Pharma is embracing GPT-5, shifting AI from chatbot to enterprise agent as it accelerates productivity amid regulatory challenges.
Large pharmaceutical and biotech companies have spent the last couple of years running specific pilots involving artificial intelligence (AI). Learnings from these forays have formed a basis for AI readiness and a guide for industry to weave generative AI into enterprise strategies. Even regulators have been experimenting with AI to offset staff shortages and maintain productivity.
This summer’s release of the next generation of OpenAI’s unified AI model may bend that curve even further. GPT-5 brings advanced reasoning abilities, fast responses, and a real-time router for deciding how best to answer queries. The release raises a critical question: Will it fundamentally alter the course of biopharma’s AI journey, or simply accelerate it?
A step change in capabilities
Unlike earlier models, GPT-5 brings greater accuracy, advanced reasoning abilities, and a unified architecture that adapts in real time to task complexity. Its “router” feature directs queries between rapid and deep reasoning modes, giving end users high-quality responses without technical overhead.
Life sciences companies are already experimenting with GPT-5 at scale. Amgen has reported improved reliability and scientific accuracy, while Moderna has gone further, deploying ChatGPT-based tools not just among data scientists but company-wide across legal, manufacturing, and marketing. This represents a true democratization of this technology and a new operating model: every function empowered with AI.
Indeed, three technical improvements make GPT-5 especially relevant for biopharma:
- Reduced hallucinations (1.6% vs. 12.9% for GPT-4o), making outputs more trustworthy.
- Enhanced reasoning (88.4% on GPQA graduate-level science), enabling advanced scientific and commercial decision support.
- Expanded research assistance, from evaluating compounds to querying patent databases.
Far more than a writing assistant, these advances propel GPT-5 into the role of research collaborator.
From assistants to agents
Meanwhile, another major shift that’s been underway, and one which may be impacted by OpenAI’s release, has been the move from conversational chatbots to autonomous agents. GPT-5 can execute tasks end-to-end: building applications, generating regulatory briefings, or scheduling workflows.
To wit: OpenAI reports that coding and agent-building use cases have doubled since GPT-5’s launch, with reasoning-heavy workloads growing eightfold. For pharma, this evolution matters because enterprise AI value depends on scale. A chatbot can save hours; an agent can reengineer business processes.
Commercial operations, whether involving such tasks as drafting sales content and medical inquiry responses or optimizing call plans, stands to gain from AI as a task executor, not just a conversational partner.
Enterprise strategy: acceleration or redirection?
So, does GPT-5 change the enterprise AI roadmap? The answer is nuanced.
- Acceleration: GPT-5’s reliability and agentic capabilities will likely give executives confidence to expand pilots into enterprise-wide deployments faster. Its unified architecture also reduces the burden of maintaining multiple specialized models, lowering the barrier to scaling.
- Redirection: Companies that once treated genAI as a collection of point tools must now consider governance at the enterprise level, defining data access, compliance, and risk management strategies that match the model’s broader footprint.
- No detour: For organizations already committed to a genAI strategy, GPT-5 is less a detour than a turbo boost. The fundamentals, from change management and data strategy to compliance oversight, remain unchanged.
Regulatory and privacy minefields
One caveat familiar to industry leaders is regulation. The FDA’s 2025 draft guidance proposes a risk-based framework for AI in drug development, and the agency has already reviewed more than 500 AI-related submissions. GPT-5 could help life sciences companies compile filings, monitor competitors, and generate draft patents.
But the very scale of enterprise adoption raises new risks. With GPT-5 integrated across functions, the potential for inadvertent sharing of sensitive patient data or proprietary IP is amplified, what one might call “the mother of all privacy violations.” Companies will need robust guardrails, like encrypted environments, restricted data flows, and human-in-the-loop oversight.
At the same time, regulators themselves are turning to AI. If agencies use GPT-5-like systems to triage submissions or accelerate reviews, pharma may see faster approval timelines, provided both sides establish mutual trust in AI-enabled processes. This regulatory adoption could normalize AI’s role and encourage industry-wide confidence.
Practical applications with oversight
Despite its risks, GPT-5 is a practical tool across operations: generating SOPs, training modules, lab scripts, and responses to medical inquiries. For commercial leaders, it offers a way to multiply productivity without expanding headcount. For IT leaders, it underscores the importance of governance, including prompt audits, workflow redesign, and compliance monitoring.
With GPT-5’s greater autonomy and sensitivity to structure, effective prompting now means starting simple, providing clear constraints, and continually iterating and refining to guide its deeper reasoning and adaptive behavior.
The most prudent path remains “trust but verify.” GPT-5 can be a catalyst for faster research, streamlined operations, and stronger decision-making, but only under rigorous oversight.
Conclusion
Pharma’s AI journey is well underway, and GPT-5 is unlikely to derail existing enterprise strategies. Instead, it accelerates them, pushing the industry toward company-wide adoption, agent-driven workflows, and new regulatory frontiers.
For leaders, the task now is not deciding whether to adopt AI, but how to govern it wisely. GPT-5 offers the promise of enterprise-wide productivity gains; the challenge is ensuring that promise is realized without compromising privacy, compliance, or patient safety.
About Nicole Ventrone
Nicole Ventrone, Partner at Beghou, has more than 20 years of experience in consulting and technology supporting the life sciences industry.
