AI Technologies in Pharma Marketing Chapter 2
Chapter 2
What’s with all the buzz around ChatGPT?
“You shall know a word by the company it keeps” - John Rupert Firth, 1957
What is ChatGPT
Defined by TechTarget, ChatGPT is a form of generative AI - a tool that lets users enter prompts to receive humanlike images, text or videos that are created by AI.
ChatGPT is similar to the automated chat services found on customer service websites, as people can ask it questions or request clarification to ChatGPT's replies. The GPT stands for "Generative Pre-trained Transformer," which refers to how ChatGPT processes requests and formulates responses. ChatGPT is trained with reinforcement learning through human feedback and reward models that rank the best responses. This feedback helps augment ChatGPT with machine learning to improve future responses.
How does ChatGPT work?
ChatGPT works through its Generative Pre-trained Transformer, which uses specialized algorithms to find patterns within data sequences. ChatGPT uses the GPT-3 language model, a neural network machine learning model, and the third generation of Generative Pre-trained Transformer. The transformer pulls from a significant amount of data to formulate a response.
What is ChatGPT’s impact on pharma marketing?
Let’s let ChatGPT answer this one. Here’s the question I posed to the system:
“What will ChatGPT’s impact be on Pharma Marketing?”
ChatGPT’s answer:
As a language model, ChatGPT can provide useful insights and recommendations for pharma marketing, which could ultimately have a positive impact on the industry. Here are some potential ways in which ChatGPT could impact pharma marketing:
Personalized marketing: ChatGPT can help pharmaceutical companies to personalize their marketing efforts by analyzing patient data and tailoring messages to individual patients based on their specific needs and preferences. This could help to improve patient engagement and ultimately lead to better health outcomes.
Improved customer service: ChatGPT can be used to develop chatbots and virtual assistants that can provide customers with instant answers to their questions about pharmaceutical products and services. This could help to improve customer satisfaction and reduce the burden on customer service teams.
Better targeting: ChatGPT can help pharma companies to identify potential customers and target them with relevant marketing messages. By analyzing data on customer behavior, demographics, and other factors, ChatGPT can help companies to better understand their target audience and create more effective marketing campaigns.
Compliance and ethics: ChatGPT can help pharma companies to ensure that their marketing campaigns comply with regulatory requirements and ethical standards. By analyzing marketing messages and ensuring that they are accurate and truthful, ChatGPT can help companies to avoid legal and reputational risks.
Overall, ChatGPT has the potential to revolutionize pharma marketing by enabling companies to personalize their marketing efforts, improve customer service, better target their audience, and ensure compliance and ethics. However, it is important to note that ChatGPT is just a tool, and its impact on pharma marketing will ultimately depend on how it is used by companies in the industry.
Is this really the case, though? I’ll break down this answer and the answer to the following question in a moment. But first!…
How does ChatGPT-generated content meet compliance standards?
Ok, that’s great, but how can we use ChatGPT and stay compliant? Again, let’s let ChatGPT answer this one. I asked the question:
“How can we ensure marketers that use ChatGPT for Pharma marketing stay compliant?”
ChatGPT’s response:
Ensuring compliance in pharma marketing is crucial for maintaining patient safety and trust in the industry. Here are some ways in which marketers can ensure that they stay compliant when using ChatGPT for pharma marketing:
Understand regulatory requirements: Marketers should be familiar with regulatory requirements in their specific region or country, including laws related to advertising, labeling, and promotion of pharmaceutical products. They should also be familiar with guidelines issued by regulatory bodies such as the FDA, EMA, or other relevant authorities.
Train ChatGPT on compliant content: ChatGPT should be trained on compliant content and messaging to ensure that it does not generate misleading or inaccurate information. Marketers should ensure that the training data used to develop ChatGPT is accurate, up-to-date, and reflects the latest regulatory guidance.
Monitor ChatGPT-generated content: Marketers should closely monitor content generated by ChatGPT to ensure that it is compliant with regulatory requirements. This may involve a manual review of generated content, as well as the use of automated tools to flag potentially non-compliant content.
Conduct regular compliance audits: Marketers should conduct regular compliance audits to ensure that their use of ChatGPT is compliant with regulatory requirements. Audits should cover not only the use of ChatGPT but also other marketing practices, such as website content, social media marketing, and email marketing.
Work with regulatory experts: Marketers should work with regulatory experts to ensure that their marketing practices are compliant with regulatory requirements. These experts can provide guidance on regulatory issues, review marketing materials, and help ensure that marketing campaigns are compliant.
By following these best practices, marketers can ensure that their use of ChatGPT in pharma marketing is compliant with regulatory requirements and ethical standards. This can help to protect patient safety and maintain trust in the industry.
Ok, now let’s break these answers down…
ChatGPT stated that it could be used for personalized marketing. This could be the case if an organization implemented a ChatGPT or similar LLM API in their marketing tech stack that automatically generates copy, say, for email campaigns. However, one could argue that there would have to be some form of QA with this, as at the time of writing this, there aren’t a whole lot of resources or documentation on extensions that automate ChatGPT’s content generation, but I anticipate this changing very soon.
ChatGPT also states that it can improve customer service. Like the example with Sophia, Novo's diabetes chatbot, this could really be a useful tool as it could continue to learn from inputs by users and enhance human-like responses. However, this would take extensive training on the correct type of content for the LLM to generate correct, safe, and useful information. There are potentially a lot more logistics that need to take place before an LLM like ChatGPT would be able to fully “automate” a chatbot system, especially in a medical-related space.
ChatGPT also went on to say that it can help marketers with better audience targeting by “analyzing data on customer behavior, demographics, etc.” But when I asked the LLM, “How exactly does ChatGPT analyze customer data?” ChatGPT responded with, “I apologize for any confusion caused. I want to clarify that as an AI language model, ChatGPT does not have direct access to customer data or the ability to analyze it on its own. The analysis of customer data typically occurs outside of the AI model, in conjunction with appropriate data processing and analysis tools.” This leads me to believe that the LLM doesn’t fully understand what it means when it says that “ChatGPT can do “XYZ” because a lot of the content it generates is an amalgamation of what other AI-integrated technologies do within a tech stack.
Compliance and ethics. ChatGPT states that it can help pharma companies to ensure that their marketing campaigns comply with regulatory requirements and ethical standards. However, when I posed the question to the system, “How exactly do you do that?” it responded with another list of things it states it can do, like conducting a content review to identify any language or claims that may be in violation of regulatory guidelines, etc. That said, it made sure to state that it's important to note that while ChatGPT can provide assistance, it should not be considered a substitute for legal or regulatory advice from professionals well-versed in the specific laws and regulations governing pharmaceutical marketing. It's always recommended for pharma companies to consult with legal experts or regulatory authorities to ensure compliance with local regulations and ethical guidelines.
So what does this all mean? Basically, you can ask ChatGPT things like “How can you help me with this,” or “What does your existence mean for XYZ industry?” ChatGPT will do exactly what it was made to do… provide you with an answer based on all the data it’s learned from. Those responses may, in some parts, be accurate. But expect a lot of other inaccuracies within those responses as well. A lot of groundwork and training of the LLM would be needed to provide more accurate assistance to pharma marketers. Even ChatGPT tells us, “Remember that while I strive to provide accurate and helpful information, it's always advisable to verify and validate any guidance received from external sources and consult legal or regulatory professionals for specific advice related to your pharmaceutical marketing campaigns.” With anything we do as pharma marketers, due diligence is required.