AI Adoption: Hype vs. Reality
The Spring 2026 Technical Meeting examined a question increasingly confronting biopharma R&D technology leaders: after several years of intensive experimentation, where is AI creating durable value, and where does the promise still exceed the operational reality?
The program moved deliberately beyond demonstrations and pilot activity to examine what it takes to scale AI across R&D. Discussions addressed successful and failed use cases, data readiness, governance, organizational design, talent, operating models, value realization and the evolving role of IT and digital teams. The meeting also explored whether generative AI represents a truly exceptional technology shift or another major capability that organizations must absorb into existing scientific and technology environments.
Presentations, panels and showcases brought perspectives from member companies and invited experts on agentic AI, scientific content generation, portfolio and study operations, AI-ready data, compliance by design and the organizational conditions required for sustained adoption.
From company experience to shared priorities
The Business Meeting focused on structured peer exchange around the questions members were confronting inside their own R&D technology organizations.
Members worked in small groups to share company developments, raise current challenges and identify emerging “hot topics.” Each group selected a priority issue and a topic champion, then reconvened in plenary to compare themes across the Forum. Members subsequently reorganized around the priority topics they most wanted to explore in greater depth.
The resulting discussions were brought back to the full membership and used to help shape the direction of future PRISME Forum activity, including the theme-selection process for the next Technical Meeting.
The Business Meeting also included member updates, discussion of Forum activities, a keynote on AI in action at UCB, a session on turning PRISME Forum conversations into broader pre-competitive initiatives, and a workshop focused on making AI work in R&D workflows beyond pilots and productivity tools.
The Brussels discussions reflected a broader shift in the AI conversation across biopharma R&D: from whether individual tools can work to whether organizations are ready to operate AI at scale.
Questions around ownership, governance, data quality, workforce design, workflow integration and long-term value increasingly sit alongside the technology itself.
Selected signals and unresolved questions from the meeting are captured in the Spring 2026 PRISME Forum Field Notes.
Member materials
PRISME Forum members can access the full Spring 2026 meeting materials, including the program, presentations and other meeting resources, through the Member Portal.