At Pfizer, our ambition is to be the most AI-forward company in our industry, and we are making great progress every day. I spend more time thinking about it than almost anything else because I believe this is an unprecedented opportunity. AI will fundamentally improve how we discover medicines, how we develop and manufacture them and how quickly we reach patients. Very few technologies can change every corner of a business in this way.

AI adoption is one thing — nearly every company has done it — but transformation is something else entirely. Few have been bold enough to meet this moment by tapping into the full power of this technology by changing everything from how they are organized to how decisions are made. Success in closing that gap will decide the new winners.

Many leaders invest too much effort in picking the technology platform. I think that’s misguided. Today's leading model already does far more than most companies ask of it, and rival platforms keep improving to claim the lead within months anyway. What holds companies back is inertia. This is an operational problem, and it’s the kind Pfizer knows how to solve.

First, we are structuring 177 years of data.

AI is only as good as the data behind it, and this is where Pfizer is hard to beat. We have been running experiments since 1849, across therapeutic areas, from the laboratory bench to some of the largest clinical trials ever run. Not all experiments succeed, but they are always valuable. In this business, failure is data, not a setback. A molecule that doesn’t work teaches a model as much as a successful one.

For nearly a decade we have been preparing our data so machines can learn from it. Anyone can license a model. No one else has our data. It is our alpha, and it compounds with every experiment we run.

Second, we are federating AI across the organization.

Companies can organize AI in two different ways. You can concentrate knowledge in a centralized team of experts, or you can push it out to the people doing the work.

I believe in empowering people closer to where the decisions are made. So, I chose a federated model. A colleague who runs an experiment or a production line knows that work better than any central team ever will. For us, the center provides core infrastructure like platforms, data, computing power and cloud, while our leaders across the enterprise own the accountability to change how their teams work.

This transformation has been underway for years, and today you can see it in every corner of the business. Our scientists run simulations that once took weeks in hours, and our clinical teams design studies and find the right patients faster than ever. Our factories predict variability before it happens, and our commercial teams bring the right information to physicians so they can match the right medicine to the right patient.

Our people at Pfizer are known for their fierce entrepreneurial and competitive spirit. I see remarkable ideas everywhere I look. This approach to AI is helping to push the limits of our individual work while, in turn, elevating the whole organization's ambition.

Third, we are investing in fluency.

Every major disruption in history has arrived with fear, and AI is no different. When we began, I saw it across the company. It’s a natural reaction to a technology people do not yet understand. As leaders, it’s our responsibility to ease that fear with understanding.

That is why we are investing in AI fluency. I use that word deliberately, because we should all understand this technology intuitively. In June, we launched an AI certification program tailored to every role and function worldwide across our company, including a course developed with Indiana University. This year, Pfizer will certify all eligible colleagues in foundational AI fluency, and 98% of them, including me, have now taken the first course. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we will all keep learning.

What fluency really teaches is a new mindset about productivity and decision-making. When a machine takes on the work a machine can do, our people gain time to do the things only they can do. We have scientists and colleagues with skill, creativity and judgment that no algorithm replaces. As one of my colleagues put it, "AI is a creative fuel, but we are still the drivers."

At Pfizer, we measure outcomes, not effort.

Demonstrations and benchmarks do not impress me. Results do. While AI has made our work more efficient and helped significantly compress timelines, no medicine designed primarily by AI has been approved for patients. We can't yet use AI exclusively to run in silico simulations to prove a medicine is safe, nor to cure a disease we do not yet understand. There is no greater test for AI in the real world than medicine.

I am optimistic. Within five years, I believe we will reach a different standard of care. In the decade beyond, we will entirely change what medicine can do. We will understand disease deeply enough to design the right molecule the first time. We will cut development timelines from years to months. And one day, a cancer diagnosis will mean a disease you can live with, and one we can eventually cure, rather than the fear it carries today. The opportunity is extraordinary.

No company is better positioned to make that future real. Our Chief Scientific Officer, Chris Boshoff, recently described where our R&D is heading: an AI-native organization where every molecule designed and every trial informs the next decision. That is the transformation underway at Pfizer, function by function.

We are a company filled with people who are fascinated by science and eager to learn about new technologies. But that’s not what’s driving our AI transformation. Our efforts are in service to our purpose, delivering breakthroughs that change patients' lives. I believe AI will help humanity in many ways, and none more impactful than how it will advance medicine. At Pfizer, we intend to lead the way.

Originally published on LinkedIn.