Employers can support writers to reskill and upskill to work alongside AI and gain productivity benefits
Some of the workers who face the greatest impact from generative AI are the “explainers”: the medical writers and technical writers who provide documentation and instructions around advances in pharmaceuticals, life sciences, healthcare, technology, and computer science.
In fact, fully half of the hours worked by technical and medical writers today could be automated by Gen AI, SkyHive by Cornerstone researchers found. That could be a huge boon to employers, dramatically reducing the effort needed to document products for users.
So does that mean there will only be half as much work for medical and technical writers in the future? Not necessarily. If AI ends up drafting more documentation, there will still be a critical need for technical and medical writers, but the skills required for these writing roles will shift. Writers will need other skills to work alongside AI and gain productivity benefits. Human skills like project team management and task coordination will become more relevant.
Generative AI is still new, but companies are already using it to improve writing efficiency. Eli Lily, for example, is experimenting with GenAI to create in-house clinical reports that previously were written by staff writers. Other life science and pharma companies are updating authorship policies to account for using AI as a writing tool, and wrestling with the ethical implications.
While GenAI’s potential to change jobs is clear, the specific skills and tasks involved have been harder to pinpoint. SkyHive by Cornerstone, in an analysis developed with Accenture for a recent report from the AI Consortium, has mined our 40 TB of labor market data to understand what that change could mean.
The report’s Potential Transformation Scale rates jobs as low, medium, and high risk of transformation based on the tasks they involve, the skills they require, and how well Gen AI could perform those tasks.
Technical writers make complicated subjects understandable by preparing documentation, user manuals, online help systems, and other materials for technology and software products.
Medical writers do similar work in the pharmaceutical, life sciences, and healthcare industries. But medical writers also need to be familiar with regulatory procedures and other issues specific to healthcare. The audience may include medical professionals, either internally or externally; government regulators; or the general public.
Why these roles are at risk
The roles are at high risk of transformation because writing documentation is a task AI can do right now, based on summarizing technical documents. Other important skills, such as research, task coordination, and regulatory compliance are moderately affected by AI, according to SkyHive analysis.
AI-generated material will need human review. AI is still prone to errors and hallucinations, and still dependent on the quality of the datasets it is “trained” on. Legal, compliance, and safety questions mean that it is unlikely companies would send out medication guides or safety manuals for complex systems without a human editor.
The fact that human skills are so in demand for these roles shows how important collaborating with others can be. AI can’t interact with software developers or medical researchers and ask questions about how things work.
New skills will also be required for technical and medical writers. Prompt engineering, for example, will be essential to ensure Gen AI does its tasks correctly. AI ethics will be in demand to make sure systems are deployed responsibly. Automated testing and AI integration skills will also be needed.
The impact will differ by fields, and technical writers may be more impacted than medical writers. In postings for technical writer positions, documentation is the most requested skill by a significant amount (73.9 percent), followed by demonstrating responsibility (48.1 percent) and communication (43.5 percent).
For medical writers, by contrast, the skill most in demand is scientific research (74.5 percent), followed by communication (54.6 percent) and project team management (49.6 percent).
This puts a greater burden on both employees and employers to upskill and reskill to adapt to change. The AI Consortium, whose members have collectively pledged to skill and reskill more than 95 million people, included a list of potential training courses for technical writers.
Whatever technical changes are required, the mission of medical writers and technical writers remains the same: ensuring that the users of pharmaceuticals and complex technology have the information they need to use these products safely and efficiently. AI can’t do that by itself. But humans can do it better with AI, if they gain the right skills.
Are you a skills transformation leader in pharmaceuticals, life sciences, healthcare, or technology looking for ways to get ahead of the workforce implications of artificial intelligence? There are proven skills transformation models to follow. Request a demo for more information on how skills-based planning allows organizations to meet new challenges and strengthen the bottom line.
