Sergey Shubnikov, Chief Information Officer of EGIS Company
Artificial intelligence is ceasing to be an experiment and becoming a standard in operations: from employees’ daily tasks to specialist training and support for key brands. President Vladimir Putin has instructed the government to approve a national plan for the implementation of AI technologies, including the healthcare sector, which sets the strategic direction for the industry’s development and heightens the relevance of our expertise right now.
Speaking about our company’s experience, we are building systematic expertise in AI, relying on secure infrastructure and practical use cases for real business.
Secure infrastructure as the foundation of expertise
The foundation of all our initiatives is a secure corporate platform based on OpenAI technologies, available to employees by default. Data here is processed and stored exclusively within a closed loop, which is critically important for the pharmaceutical environment with its strict regulatory requirements and leakage risks. The platform combines standard GPT capabilities, turning AI into a working tool for information analysis, material preparation, and decision support in marketing, medical affairs, and operational functions. This is the first step, providing all employees with equal access to technologies without security compromises.
Expanding tools for daily work
For key employees, access to AI is expanded through the CoPilot platform. This allows for deeper use of AI within familiar tools: working with documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and email with the support of generative models.
This means employees spend less time on routine tasks and more on analysis, strategy, and client interaction. AI transforms from a separate service into a built-in “digital assistant,” accelerating daily processes.
Agent-based chatbot with selective data access
The next step in developing expertise is creating an agent-based chatbot model with deep integration into corporate data. The bot will access selective information sources depending on the employee’s role, adhering to access restrictions and the principle of “the right knowledge for the right user.” Such a bot will be able to answer questions about procedures, regulations, and instructions. For employees, it is a single point of entry to the company’s knowledge base, operating through dialogue and considering the query context, not just a search bar.
Simulator for specialist training
One of the key areas of our AI expertise has become a training product — a tool for newcomers who need to practice communication skills, presentation, medical knowledge, and marketing strategy. This “Digital Doctor” simulates real communication situations, asks questions, reacts emotionally to arguments, and helps practice handling objections and delivering key messages. We plan to expand the product to cover all promoted drugs and physician profiles that our field team works with.
Digital medical advisor
An additional direction is the digital medical advisor profile, focused on deepening knowledge about products and clinical aspects. This is an environment where one can hone product understanding, work through complex clinical cases, and strengthen argumentation before taking a medical exam.
Such an advisor helps standardize and yet personalize training: each employee practices at their own pace, with feedback and the ability to revisit complex topics. For the company, it is a tool for enhancing medical literacy and the quality of interaction with the professional community.
All the listed initiatives are based on a common idea: AI is not just a “write a letter” service but a full-fledged “digital employee.” It can work with data, use tools, support communication, assist in learning, and see tasks through to completion. This creates a foundation for scaling AI solutions to new functions in the coming years.