AI and Pharma SEO: The Age of Presence and Citations 

Executive Summary 

The “Big Engines” are evolving fast with AI and redefining search. In addition to traditional search, patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals are also using AI assistants, multimodal platforms, and digital ecosystems to find answers. These new behaviors are changing the search process and reshaping expectations for accuracy, speed, and trust in health information. 

This means immediate implications for the pharma sector. Citations in AI-powered results are now essential. If your brand is not included, you risk losing direct engagement with patients, caregivers, and HCPs. AI does not cite your brand, your audiences may never see you. Traditional rankings and impressions are still showing to be influential, but there’s much more to be gained for your brand through building exposure in generative platforms that synthesize answers, as agentic AI begins to act on users’ behalf. Your new approach should be to shift your mentality on optimizing for clicks to optimizing for presence and credibility in the sources AI relies on. 

Your strategy must account for three factors: 

1. AI-powered platforms are expanding search. Patients and HCPs are starting journeys in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other assistants. You need to ensure your brand is represented accurately across these environments by using LLM specific optimizations. 

2. Trust is the differentiator. Regulatory constraints make it harder for pharma to move quickly, but they also provide an advantage. Verified, balanced, and evidence-based content is more likely to be surfaced and cited by AI. 

3. Measurement must evolve. Rankings and traffic no longer capture full value. You need to track citations in AI outputs, sentiment, and referral quality across channels. 

Pharma SEO is now about credibility optimization as much as search optimization. Your brand must be prepared for a future where AI agents recommend therapies, manage adherence, and guide patient decisions. Brands that act now will shape the answers delivered to patients and HCPs tomorrow. 

The good news: the SEO experts at CMI can help your search presence in an AI-powered future. 

The Evolving Search Landscape 

Past 

Search has come a long way from depending on simple keywords to connect users with information. In fact, the original need for keywords was born out of a lack of sophistication in search technology. The first search engines were powered by simple algorithms that struggled with understanding intent and the human language. They needed humans to be concise with their queries to generate relevant results. This led to users needing to refine their searches multiple times to get the right answers.   

Present 

We’re currently in a stage in search where engines and assistants have a much better grasp of our language and the process has become much more conversational. Small keyword phrases have evolved into full sentences, and our comfort and trust in technology’s ability to understand intent has grown quickly. People feel more seen and connected to their devices, because the search experience they provide is much more accurate, adaptive and efficient. The technology understands context, urgency, and even how location requires a customized response to be acceptable. It’s a conversational function that provides quick results naturally and because it’s rewarding for users, it’s something that they turn to frequently. 

Future 

The future though, for AI and search, is much more automated as we step into the Agentic era. We’re starting to see this form, but the expectation will soon be that when we ask questions, whether through search engines, LLMs or digital assistants. These AI-powered platforms will provide information and act on our behalf to complete related tasks either to gather more information or even perform actions for us (ordering/purchasing/scheduling etc). 

A query once limited to “diabetes treatment” is now, “Which treatment fits my history, and can you refill my prescription for delivery tomorrow?” Search is becoming predictive and integrated into care. Search is expanding beyond desktop and mobile browsers into voice assistants, wearables, and connected health devices. 

In 2025, more than 20 percent of users reported starting health-related searches in AI assistants rather than Google (SearchEngineLand, 2025). Patients, HCPs and caregivers alike are getting fast, accurate, and personalized information from a variety of platforms and devices.  

To adapt, you need to ensure your content is surfaced and cited across these environments. Plan for AI systems that no longer act as intermediaries but as decision-makers. 

Pharma’s Unique Stakes in AI-Powered Search 

Pharma information carries unique risks, especially in the AI space. Although the technology is powerful, it’s not perfect. It unfortunately can cobble together pieces of content from multiple sources and create conclusions that aren’t fully accurate. Their responses are based off mathematical probabilities, not actual knowledge or consciousness, which in certain situations, can harm patients and your reputation. These discrepancies are called: AI Hallucinations.  

To prevent hallucinations from occurring, it’s important to monitor your digital presence and enrich it with authoritative, compliant content accessible and visible to AI. Also, keep in mind that your digital assets aren’t the only elements that are going to be the only pieces of content that influence AI responses. AI features review and index a number of sources, including other websites, social platforms and even video and images to generate response. It’s important to get a wider view of your brand, monitor your presence closely and create partnerships with other digital properties that feature consistent data and messaging in order to reduce the occurrence of hallucinations. 

• Trust and Accuracy: Incorrect outputs damage trust. Ensure a lot of evidence-based content is always available and published regularly. 

