Agentic AI is acting on behalf of patients and HCPs: Here’s how to adapt

The emergence of agentic AI, typified by ChatGPT’s new Agent capabilities, marks a significant shift in how digital systems interact with online content. This isn’t simply the next phase of search, it’s a transition into AI-driven interaction with the web itself.

These agents don’t just retrieve links or summarise content. They complete user journeys: comparing treatments, filling in forms, accessing portals, and initiating actions. For healthcare and pharmaceutical brands, this means a fundamental change in how content must be structured and optimised if it is to remain visible and usable in AI-driven environments.

Agentic AI refers to autonomous systems that can act on behalf of users across the web – not just searching for information but engaging with it. Unlike traditional search engines, these AI tools can mimic user behaviour, completing tasks like finding the right product, analysing options, and making transactions independently.

In practice, this means your website is no longer catering solely to human visitors or search engine crawlers. It must now also serve machine agents, which are becoming a key intermediary in digital journeys.

Why this matters for healthcare marketers

For organisations in regulated sectors like healthcare, this development poses both a challenge and an opportunity. If AI agents cannot interpret or interact with your site effectively, you may lose visibility and conversions in a growing number of patient and HCP journeys, even if your traditional SEO performance remains strong.

1. AI agents are becoming active participants

These tools operate more like users than bots. They can:

• Navigate forms
  
• Compare treatment options or products
  
• Extract structured data
  
• Submit purchase or contact requests
  

If your healthcare website site isn’t technically prepared for these actions, AI agents may fail to access your services. Plus, you risk being excluded from AI-driven journeys altogether.

2. Structured content is essential

For agentic AI to interpret your content accurately, your site must be semantically clear and machine-readable. This includes:

• Properly nested heading structures (e.g. <h1>, <h2>)
  
• Descriptive form field labels
  
• Medical schema where applicable
  
• Robust, accurate metadata
  

Without this structure, your content might be misread or skipped entirely by autonomous agents. 

3. A new layer of SEO: optimising for AI interaction

This isn’t about replacing current SEO tactics, it’s about building on them. Optimising for agentic AI means:

• Prioritising clarity in content and code
  
• Minimising JavaScript-based interactions that may block AI
• Creating pages that are not just readable, but actionable

In pharma, this might mean rethinking how clinical trial data, product information, or HCP resources are presented online.

4. AI agents reduce the need for browsing

Increasingly, these tools complete tasks without ever rendering a webpage in a browser. That means:

• Clear data structures (not just copywriting) determine your visibility
  
• Forms must be accessible and standardised
  
• Content must be functionally usable, not just informative
  

If your digital assets can’t integrate into these automated workflows, you’re not in the consideration set.

5. Traditional rankings no longer guarantee traffic

AI agents don’t rely on Google’s SERP rankings. Instead, they evaluate content based on structure and relevance, not position. That shifts the focus to:

• Quality of structured content over keyword strategy
  
• Clear functionality over visual layout
  
• Seamless conversion journeys for both human and machine users

You need your digital presence to remain competitive as agentic AI evolves. Here are six actions to prioritise:

1. 1. Reinforce your content structure
      Use semantic HTML and schema to ensure AI agents can interpret your site as intended.
   2. Strengthen your technical SEO
      Speed, accessibility, and clean architecture are more important than ever.
   3. Make your user journeys AI-compatible
      Review form designs, reduce reliance on JavaScript, and ensure automation-friendly UX.
   4. Clarify all page content
      Break information into digestible segments. Avoid ambiguous calls to action or vague product descriptions.
   5. Enable API access where appropriate
      For B2B healthcare portals or product databases, consider how agents can interact without needing a full UI.
   6. Simulate agent interactions
      Use tools like ChatGPT Agent to test whether key tasks like product lookups or resource downloads can be completed by AI.

Agentic AI is still maturing, but it’s already altering how people, and machines, find and act on digital content. In regulated, information-dense industries like healthcare, those who adapt early will gain a significant edge.

To help brands stay ahead, we’ve developed the AI Visibility Framework to help you future-proof your SEO strategy.