What happens when AI, insight, and life science marketing share the same stage
Life science marketing is shifting fast, and AI is rewriting the rules as quickly as we can refresh a LinkedIn feed. It’s even been called a revolution. Staying human amid that momentum is the real challenge, whether you’re picking up a sword, or tapping (dancing) on a keyboard.
So it's fitting that life science marketing and sales professionals from the UK to California gathered in Boston — a city built on bold ideas and even bolder meetings — for the 2025 SAMPS Annual Conference. As a member of UP THERE, EVERYWHERE, a proud sponsor of the event, I had a front-row seat to the insights, energy, and a bit of AI soul searching that even Alexander Hamilton himself might have found inspiring.
Spoiler alert: Life science marketers are embracing AI, but also learning what it means to keep humanity at the center.
Take a dive into the show-stopping moments that stole the spotlight.
Stacy Sherman: Emotion drives all customer experience
Stacy Sherman, customer eXperience keynote speaker, author & advisor, and Linkedin learning Instructor, opened the conference with a message every marketing and sales professional needed to hear: “customers don’t remember your product features; they remember how you made them feel.” She reminded us that customer experience isn’t one department; it’s every touch point your company has with a customer.
As Stacy put it, “Emotion is the experience.” That line alone deserved its own slide — and maybe a T-shirt. “Growth” shouldn’t be measured only in new sales when retention is more cost effective. Stacy’s key takeaway was refreshingly simple:
“It’s emotion that leaves an imprint in the mind.”
For those of us blending science and storytelling, it’s an important reminder that even in B2B, we are still selling to real human beings. If the experience doesn’t feel good, nothing else matters. Be sure every department from sales to marketing to customer service knows how important that is and is empowered to go the extra mile to make customers happy. After all, as UP is fond of saying: scientists are people too.
Nan Clement: Using AI for informed decisions
From emotional intelligence, we shifted to artificial intelligence. Nan Clement, from MIT Sloan, unpacked how AI can elevate marketing and sales, by helping us analyze more, miss less, and respond faster.
Nan highlighted how AI can synthesize buyer behavior, uncover patterns our human brains would rather ignore, and recommend the next best action based on real data. She discussed building a “Customer Intelligence Profile” and why companies should stop assigning reps by region and start assigning them by fit, something AI is remarkably good at identifying.
One of her standout points: AI can help us make smarter decisions, but only if we feed it the right data. She encouraged marketers to shore up their data infrastructure and start treating every customer touchpoint as a valuable signal.
Key takeaway: AI isn’t replacing marketers — it’s reducing the number of “I wish I’d caught that sooner” moments. And honestly, who doesn’t want fewer of those?
Matt Wilkinson: Better humanization with AI
Matt Wilkinson, PhD, MBA, UP member and marketing AI strategist, stormed the stage with stats that made every marketer sit up a little straighter:
- 73% of B2B buyers avoid suppliers who don’t personalize their offers
- 90% of buyers now use generative AI to research and shortlist vendors
- 38% of purchase attempts end with no decision
In other words: if we don’t use AI to better understand customers, someone else will.
Matt’s theme was empowerment. AI shouldn’t make marketers fearful; it should make us superhuman. When used well, AI allows us to personalize at scale, identify what buyers value most, and create experiences that feel more human because they’re so thoughtfully tailored.
Matt said:
“The question isn’t whether AI will replace us, but how we can use AI to be more human.”
It was the reminder we all needed. AI enhances expertise; it doesn’t replace it. And for all the algorithms and models in the world, nothing beats human relevance delivered at the right moment.
Andy Crestodina: Crafting stronger AI prompts
If there was a session that made everyone rethink how they’re using AI, it was Andy Crestodina’s hands-on workshop about crafting smarter prompts — because the truth is, many of us have been writing prompts that are, well… a little lazy.
Andy reminded us that great AI output starts with great context. His five elements of an effective prompt — role, task, context, input, and output — felt like the AI version of “eat your vegetables.” Simple, essential, and easy to skip… until you realize skipping them is why your broccoli (and your content) looks sad.
Two standout quotes:
- “Never believe what people say about AI until you've tested it yourself.”
- And quoting Jay Baer: “The problem is not that AI is doing what marketers can do. The problem is marketers keep doing what can be done by AI.”
Workshop putting AI to practical use
The final workshop put us into teams and asked us to respond to a hypothetical (but painfully realistic) scenario: a competitor just launched, and you had about 15 minutes to figure out how not to panic.
It was interactive, fast-paced, and exactly the kind of real-world problem-solving marketers love. The workshop reinforced one big idea: AI won’t replace strategic thinking — but it will absolutely accelerate it.
The AI shot heard around the room
In summary, I found three main messages that resonated:
First, emotion still drives experience — and always will. People remember how we make them feel, not what we make them read, and while AI can support great customer experiences, it’s still up to us to design them with empathy and intention.
Second, better decisions start with better data — and better questions. We must use AI not just to automate tasks but to think more clearly, feeding it strong context so it can surface patterns we might otherwise miss.
And third, AI is a creativity and connection engine — if we use it wisely. From Matt’s personalization insights to Andy’s prompt-crafting workshop, the message was clear: AI will elevate the marketing and sales professionals who learn to use it well.
Together, these lessons capture why UP supports SAMPS and continues to show up, share expertise, and learn alongside this community.
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