What Hasn’t Changed About Great CI, And What Has

Strategic decisions in pharma haven’t changed. But the tools that support them have.

From pipeline prioritisation to launch sequencing, investment cases to in-licensing moves, the fundamentals of strategic decision-making in pharma are still driven by the same core needs: robust evidence, clear interpretation, and confident action. What’s changed is the volume of information, the speed of the landscape, and the tools at our disposal – AI being the most headline-grabbing among them.

But AI is a means, not the mission. As pharma leaders across commercial, R&D and BD recently told us, good CI today looks a lot like it always has: it’s still about helping teams ask better questions, focus on what matters, and act faster, with clarity and conviction. It’s just that now, there’s a lot more noise to cut through.

Filtering Signal from Noise in the Age of Info Overload

Pharma has always generated vast amounts of information – from clinical trials and earnings calls to congresses and market access filings. CI’s job has always been to filter, prioritise, and make sense of the information, helping teams navigate complexity and make decisions.

What’s changed is the sheer volume. Several executives called the level of noise in some therapeutic areas “incredible” and rising fast. AI helps manage that volume – automating alerts, scanning structured databases, flagging keywords. But it doesn’t make sense of it. “You still need a person,” one CI lead said. “AI can’t read nuance, context, or internal dynamics”.

AI Accelerates the ‘What’, But Can’t Deliver the ‘So What’

AI can pull together public information quickly – but it doesn’t generate new insights. As one respondent put it: “AI can only tell you what’s in the public domain. Primary CI still has huge value, because it’s based on what isn’t”. What AI provides today is consolidation, not interpretation.

The ‘so what’ – and the ‘now what’ – still come from expert judgment, disease-area context, and a real understanding of what’s at stake.

External Partners Bring Bandwidth, Balance and a Broader View

As pharma restructures and streamlines, all functions are getting leaner. But complexity is rising. Teams are being asked to do more – with less. “Every time complexity increases, pharma increases its spend with agencies,” one experienced leader noted. “Eventually they realise: we don’t just need tools – we need help”. External partners offer scale, technical depth, and the flexibility to ramp up when needed. They help lean teams absorb volume and keep strategic work moving.

Importantly, external partners challenge the ‘group think’ and the ‘misplaced confidence’ of internal teams, not allowing the echo chamber of internal bias to takeover, they are neither emotionally attached to the asset or overly optimistic of its potential, instead they bring in external evidence, external perspective and critically, external opinion, as one Big Pharma leader said, “We wear rose-tinted glasses… external perspective helps leaders reflect on what we should be doing differently”

Good partners don’t just challenge – they contribute. They ask the hard questions internal teams may not.

The Best CI Doesn’t Just Inform – It Aligns

One of the clearest reasons to bring in external CI support? They’re not just advisors. They’re facilitators of alignment.

Whether it’s competitor simulations, scenario planning, or pipeline workshops, external partners bring stakeholders together around insight-driven action. Unlike more traditional strategy consultancies that often default to off-the-shelf frameworks, CI agencies build tailored, insight-driven engagements rooted in the competitive landscape, stakeholder dynamics, and specific business challenges. Their solutions are shaped by context, not templates.

As one portfolio lead put it: “A CI agency is often better suited than a strategy consultancy. They already know the context, they know the stakeholders, and they can build the right briefing pack”. That context matters. In high-stakes settings – such as scenario planning, war games, or launch simulations, it’s the ability to ground discussion in relevant, actionable, competitor-specific insight that drives alignment. The best CI agencies don’t just bring the data, they bring the debate.

Conclusion: The Tools Have Changed. The Mission Hasn’t.

Pharma decision-making is still about clarity, confidence, and competitive edge. Great CI enables that by turning complexity into focus – and insight into action. Today, that requires both technology and trusted partners.

AI is part of the toolkit. But it’s strategic CI – often co-created with expert external teams – that makes the difference between just knowing something and doing something about it.