Medical affairs and MSL

ISCO-08 2262, 2131

Medical science liaison, Medical advisor, Medical manager, Therapeutic area medical lead, Medical director

AI exposure36%

Headcount need, in FTE

Exposure range

Your current headcount

FTE

Need in 203094 FTE-6 FTE (-6%)

Need in 203588 FTE-12 FTE (-12%)

How AI is used on these tasks today

Automation 31%Augmentation 69%

In AI conversations about this job's tasks: the AI does the task itself (automation) or helps the person do it (augmentation).Anthropic Economic Index, April and May 2026. Occupations: Medical Scientists, Except Epidemiologists, Pharmacists. AEI

1. Exposure 36%Average automation potential of the job's tasks. Range for this family: 24 to 50%.ILO occupations used: Pharmacists (33%), Biologists, Botanists, Zoologists and Related Professionals (40%). ILO data

2. Strategic ceiling 100%Your call: how much of this potential do you want to capture? Nobody can set it for you.

3. Adoption speed midpoint 2030

Inherits your company stance, adjustable for this family.

4. Conversion to headcount sensitive 35%Default 35%: Saved time is reinvested in expert interactions and evidence generation, as physicians and authorities expect more scientific depth from companies.

Target AI skills

level 1 to 4

Foundation

Use AI assistants every day

Frame and phrase a request

Check and challenge AI outputs

Protect data and respect the rules

Applied

Rethink one's process with AI

Analyse data with AI

Produce content with AI

Job skills

Growing in value

Critical appraisal of AI literature summaries
Scientific exchange with key opinion leaders
Designing real-world evidence studies
Structuring field medical insights

Losing value

Manual literature monitoring
Writing congress reports
Preparing training materials for sales teams
Formatting scientific slide decks

How the job will change

In medical affairs, a large share of time goes into literature monitoring, congress reports, slide decks and training for field teams. AI assistants now screen publications, summarise posters within hours of a congress and draft the first version of a scientific deck. Insights reported by MSLs after their visits can be tagged and grouped automatically, a task that was done by hand until now.

The core of the job stays human: discussing data with an expert who disagrees, judging what a subgroup analysis really shows, deciding which evidence gap justifies a study. A good MSL or medical advisor will read AI summaries with the same suspicion as a weak publication, and spend the time saved in front of experts and on real-world evidence projects.

2026-2027: AI literature monitoring and congress summaries become routine.
2028-2030: Field insights analysed continuously and shared with marketing and R&D.
2031+: Teams stable in size, more focused on evidence generation.

Watch out

An MSL with deep expertise in a therapeutic area takes years to develop and is poached at every competitor launch. The planning risk here is a shortage of profiles. See the seniority outlook below.

What if you hired fewer juniors?

Your 2036 seniors are the juniors you hire today.

Seniors available in 2036-5%2 FTE short

Gap above 5% from2036

Your seniority mix today

Juniors (0 to 3 yrs in the profession)25%Seniors (10+ yrs)30%

Mid-level (3 to 10 yrs in the profession, the remainder)45%

Cut in junior hiring -40%

For

Advanced settings

Juniors promoted each year25%Juniors leaving each year12%Senior gap filled by external hiring0%If every company makes the same bet, senior profiles will be scarce and expensive.

Seniority mix, % of today's headcount

Juniors25%Mid-level42%Seniors28%

2026 2036

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How the numbers are built

Every headcount figure combines four assumptions. Three come pre-filled from public research and job family defaults. The strategic ceiling is yours to set.

Public researchExposureAverage automation potential of the job's tasks, from the ILO's 2025 task-level scores.

Your decisionStrategic ceilingHow much of that potential you choose to capture. Your decision, not ours.

Your companyAdoption speedHow fast your company moves, set once for the whole company.

Job family defaultConversion to headcountHow much of the productivity gain becomes fewer people rather than more output.

Headcount effect

Seniority outlook

A flow model with three levels of experience in the profession. Promotion and exit rates are set so that today's mix stays stable when hiring does not change: any gap you see comes from the junior hiring cut alone.