Super Bowl ads have long been a cultural bellwether, and at this year’s big game, AI was a top trend with about 23% of commercials related to the technology.
Like any impactful innovation, AI has led to lots of handwringing, from concerns about the heavy environmental toll of AI data centers to the potential negative effects on children’s cognitive growth. For workers across industries, the threat of job losses also remains heavy.
As large corporations pursue greater efficiency and bottom-line growth, AI is replacing human workers at an astonishing clip. Amazon announced 16,000 layoffs last month after it already axed 14,000 jobs earlier in the year.
“As we roll out more generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote in June 2025.
Despite this worrying shift, biopharma will likely be spared from such losses for now.
“I wouldn't say that AI is necessarily replacing jobs one-for-one,” said Jae Yoo, executive director of EPM Scientific, a recruitment firm specializing in pharma, biotech and R&D hiring. “It's rehousing and reshaping the types of jobs that are now coming in.”
A recent poll of industry executives echoed that sentiment, with pharma’s C-suite leaders reporting that they don’t think AI will lead to major job losses.
“Rather than replacing jobs, AI creates new roles and elevates existing ones, making curiosity, creativity and critical thinking essential skills for the future,” according to Pfizer’s December announcement of its second annual AI Festival.
Reshaping the job landscape
Although biotech job losses have surged, last year’s spike hasn’t necessarily been linked to AI.
In fact, AI has added jobs at some Big Pharma companies. Eli Lilly announced it’s working with NVIDIA to build an “AI factory for drug discovery” that will create thousands of manufacturing and construction jobs, as well as jobs for engineers, scientists, operations personnel and lab technicians, NVIDIA said.
AI hiring is also top of mind for the life sciences industry, with more than half of surveyed biotech execs saying that AI experts are among the top three roles they need to fill in the coming years. The search for AI talent is especially critical as life sciences companies invest in and build more in-house AI teams.
“I'm seeing more in-house analytics buildouts versus in previous years where they would outsource a lot of these to vendors,” Yoo said. “Instead of using one person to oversee a vendor, they'll create that team internally.”
Pharma job titles are also being reshaped by AI, creating hybrid roles that merge several functions and capabilities, such as commercial analytics and market access.
“AI is allowing a lot of companies to transform some roles and make them more productive, versus hiring routine and repetitive rules-based positions,” Yoo said. “Our clients are asking us more for cross-functional skill sets than maybe a technical expert in just one area.”
Yoo pointed to one company that combined departments after adding AI capabilities, requiring employees to work more cross-functionally.
“You can call it restructuring, but there was not a single employee that was displaced,” he said.
Where AI skills are in demand
Drug discovery is the biggest area where life sciences companies will not only add AI functions but jobs as well, Yoo said.
“AI is allowing companies to discover therapies and drugs at a fraction of the cost that it took before, and a fraction of the resources. So there's a booming demand for AI and [machine learning] engineering talent, specifically in discovery,” he said.
Commercial analytics roles are also in high demand, with a need for workers who can analyze commercial data and real-world evidence.
“Any positions and departments that directly affect time-to-market and any type of regulatory success is going to remain in high demand,” he said. “That cross-functional piece, I think, is going to be really important.”
Whether AI will eventually lead to major job losses in pharma remains to be seen, but for now Yoo believes the industry’s broader focus beyond revenue will help it retain jobs that are being lost in other industries.
“At companies like Amazon or any tech company, there's more of a bottom line that you have to prioritize,” he said. “Whereas in pharma, you're prioritizing therapies, drugs and patients.”
