How Agentic AI Could Reshape Consumer Health, With IQVIA’s Volker Spitzer

In the latest episode of HBW Insight's Over the Counter podcast, Volker Spitzer, vice-president, global R&D/RWE services at IQVIA Consumer Health, returns to examine the implications of agentic AI for the consumer health industry – a topic he and colleagues explore in a recently published white paper. Unlike the large language models now familiar to most consumers, agentic AI operates with persistent memory, cross-platform autonomy, and the ability to act on a user's behalf over time, functioning less like a search tool and more like a continuous personal health advisor. In the first of this two-part conversation, we discuss important questions, such as: Can AI systems can yet be trusted to guide health decisions reliably? What is the role of the pharmacist in this evolution of health information technology? Is the existing product-focused regulatory framework equipped to govern a technology that operates as a dynamic, personalized recommendation engine rather than a fixed promotional claim? Part two – published in two weeks’ time on HBW Insight – will address the commercial implications, including what the rise of agentic AI means for marketing strategy, industry readiness, and brand risk.