72% of US Pharma Companies Scale AI, But Only 24% Expect It to Improve Drug Success Rates

Pharmaceutical companies across the United States are widely adopting artificial intelligence for drug discovery. According to a Citi survey released Tuesday, 72% of respondents stated their organizations were scaling or had fully scaled AI use within research and development departments. Notably, no company in the survey reported having no plans to adopt the technology. Despite this widespread implementation, sentiment regarding the tangible benefits remains mixed. Only 24% of US pharma executives expect AI to deliver a significant improvement in the probability that new drugs will succeed. In contrast, 56% believe it will result only in a moderate uplift rather than a revolution. John Yung, head of Asia healthcare research at Citi, identified the primary risk as the failure to translate accelerated discovery into better drugs or higher success probabilities. He noted that human biology, clinical judgment, and execution will likely remain bottlenecks regardless of AI deployment levels.