As recently profiled in the New York Times, the rise of AI chatbots in healthcare is fundamentally changing how patients form opinions, interpret symptoms, and engage with treatment decisions. For pharmaceutical manufacturers, this creates a moving target: patient and physician perspectives are no longer shaped solely by real-world experience, but increasingly by interactions with AI. Traditional research methods, while still essential, can struggle to keep pace with this fluid and digitally influenced landscape.

This is where SAI’s new partner, Synthetic Users, offer a powerful new lens.

Synthetic Users—AI-generated personas trained on real-world data and behavioral patterns—provide a scalable, dynamic way to explore how AI-influenced stakeholders think and act. Unlike static survey respondents, Synthetic Users can simulate how a patient might interpret symptoms after consulting a chatbot, how they might arrive at a physician visit with pre-formed (and potentially flawed) assumptions, and how those assumptions evolve over time.

For clients, this unlocks several critical advantages.

First, it enables testing in an AI-influenced reality. Pharmaceutical companies can simulate how different types of patients—varying in demographics, conditions, and digital literacy—interact with AI tools and how that shapes their perceptions of diseases and treatments. This helps identify where misinformation may take hold, where educational gaps exist, and how messaging can be optimized before going to market.

Second, Synthetic Users allow for rapid iteration. Instead of relying solely on time-intensive primary research, clients can pressure-test hypotheses, messaging, and patient journeys in a controlled, repeatable environment. This is especially valuable in a landscape where AI-driven behaviors are evolving faster than traditional research cycles can track.

Third, when paired with primary physician intelligence, Synthetic Users help bridge the gap between patient perception and clinical reality. Insights derived from real physicians can be used to ground and validate simulated patient behaviors, ensuring outputs remain anchored in real-world care dynamics while still exploring future-facing scenarios.

As AI continues to shape the healthcare journey, pharmaceutical manufacturers need to anticipate not just current behaviors, but emerging ones. Synthetic simulations can model how increasing reliance on chatbots might influence adherence, treatment switching, or even demand for specific therapies.

At SAI and Fulcrum Research Group, we offer a differentiated approach: integrating real-world physician insight, rigorous market research, and advanced synthetic modeling. This allows clients to move beyond reactive insight generation and toward a more predictive, adaptive understanding of their markets.

In an era where AI is actively reshaping how stakeholders think, Synthetic Users provide a way to keep up—not just by observing change, but by simulating and understanding it before it fully unfolds.