For about 10 years at every advertising conference, someone would declare: “This is the year of mobile.” We would all nod, chuckle, and move on. Eventually, it stopped being a headline and just became reality, mobile transformed everything about how we connect with consumers.
AI feels similar. Right now, it’s the headline in every board deck, every conference, every budget meeting. And yes, some of the hype will take years to catch up to reality. But make no mistake: we are at the beginning of a structural change in how healthcare connects with patients, providers, and caregivers.
MIT’s recent “GenAI Divide” report put a spotlight on the challenge of implementing AI successfully. The study found: 95% of AI pilots at companies are failing. Not because the models are weak, but because most projects are bolted on to old workflows. Change can often be rejected by a company from the inside. The study also found that vendor-executed implementations are nearly twice as likely to succeed as in-house builds, a reminder that in moments of platform shifts, partnering with specialists is often the shortest path to advantage.
AI-Native Thinking
AI-native is starting with the assumption that AI isn’t an add-on but the foundation. Just as mobile reshaped media when companies stopped treating it as an extension of desktop, AI will only reshape healthcare marketing when we design around what it uniquely makes possible.
For BranchLab, it means training AI to predict the next step in a patient journey using non-health signals. It means building privacy frameworks that enable compliance at a national scale without slowing innovation. It means measuring success by real-world outcomes like new therapy starts or vaccination uptake.
A Positive Outlook for Healthcare
Unlike in other industries, success in healthcare AI isn’t just a business win, it’s a public health win. The 5% of pilots that scale aren’t building chatbots or flashy demos. They’re reducing operational drag, surfacing better insights, and creating earlier interventions. When those things compound, patients find therapies sooner, providers have clearer information, and health outcomes are improved.
That’s the real story here: AI will accelerate the connection between innovation and public health impact. And for once, it won’t take 10 years of “this is the year of AI” to feel the shift.
Where This Leaves Us
The gap between 95% and 5% won’t be closed by hype. It’ll be closed by how we build. Those who treat AI as a layer will get stuck in pilots. Those who think AI-native, and partner with companies innovating with AI at the core, will define the next decade of healthcare advertising.
It’s early, yes. But the trajectory is clear. AI won’t just be another tool in the stack. It will be the foundation of the stack itself. If we get this right, the payoff isn’t just efficiency or ROI, it’s better health outcomes, which at BranchLab, is the only metric that really matters.
— Michael Parkes
Co-Founder & President, BranchLab