AI life sciences adoption hampered by business processes, survey finds
Healthcare and life sciences organisations are struggling to integrate AI into existing business processes, with a new survey suggesting that poorly designed or legacy processes are undermining AI initiatives and creating concerns around cost, compliance and employee productivity.
The survey, commissioned by enterprise software company Camunda and conducted by Sapio Research, found that 66% of healthcare and life sciences organisations said process-related challenges had caused AI initiatives to fail, at an average reported cost of $1.59 million per organisation.
A further 71% said AI costs would increase unless they gained better control of their business processes, while 83% believed their AI investments would fail without greater investment in process redesign.
The findings come as organisations face a tension between introducing AI quickly and adapting the processes into which it is being integrated. Three quarters of respondents said adding AI to existing processes creates less internal resistance than redesigning them, while 82% estimated that adapting all their most important processes for AI would take up to five years.
According to Camunda, 59% of healthcare and life sciences organisations said business process redesign cannot keep pace with the speed at which they need to implement AI.
The survey also points to concerns around governance and compliance. Some 41% of organisations reported an AI-related compliance or governance issue during the previous 12 months, with respondents attributing 80% of these incidents to process-related issues.
Employees also expressed concerns about how AI is being incorporated into their work. While 89% of organisations said AI was making their teams more productive, only 55% of employees agreed.
Almost half (46%) of organisations said they had reduced their use of AI because it had negatively affected employees' ability to do their jobs. Among employees, 44% said they would consider changing jobs because of poorly implemented AI.
The survey found that 77% of employees had not been fully consulted about how AI would be used in their day-to-day work, while 68% said they could use AI more effectively if it were implemented differently. Some 43% said they had manually overridden AI outputs because the underlying process had not been configured correctly.
There were also indications that pressure to adopt AI can produce counterproductive behaviour: 39% of employees said they had used AI to artificially comply with an organisational AI mandate when they did not need to do so.
“Healthcare and life sciences organisations are rapidly adopting AI. But they are applying it to processes designed for a world before AI, then wondering why the return on investment falls short,” said Kurt Petersen, SVP customer success at Camunda.
The AI Process Gap report is based on two online surveys conducted by Sapio Research in the US, UK, Germany and France during July and August 2026. The healthcare and life sciences findings comprise responses from 114 senior IT, operations and transformation leaders involved in AI and automation strategy, and 846 employees whose day-to-day work has been affected by AI or automation. All respondents worked for organisations with at least 1,000 employees. Pic: MDC
Related Content
Future Chemistry Hub: From bench to AI
Southampton University’s contribution to this year’s British Science Festival emphasises enjoyment and real-world experimentation to showcase how new developments are …
Chemical sector warns REACH registration will increase industry burden
The Alliance of Chemical Associations (ACA) has criticised the UK Government’s response to consultation on the UK REACH Alternative Transitional …
ACA’s REACH duplication warnings hint at lab testing and compliance burdens
The Alliance of Chemical Associations (ACA) has criticised the UK Government’s response to its consultation on the UK REACH Alternative …
