ACTO Technologies
A New Frontier for GenAI in Life Sciences

ACTO, a leading innovator in AI-driven solutions for the life sciences sector, has taken a major step forward by joining the newly launched Veeva AI Partner Program. As one of the first companies selected for this initiative, ACTO’s inclusion signals more than just an expanded partnership. It highlights a broader shift toward strategic AI adoption in regulated industries like pharmaceuticals, where trust, compliance, and contextual intelligence are paramount.

As part of this expanded collaboration, ACTO has integrated two of its flagship GenAI technologies—LAICA™ and TalkTRx™—with Veeva Vault PromoMats and Veeva Vault MedComms. These integrations enhance the capabilities of Veeva’s content platforms, empowering field teams with real-time, compliant, and contextually relevant information.

LAICA, a voice-enabled conversational assistant, enables sales and medical representatives to access precise answers drawn directly from Veeva-managed content. TalkTRx, on the other hand, equips field personnel with tailored talking points and practical guidance to maximize impact during engagements with healthcare professionals.

Although both tools are designed to benefit a broad array of stakeholders, ACTO’s current focus is on frontline users— sales reps, medical science liaisons (MSLs), and field trainers. These innovations are core components of ACTO’s Intelligent Field Excellence (IFE) platform, which aims to elevate field performance by enhancing confidence, fluency, and the ability to deliver value-driven conversations.

LAICA: From Idea to Industry Innovation

Long before generative AI became a buzzword, ACTO was already laying the groundwork for something bigger. In 2018, the company began exploring AI—not chasing headlines, but driven by a vision to transform how life sciences professionals access and engage with complex information.

At a time when enterprise AI was still defined by rigid rule-based systems and nascent neural networks, ACTO envisioned a domain-specific assistant tailored for field representatives navigating dense regulatory frameworks and vast repositories of medical and product content. That early vision would become the foundation for LAICA, the company’s voice-enabled, AI-powered assistant.

Initially, LAICA was envisioned as an intelligent assistant providing real-time, compliant answers from structured content. The turning point came in 2020, as the pandemic abruptly disrupted traditional field interactions and overwhelmed healthcare systems. Recognizing the urgent need for digital tools, ACTO rapidly reimagined its assistant—then known as ACTO Bot—into a frontline support platform.

One of LAICA’s earliest and most impactful deployments emerged through ACTO’s collaboration with the American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC). As ICUs struggled with capacity and non-specialist clinicians were called to the frontlines, LAICA was trained on critical device manuals and FDA-cleared Instructions for Use. Delivered as a freely accessible tool, it provided real-time, device-specific guidance to thousands of healthcare professionals nationwide. The result: a timely and potentially life-saving digital assistant when the stakes were highest.

“The pandemic proved that AI can improve business operations,” Kumar Erramilli, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at ACTO, reflects. “It demonstrated that AI, when deployed at the right moment, can directly impact healthcare outcomes—helping save lives in real-world scenarios.”

What began as a vision for a single-purpose assistant has since matured into a multi-agent system, supporting field reps and medical science liaisons, patient engagement teams, and healthcare provider support staff. At every stage in its evolution, LAICA has remained focused on delivering actionable assistance—on demand.

A Bold Leap into Life Sciences

The growth and success of ACTO were not achieved without overcoming significant challenges. The company’s journey has involved navigating one of the most complex hurdles in the industry—earning trust in a highly regulated and risk-averse environment.

Traditionally cautious about adopting emerging technologies, the life sciences sector has long viewed AI with skepticism—especially where compliance, privacy, and sensitive data are concerned. But as AI gained traction in other industries, and as machine learning (ML) and large language models (LLMs) like GPT matured and became mainstream, attitudes began to shift.

Still, openness to AI does not imply a willingness to lower standards. On the contrary, pharmaceutical companies demand a level of rigor that few technologies can meet.