• Regulatory Constraints: FDA and EMA rules require balance and verifiable references. These rules position pharma brands as more credible compared to unverified sources. 

• Multi-Stakeholder Complexity: Patients want clarity, caregivers want practical guidance, and HCPs want clinical depth. You need to serve each group across search environments. 

Mock Table: Stakeholder Expectations 

Audience	What They Want	Example Queries in AI Search
Patients	Clear explanations, side effect FAQs, affordability options	“Is Drug X safe with my other medication?”
Caregivers	Practical guides, treatment support, community resources	“How can I help my father manage his new prescription?”
HCPs	Trial data, prescribing details, clinical comparisons	“Compare efficacy of Drug X vs Drug Y in recent trials”

Your opportunity is to be the source AI cites. Tailoring content for each audience and preparing it for AI citation ensures visibility where decisions begin. 

Meeting Audiences Where They Search 

Google is no longer the only place to compete for visibility. You need to adapt to broader environments. Over 60% of digital health users relied on an AI medical assistant for health insights and symptom assessment (docus.ai). There’s increasing potential for connections and referrals in a variety of different Large Language Model sources like ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Perplexity. This means that earning presence in those spaces could be substantial for driving success in the new AI powered search world. To lay the groundwork for this, it’s recommended to: 

• Expand Across Platforms: Inventory your content and your current presence in LLMs, healthcare publisher networks, forums, telehealth tools, and device assistants. 

• Human-Centered Content: Provide FAQs and empathetic explanations for patients and caregivers. Provide technical abstracts for HCPs. 

• Technical Foundations: Use structured data and schema markup to increase the chance of being cited by AI. 

• Multimodal Approach: Build videos, visuals, and explainers for voice, image, and video-first search contexts. 

The Rise of AI Agents and Assistants 

Agentic AI is adding an even more complex layer to search. Where once we focused on optimizing for humans looking for information, now we have to consider the content preferences for AI Agents and virtual assistants performing searches on behalf of humans. A couple examples of this in the healthcare space includes: 

• Patients asking an assistant to schedule a lab test, order a refill, or book a specialist. 

• HCPs asking an assistant to summarize trial results or update records. 

Machine Readability and Structure 
Technical SEO best practices ensure your content is machine-readable and compliant. Clear site architecture, clean indexation, and logical categorization make it easier for AI agents to retrieve the right information efficiently. 

Context and Schema 
Elements like schema markup provide context that helps agents understand relationships between treatments, safety information, and support programs. Structured data doesn’t just support search engines — it guides AI agents in presenting accurate and balanced outputs. 

 
Preparing content for AI agents is no longer optional. The brands that prioritize machine-readable, structured, and compliant content will be the ones AI assistants act on, delivering prescriptions, trial summaries, or care guidance on behalf of patients and HCPs. 

Rethinking Success and Measurement 

Traditional KPIs like rankings and clicks are no longer the only metric that tell the story of success for your brands. There’s more opportunity to drive exposure than ever through different ways in search, which means considering placements, social conversations and citations as a measurement of connection, especially with awareness plays, are key. These elements will make up your larger search presence and will connect your brand with its desired audience. 

You need to track: 

• AI Citations: How often and in what context your brand appears in AI responses. 

• Sentiment Tracking: How AI systems describe your brand. 

• Referral Quality: Volume and quality of visits from AI tools, forums, and publishers. 

• Cross-Channel Value: How AI shapes decisions across touchpoints even when attribution is limited. 

The new measure of success is influence over answers, not clicks. By tracking new KPIs, you position your brand to lead in environments shaped by AI. 

Social and Search Are Still Closely Linked 

Another interesting consideration to take in as AI builds momentum is that robots love social. Although these AI powered platforms aren’t human, they’re still influenced by our reactions and responses. Social platforms like Reddit have a lot of clout with AI platforms and can have great influence on how they generate responses. Consider this: Reddit traffic increased 90% year over year as patients turned to forums. AI systems scrape those conversations regularly and use the information to populate answers (SEMRush, 2025). 

Point being: your social channel and your content are going to have the most impact on your ability to generate exposure in the AI powered search landscape. Monitoring your profiles, keeping an eye on the conversations your audience is having about your brand and building great content is going to be the best way to create a favorable presence that will best suit your brand. 

Conclusion 

Pharma SEO is no longer about rankings. It is about presence and citations. To succeed, you need to make your content credible, compliant, and accessible across AI-powered platforms. This requires aligning with regulatory standards, addressing diverse audience needs, and building technical readiness for AI discovery. 

Brands that act now will define how patients, caregivers, and HCPs access accurate answers in AI-driven environments. 

CMI helps you strengthen your search presence in an AI-powered future.