Article by Abigail Stuart, Elise Roche and Chris Peto at Day One Strategy.
Segmentation has always been a challenge in pharma. It’s one of those things that sounds great in theory but often falls short in practice. In today’s multichannel world, we’re hearing from more clients that their segmentation tools simply aren’t precise enough. The categories feel too broad. The insights become outdated quickly. The result? A struggle to deliver truly tailored, relevant marketing to healthcare professionals (HCPs).
Pharma teams invest significant time and money building HCP segmentation models, but these models inevitably lose relevance over time. Prescribers change their behaviours and brands progress through different lifecycle stages. And yet, the segmentation often remains static.
Marketing and sales teams are left working with blunt tools—broad segment labels that no longer reflect what an HCP really needs to hear, or how they feel about the brand today. This can lead to message fatigue, poor engagement, and missed opportunities.
So the real question becomes: How do you get closer to understanding what an HCP needs in the moment? To stand out, you need to be more precise—reaching the right HCP with the right message, at exactly the right time.
What if your segmentation could evolve?
What if we could keep segmentation alive? What if we could bring it to life through detailed personas that evolve as the market shifts?
This is where AI-enhanced personas come in.
What exactly is an AI HCP persona?
An AI HCP persona is more than just a static profile or description. It’s a dynamic, data-driven representation of a healthcare professional that can evolve over time. Unlike traditional personas that remain fixed once created, AI personas:
- Continuously update based on real-world behaviour, new data and market changes
- Can “simulate” how that particular type of HCP would likely respond to new information
- Help predict reactions to messaging, content, and market events
Think of an AI HCP persona as a living digital twin of your target physicians that helps you understand not just who they are today, but how they might think and behave tomorrow.
A real-world example
Imagine you’re launching a new biologic in dermatology. You segment HCPs into three types: Evidence-Led Evaluators, Patient-Centric Pragmatists, and Innovation Seekers. Great start.
Now meet Dr. Jane Ellis who fits squarely into the “Evidence-Led Evaluator” segment. Let’s see how her needs in relation to your brand change over time:
The solution is to keep your segments, but make your personas dynamic in response to brand uptake and changing market forces.
What about the typing tool?
Traditionally, reps use a typing tool to place HCPs into a segment. Like “Evidence-Led Evaluator.” Dr. Jane Ellis was likely typed this way early on, and that label stuck.
But as we’ve seen, her behaviour has evolved: cautious at launch, prescribing selectively at six months, weighing loyalty versus price at one year. Same segment, different mindset.
With dynamic AI personas, we don’t replace the typing tool, we enhance it. The core segment stays fixed, but the persona evolves.
Instead of asking reps to retype HCPs, AI updates the persona state in the background using CRM inputs, prescribing data, and rep feedback. Reps get alerts or content suggestions based on where that HCP is today, not where they were at launch.
How to build effective AI HCP personas
To bring this approach to life in your organisation, follow these practical steps:
1. Develop your HCP segmentation
You will need to start with the broad HCP segments and you’ve decided which segments are your priority for sales and marketing.
2. Define base personas aligned with your segments
Next create your baseline persona profiles for each segment that include professional background, practice setting, goals, prescribing behaviour, key motivators and barriers, emotional drivers, information and channel preferences.
3. Add the AI layer
Develop a framework that allows the personas to “learn” from new information, simulate responses, and evolve over time. This combines your healthcare knowledge with AI’s ability to detect patterns and predict behaviours.
4. Keep your personas alive
Once built, keep your AI personas alive by feeding them fresh data. Let’s go back to Dr. Jane Ellis. Initially cautious at launch, her AI persona can be updated with real-time data from CRM systems, recent prescribing trends, and field insights. If reps report she’s started prescribing off-guideline or reacting to competitor claims, then the persona profile should reflect this.
5. Simulate reactions & adapt content
Use the AI persona to ask: how would Dr. Ellis respond to a new dosing schedule? What would she say about an emerging safety concern? This helps refine your messaging before it hits the field. AI can create personalised content streams, rep materials, or digital assets aligned to her current mindset.
The practical benefit
The beauty is that you don’t need to redo your segmentation every year. Instead, AI makes it smarter. More tailored. More real. You empower teams to engage HCPs with the right message, at the right moment, in a way that truly resonates.
It’s also a powerful way to help country teams bring segmentation to life in their local markets. Different countries face different guidelines, access challenges, and prescribing behaviours. By adapting AI personas with local data and nuance, country teams can tailor engagement strategies while still working within a unified segmentation model. It’s a way to balance global consistency with local relevance—something every brand team needs.
Segments give you structure. Personas give you story. AI-driven dynamic personas give you both—with the power to keep them relevant.