Everyone Is Launching a Chatbot.
So, What Should Yours Actually Do?
Authors:
Miriam Schulze CEO of BAYOOMED
Valentina Mitrea Project Manager
Julia Schliesch Marketing Generalist at BAYOOMED
With our AI-powered first-level support, including our AI chatbot Mia, now officially live in multiple countries for over two months and handling more than 2500 requests, that often would have a support request, we have seen how conversational AI can already reduce workload and significantly improve user experience.
But first-level support is only the beginning.
Here are eight concrete and realistic ways AI chatbots can be used across MedTech, Pharma, Life Sciences, and Health Insurance based on real-world needs rather than buzzwords.
Patient-Focused Use Cases
1. Digital Health Companion and Therapy Support
We are seeing these use cases appear more and more frequently. Integrated directly into a digital health product, a chatbot can act as a companion that answers questions about specific disease areas, therapies, or treatment workflows. In addition, it can support therapy adherence by providing reminders, educational content, and contextual guidance between clinical visits.
Important: Depending on functionality and claims, this use case may qualify as Software as a Medical Device and must be assessed carefully from a regulatory perspective. It is essential that such chatbots are specifically designed and validated for use in healthcare. When these solutions are missing, users inevitably turn to general-purpose AI tools, which simply do not provide the necessary guardrails.
2. Product Website Assistant
This one is obvious and we have all seen it everywhere. On a MedTech, Pharma, or Life Science product website, a chatbot can answer questions around the clock. It helps visitors understand products, technologies, use cases, and next steps without having to search through complex content, instructions for use, or leaflets. This improves user experience and can also provide valuable insights into what customers are actually looking for.
3. Health Insurance App Guide
Within a German health insurance app, a chatbot can guide insured users through the application, explain benefits, support document submissions, and help users find relevant services. Acting as a conversational interface, it helps users access digital services without having to navigate complex menus or search for the right forms.
In practice, such a chatbot can guide users step by step through submitting invoices and reimbursement requests, including explaining which documents are required and how to upload them correctly. It can support users in requesting certificates, confirmations of insurance coverage, or replacement health cards, and explain the status of ongoing requests in an understandable way.
The chatbot can also help insured users better understand their benefits, for example by explaining which services are covered, how preventive programs work, or how bonus and reimbursement schemes are applied. In addition, it can guide users to relevant services such as finding contracted doctors or pharmacies, accessing digital health offerings, or understanding how electronic prescriptions and electronic patient records can be used within the app.
By acting as a digital concierge for these recurring and often confusing tasks, the chatbot reduces frustration, improves access to digital services, and significantly lowers the volume of incoming support requests, while at the same time increasing acceptance and usage of health insurance apps in everyday life.
4. Clinical Trial Participant Support
In clinical trials, chatbots can support participants throughout the study lifecycle by answering frequently asked questions related to eligibility, site visit schedules, and study expectations. They can explain study procedures in simple language, clarify what will happen at each visit, and provide timely reminders for upcoming appointments, assessments, or required activities.
In addition, chatbots can guide patients through digital trial processes, such as electronic consent, ePRO questionnaires or symptom diaries, thus reducing errors and incomplete data entry. They also offer practical assistance in dealing with any medical devices or other devices such as sensors, wearables or drug delivery systems – including setup, correct use and basic troubleshooting within the approved framework.
In addition, chatbots can guide participants through digital trial processes such as electronic consent, electronic patient-reported outcome questionnaires, or symptom diaries, helping to reduce errors and incomplete data entries. They can also provide practical guidance on the use of study devices, such as sensors, wearables, or drug delivery systems, including setup instructions, correct usage, and basic troubleshooting within the approved study scope.
By offering consistent, easily accessible support outside of study visits, chatbots improve the overall participant experience, increase adherence and retention, and enable scalable support for decentralized and hybrid trial designs.
5. Patient Onboarding Assistant and Multilingual First-Level Support at Scale
Our Mia Case: Chatbots can guide patients step by step through onboarding processes such as app setup, device connection, consent handling, and first use.
This ensures a smooth start, improves adherence from day one, and reduces the need for manual support during the most critical phase of adoption.
At the same time, chatbots enable consistent multilingual first-level support across regions without increasing support headcount. They provide standardized answers, ensure consistent quality, and can seamlessly hand over to human agents when needed. This is especially valuable for companies operating across multiple countries and markets.
Internal Process Support
6. Companion for Your Field Force
A chatbot can support field service engineers and technicians for medical devices directly in their daily work. It provides instant answers to commonly known questions and recurring issues related to devices, such as error codes, setup steps, maintenance procedures, or documentation references.
Based on our recent experience training field engineers on how to analyze communication with hospital information systems, we clearly see a strong need for easy, immediate support while engineers are on site at customer locations. This shortens response times, reduces unnecessary escalations, and helps keep devices running in the field.
7. Companion for Your Sales Team
For sales teams, speed and accuracy are critical. A chatbot can provide up-to-date product information, feature overviews, approved indications, technical specifications, and comparison insights on demand and in multiple languages. This ensures sales teams always work with the latest information and feel confident when interacting with customers.
8. Internal Regulatory and Quality Assistant
Internally, chatbots can support regulatory, quality, and compliance teams by answering questions based on approved SOPs, policies, and documentation. A chatbot also makes it easier for all employees to better understand processes and apply them to specific use cases – we tried it. It works. Instead of searching through multiple documents, teams can quickly clarify processes, responsibilities, or escalation paths, improving efficiency while staying compliant.
Conclusion
Chatbots are no longer just support tools. When designed and governed correctly, they become a strategic interface between users, products, and organizations scalable, efficient, and suitable for regulated environments.
Across all use cases, AI can also help go one step further by analyzing data, classifying information, and generating summaries, thereby reducing the manual effort required for repetitive tasks.
However, two things always remain essential: transparency towards the user and mandatory human oversight, as required by the EU AI Act, to ensure that AI systems can be understood, monitored, and overridden when necessary.