Redefining impact in medical communications: actionable insights from ISMPP 2026

We left ISMPP energized, with sharp thinking on how to support clients as the medical communications landscape evolves. Here are four themes that stood out.

1. AI is already reading your publications – treat AI as a primary audience

Medical publication experts are seeing a change in how healthcare professionals (HCPs) discover and consume scientific information. Increasingly, clinicians rely on AI-powered tools, including large language models, to find and synthesize evidence—often without independently validating the source material.

The implications for publication professionals are profound: AI must now be treated as a new kind of reader, interpreter, and gatekeeper of scientific evidence.

Strategic publication planning can no longer focus solely on journal selection, impact factors, and traditional dissemination. We must now design content for generative engine optimization, ensuring content is discoverable, retrievable, and accurately represented within AI-generated outputs.

Adding to the complexity, platforms like OpenEvidence® are accessible only to verified HCPs; sponsoring companies have limited or no visibility into how their data are being interpreted and synthesized by AI tools. To navigate this shift and ensure that evidence is discoverable and visible to AI, medical communicators must fundamentally rethink their strategic approach to publication planning.

| Medical communications has a new job: make evidence AI-visible

2. Impact now extends beyond publication

The question is no longer “Was it published?” but “Did it matter?” In a metric-driven industry, the question of how we measure the value of a publication has never been more important or more contested.

The reality is that a high-impact-factor publication that is never surfaced by an AI tool, cited in a clinical guideline, or read by the target HCP may have  limited real-world value. Conversely, a well-structured and strategically placed piece of evidence that shapes clinical practice—even if published in a lower-tier journal—may deliver outsized impact.

The conversation is shifting toward richer, more meaningful metrics: citation patterns, guideline inclusion, clinical practice influence, AI discoverability, HCP engagement and downstream patient outcomes all need to be considered as part of the full evidence journey.

Publication impact can no longer be assessed only at the point of publication. It must be evaluated across the entire pathway from evidence generation to clinical action.

3. Communication professionals should lead with the scientific narrative

As content volume grows and attention spans shrink, clarity and coherence are more important than ever before. A well-structured, strong narrative improves recall, understanding, and practical use of the data, while an audience-first approach ensures content meets HCPs where they are in their decision-making journey.

An audience-first mindset ensures content aligns with how HCPs engage with information, while consistent messaging across channels, including AI-driven environments, prevents fragmentation. The scientific narrative should be viewed as the connective tissue that holds an entire medical communications strategy together.

4. Not everything can, or should be, published

Publication guidelines still leave room for interpretation, particularly beyond clinical trials. At the same time, repeated resubmissions carry real costs—draining resources and risking misalignment with evolving strategy.

Setting clear boundaries early is essential. For example, defining a submission limit can balance persistence with practicality, while upfront alignment with authors prevents downstream challenges.

When traditional routes are no longer viable, alternative pathways—such as registries or brief reports—can still support transparency. And when sponsorship changes, structured handovers ensure continuity and clarity of responsibility for the authors if they pursue another submission.

What’s next for medical communications professionals?

The role of medical communications professionals is evolving, but is now more critical than ever. AI is transforming how content is created, how evidence is discovered, and how scientific communications are planned and executed. The role of the publication professional today looks fundamentally different from what it was five, let alone ten, years ago. And yet, the consensus at ISMPP 2026 was clear: the human expertise at the heart of this profession is not being replaced, it is being elevated.

Strategic publication planning, ethical oversight, narrative integrity, and the ability to ensure that science reaches the right audiences with accuracy and trust are not capabilities that AI can replicate. As AI takes on more of the executional and operational tasks, publication professionals can focus on the work that matters most: thinking strategically, acting ethically, and ensuring that the science behind life-changing therapies reaches the clinicians and patients who need it.

The industry still has significant upskilling to do, but the direction of travel is clear, and the profession is rising to meet it.

The conversations happening across the medical communications community are sharper, more sophisticated, and more strategically important than ever before. Because science only matters when it reaches those who need it most, when they need it most. In the age of AI discoverability, making that happen is both more challenging and more important than ever.