What the EU’s New AI Regulations Mean for Pharma Media
The transparency guidelines, now in effect, represent a major opportunity to build trust.
As of the start of this week, the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act’s rules around transparency in AI-generated content are now enforceable.
The act has significant implications for marketers in pharma and beyond. Under the new code of practice, any providers or deployers of AI-generated content in the EU must clearly label that content as such, using markings visible to both humans and machines.
The rules apply to chatbots and conversational AI tools, as well as AI-generated text, images, videos and audio, including deepfakes and text that didn’t undergo human review or editorial control but pertains to matters of public interest.
AI-generated content published prior to the effective date of Aug. 2 has until December to comply with the new rules, while any content published from now on must already be in compliance. Companies that don’t abide by the code could face penalties of up to €15 million or 3% of their annual gross revenue.
According to the EU, the guidelines are meant to “foster trust and integrity in the information ecosystem,” enabling people to make more informed decisions and “calibrate their trust and reliance on AI and avoid misinformation or deception.”
solli’s Final Thoughts
The EU’s focus on improving trust amid the explosion of AI content and tools echoes the ongoing conversation in pharma media about improving HCP and patient trust—and the new rules could represent a powerful opportunity for brands to strengthen that trust.
One recent survey showed that, for many consumers, trust in a brand drops upon learning they use AI-generated content. Another suggested that more than half of consumers reduce their engagement with content as soon as they suspect it was created with AI.
At the core of these reports is a lack of trust in AI-generated content, which can feel inauthentic and artificial to many while being passed off as standard human-generated content. Pharma marketers can therefore score a major win in the trust arena by first ensuring that AI-generated content is actually relevant and resonant to human audiences and then being upfront about their AI use with those audiences.
Being completely transparent about the use of AI in pharma marketing materials could in turn do double-duty in boosting HCP and patient trust not only in brands’ content but also in brands themselves, with downstream effects including increases in engagement, treatment-seeking and medication adoption and adherence.
