Why the most regulated sectors are becoming more experimental with events
As AI accelerates change and attention spans shrink, even the most tightly regulated industries are rethinking how they engage audiences, says Michael Wyrley-Birch, Strata president and group managing director, growth and strategy.
In tightly regulated industries like the legal and healthcare sectors, meaningful change can feel like steering a cruise ship.
Even a drastic change of course is slow, and there is a natural paranoia that a Titanic-scale disaster is on the horizon! In recent years, however, two big events have proven to be catalysts for embracing radical change: the pandemic and the rise of generative and agentic AI.
During the pandemic, particularly in healthcare, there was an immediate and urgent change from the accepted model of marketing and professional education initiatives. Gone overnight were the large scale conferences and face-to-face field work, replaced with a massive investment in omnichannel marketing strategies. Years later, both have been reinstated, but the mindset shift persists; globally, biopharma companies created 20 per cent more content in 2022 versus 2021.
Michael Wyrley-Birch, Strata president and group managing director, growth and strategy.
Michael Wyrley-Birch, Strata president and group managing director, growth and strategy.
" To cut through the noise, all industries will need to find more effective ways to consume and digest information. "
When we consider the rise of AI, the legal and healthcare sectors have been forced into a near Darwinian situation of adapt-or-perish. Legal faces intense competition as both established legal information providers and specialised AI startups compete to reduce the human effort involved in routine skilled tasks like document drafting and contract analysis, thereby drastically lowering costs.
In the pharmaceutical industry, the impact reaches across the entire drug discovery pipeline, with implications from finding promising drug compounds all the way to clinical trials, diagnosis and assessment of treatment outcomes. For all professionals, AI stands poised to accelerate the already overwhelming tide of digital content – in order to cut through the noise, all industries will need to find more effective ways to consume and digest information.
All of this to say, we are currently in a moment where questioning historical precedent is not just allowed; it is essential. Both the healthcare and legal sectors have, in a way, been given permission to innovate. So… what now?
The answer lies in getting ahead of disruption, and owning it. When the only certainty is uncertainty, those marketing teams with the courage to innovate and commit resources are those who will experience success. In particular, I believe that return on investment (ROI) will look very different in years to come.
According to Veeva, 77 per cent of field content created to engage healthcare professions is never or rarely used. Lawyers are routinely outsourcing work to AI agents, from processing contracts to leaning on AI generated summaries of large documents, meaning that their patience for reading and digesting materials is likely to wane.
Those who succeed in this new wave of the digital era are likely going to connect with fewer audience members, but the quality of those interactions will be better. Think smaller, campfire sessions at larger congresses, rather than large plenary sessions led by a single key opinion leader. Thought pieces with original opinions and researched projections, not newsletter-style email blasts.
Marketing professionals in tightly regulated industries are waking up to the fact that they are now captaining a speedboat, not an ocean-liner. The good news? This is an opportunity to get to their final destination with more speed and creative energy than ever before.
