managers and sales managers.

Conclusion: Rewriting a New Era

It’s important to remember that AI systems like ChatGPT Plus, MS Copilot, Google Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek, Agentic AI or Perplexity AI are simply tools created and controlled by humans. They function within the limitations set by their developers and are designed to serve as aids or instruments for various tasks. Therefore, the responsible use of AI technology is a key consideration.

The AI prescription has been written, and its effects are already reshaping medico-marketing. We’ve moved beyond simple content creation with Gen AI models towards a future empowered by sophisticated tools like Agentic AI, which can autonomously research and draft. Platforms akin to Perplexity AI exemplify this evolution, providing marketers with instant, synthesized insights to create authoritative and compliant content.

Ultimately, this new era is not about replacing human expertise but augmenting it, ensuring medical communication remains precise, ethical, and, above all, impactful. The prescription for success is a collaborative one.

Information for this article sourced from:

1. https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/agentic:ai
2. https://mljourney.com/
3. https://www.singlegrain.com/marketing/5-powerful-perplexity-ai-marketing-applications-you-need-to-know/
4. https://www.adlift.com/in/blog/how-to-use-perplexity-ai/
5. https://www.wildnettechnologies.com/blogs/perplexity-ai-what-it-is-and-how-to-utilize-perplexity-ai-in-modern-business
6. https://digitaldefynd.com/IQ/perplexity-ai-business-case-studies/
7. https://www.perplexity.ai/finance/SMSPHARMA.NS
8. https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/careers
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10. https://www.perplexity.ai/finance/TAK
11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8JM3prvEf4
12. https://www.perplexity.ai/finance/LTRN
13. https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/agentic:ai