As artificial intelligence continues to transform capabilities across drug discovery, clinical development, manufacturing, commercial operations, and life sciences, senior HR and workforce transformation leaders are facing new strategic challenges on how to redesign jobs, skills, and operating models for an AI-enabled future.
Generative AI is already reshaping the way life sciences organizations operate. McKinsey estimates that generative AI could create between $60 billion and $110 billion in annual economic value for the pharmaceutical and medical products industry, with impacts spanning research and early detection, clinical development, operations, commercial and medical affairs.
Deloitte also highlighted that AI and GenAI are beginning to revolutionize life sciences by accelerating clinical development, optimizing quality control, enhancing processes, managing AI-related risks, and supporting competitive advantage across industries.
However, the shift from AI experimentation to enterprise-wide implementation poses a new set of employee questions for life sciences organizations. As AI begins to enhance and automate tasks across the value chain, companies must determine which roles will change, which skills will become important, how leaders should lead AI-driven transformation, and how HR can support implementation in highly regulated and scientifically complex environments.
This is no longer just about technology. For life sciences companies, AI transformation is increasingly a workforce transformation challenge.
Accenture points out that the real value of generative AI in life sciences comes from reinventing workflows and processes across the value chain, end-to-end and at scale, rather than treating AI as a typical technology upgrade. McKinsey similarly emphasizes that to move from hype to measurable value, pharmaceutical companies need to learn how to scale generative AI to address industry-specific challenges.
For HR leaders, this raises important questions. How should organizations prepare leaders to lead AI-enabled change? How can global AI ambitions translate into local workforce behavior? As AI takes on analytical, administrative, and process-heavy tasks, which human skills will become more important? As AI changes traditional “learning by doing,” what will early career development look like? How should future teams of both agents be managed?
These questions will be at the heart of the discussion at the Designing the AI-Enabled Life Sciences Workforce Summit Europe, to be held in Basel, Switzerland, September 29-30, 2026.
The Summit is the first European-only forum built specifically for senior HR, talent, organization, workforce transformation and strategic workforce planning leaders in the life sciences sector. This event brings together CHROs and workforce transformation leaders from leading drug developers to explore how organizations can redesign jobs, skills, and operating models to deliver measurable business impact at scale.
Over two days, attendees will explore how to connect AI-powered technology transformation with strategic workforce planning, prepare leaders for AI-powered change, develop the most important human capabilities, rethink early career development, and make workforce planning more intelligent, practical, and easy to use.
Speakers include senior executives from organizations such as Roche, Sanofi, Novartis, Merck Group, Grifols, Servier, Pierre Fabre, Chiesi, Ibsen, GSK, Evotech, AstraZeneca, Biogen, Daiichi Sankyo Europe, and Lonza.
The summit comes as life sciences companies increasingly seek to understand how AI can help accelerate innovation while preserving scientific judgment, regulatory compliance, employee trust, and human performance. Accenture highlighted that AI-driven methods have already accelerated the discovery of more than 50 drug candidates and that generative AI is creating strategic opportunities across the biopharmaceutical value chain by consistently reinventing workflows end-to-end.
As AI adoption accelerates, employee leaders will play a critical role in determining whether life sciences organizations can translate technological expectations into sustainable organizational performance.
Take a closer look at the entire agenda here
source of information
- McKinsey & Company, Scaling gen AI in the Life Sciences Industry, January 10, 2025. Available at https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/life-sciences/our-insights/scaling-gen-ai-in-the-life-sciences-industry
- Accenture, Reinventing Life Sciences in the Age of Generative AI, August 30, 2024. Available at https://www.accenture.com/gb-en/insights/life-sciences/reinventing-life-sciences-age-generative-ai
- Deloitte Recognizes the Value of Artificial Intelligence in Life Sciences: A Critical Step to Harnessing the Potential of GenAI in Pharma. Available at: https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/Industries/life-sciences-health-care/articles/value-of-genai-in-pharma.html
