Adapting for AI-Powered Search: Varn Health at NEXT Pharma Summit

Our CEO Tom Vaughton was delighted to speak at and attend the NEXT Pharma Summit in Vienna this year, where he had the opportunity to talk about the future of healthcare marketing and SEO in the age of AI-powered search and what you can do about it now to be ready.

As digital marketing and patient engagement rapidly evolve, it’s crucial for healthcare and pharma industries to stay ahead of these changes; particularly when it comes to how AI is transforming search strategies. For example, 85% of HCPs use Google to access online medical journals, and approximately 77% of people use search engines to start their patient journey which means ensuring your content and SEO strategies optimised for AI search, are more critical than ever before.

For those who couldn’t make it to our talk at NEXT Pharma Summit, we’ve shared a recap of the session. This article highlights the key takeaways and actionable insights from Tom’s talk on how healthcare businesses and brands can adapt to these advancements in search and stay visible online.

1. An AI revolution in search

AI is fundamentally changing how search engines work, with Google’s RankBrain using machine learning to better understand user intent and deliver more relevant search results. For healthcare brands, this means that search engines no longer just match keywords to pages. Instead, they aim to understand the real meaning behind search queries—whether it’s a patient seeking fast-acting remedies or a healthcare professional looking for specific drug information.

Adapt: Healthcare content must focus on user intent rather than just keywords. Your content needs to anticipate what users are really asking for and provide the most helpful answers.

2. AI Overviews and rich snippets: Why EEAT and YMYL matter

One of the biggest changes we have seen at Google is the introduction of AI Overviews. Google’s new AI Overviews are designed to offer concise, AI-generated answers, especially for health-related queries. These snippets increase visibility for authoritative content, making it crucial for healthcare brands to focus on creating high-quality, trustworthy content that is easily referenced by AI.

Adapt: Ensure your content meets Google’s EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) and YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) standards, especially for health-related topics. Being featured in AI Overviews can boost your site’s visibility and traffic. You can read more about EEAT and YMYL here.

3. Voice search is on the rise

With more people using voice assistants like Siri and Alexa to ask health-related questions, and 68% of healthcare providers believing that voice search will become important for patient engagement, voice search is becoming an integral part of the omnichannel patient journey. Voice queries tend to be conversational, meaning healthcare brands must adapt by targeting longer, more natural-sounding phrases.

Adapt: Optimise your content for voice search by focusing on long-tail keywords and conversational language. Don’t forget to ensure your site is mobile-friendly, as most voice searches happen on mobile devices.

4. Personalised search experiences

AI leverages vast amounts of data, such as user behaviour and location, to deliver highly personalised search results. This means healthcare brands need to focus on content that resonates with users based on their specific healthcare needs and preferences.

Adapt: Personalise your SEO strategies by creating personal and localised content that speaks directly to individual user segments—for example adapting content for a rural patient looking for local healthcare services vs a city-based specialist seeking in person expert information.

5. Search beyond words: AI in visual recognition

AI’s ability to recognise and analyse visual content is especially powerful in healthcare. Google Lens and similar tools allow users to search using images and videos, potentially transforming how patients and professionals find health-related information.

Adapt: Optimise multimedia content, for example, drug mechanism animations or explainer videos, for AI-powered search. Make sure these assets are clearly tagged and described for AI to discover and interpret correctly.

6. Organising content for AI driven search

AI doesn’t just look at individual pages, it now understands a much more broad context by analysing topic clusters and content hubs. Organising your content into thematic groups can significantly improve your content’s visibility and relevance.

Adapt: Build content clusters and pillar pages to establish your authority on broader healthcare topics. This not only improves user experience but also signals to the search engines that your website is a valuable resource.

In conclusion, AI is rapidly transforming how healthcare and pharma brands are discovered online and while it might seem daunting, adapting your SEO and content strategies to these changes is very achievable. Whether it’s improving your content to reflect user intent or ensuring your website is optimised for voice and visual search, these steps that we explored with the NEXT Pharma Summit audience, will help you stay visible and relevant in what is becoming an AI-driven search world.

Stay updated on AI developments in search and how they impact healthcare by signing up for our newsletter or follow us on LinkedIn. If you want some advice about how to stay ahead of the changes we are seeing with the advancements in AI powered search, do get in touch with our expert Varn Health team.

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Vicky,
Comms Director
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