“Any intelligence we bring into the organization must be secure, compliant, and designed to stay within the organization’s ecosystem,” says Erramilli. For AI to succeed in this space, it must provide actionable insights without compromising data integrity or violating regulatory frameworks.

ACTO addressed this head-on by integrating LAICA seamlessly with existing tools—most notably Veeva Vault. This allows field representatives and medical science liaisons (MSLs) to access real-time, compliant answers and information without having to switch platforms. LAICA’s contextualization engine further personalizes responses based on CRM activity, user certification, territory, and access permissions, delivering tailored support exactly when and where it is needed.

But ACTO did not stop at integration. Recognizing the varied ways professionals communicate and work, the company extended LAICA’s accessibility across multiple channels— including Microsoft Teams, text messaging, and phone-based interactions.

“If AI is only accessible on one platform, it becomes a bottleneck,” notes Alison Muller, ACTO’s Chief Marketing Officer. “Our solution needed to be available wherever our clients work.”

LAICA is designed not to replace human interaction, but to augment it, empowering teams with intelligent support while preserving the personal connections that are central to success in life sciences.

Building Trust in a Regulated Landscape

What distinguishes LAICA from many other AI solutions is its deep integration into the workflows and regulatory requirements of the life sciences industry. Compliance is a critical concern in this space, and LAICA was designed to ensure that all communication adheres to stringent industry guidelines. ACTO’s longstanding partnership with Veeva Systems, which began in 2017, played a key role in enabling this level of integration. Integrated directly into Veeva Vault and Veeva CRM, LAICA gave field teams instant access to approved content through the ACTO platform. With Veeva Vault CRM X-Pages integration, LAICA will be accessible from within Veeva, so reps won’t have to leave the platform to use LAICA—there will be zero disruption to their workflow.

The pandemic proved that AI can improve business operations. It demonstrated that AI, when deployed at the right moment, can directly impact healthcare outcomes—helping save lives in real-world scenarios.

Such thoughtful integration has delivered tangible results. Field teams now benefit from instant access to accurate, context-sensitive information sourced from CRM data, training materials, and previous interactions. The efficiency gains have been significant, enabling faster, more informed conversations with HCPs, improving compliance, and enhancing overall productivity. Previously, field representatives had to sift through scattered resources such as dense product and medical content to find critical information. With LAICA, the answers are quickly and easily available, supporting timely and effective engagements.

In addition, LAICA’s ability to manage complex regulatory demands has made it an indispensable tool for pharmaceutical operations. Built with compliance at its core, the system pulls only from the most recent MLR-approved content and guarantees that all outputs stay within approved guidelines, helping to avoid costly mistakes and regulatory scrutiny.

As ACTO continues to expand LAICA’s capabilities and integrations—such as forthcoming enhancements within Veeva Vault CRM—the company is well-positioned to deliver intelligent, frictionless support that aligns with the evolving needs of life sciences professionals.

The Coaching Revolution

ACTO’s commitment to transforming field excellence is already generating measurable impact for some of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. Two of its largest customers recently leveraged field coaching reports (FCRs) in a transformative way. FCRs are evaluations conducted by field managers during ride-alongs, where they observe reps real-world interactions with HCPs and assess their competence and confidence. Using ACTO, managers can create customized FCR forms, assign them at different intervals—weekly, biweekly, or quarterly—and track rep performance over time.

Quantifying improvements in competence and confidence has traditionally posed a challenge. ACTO’s integration with Veeva’s CRM system changed that dynamic, enabling organizations to combine proprietary CRM data with structured FCR insights. This milestone established ACTO as a trusted vendor in the industry and allowed coaching feedback to be directly tied to performance metrics.

Impact became evident through a multi-source evaluation approach that included rep self-assessments, manager evaluations, peer feedback, and industry benchmarks. During quarterly executive business reviews (EBRs) with ACTO, pharmaceutical leaders received concrete, data-driven reports that demonstrated sustained growth in rep capabilities.

One of the clients’ responded to these results with a four-year contract extension, while the other expanded its use of ACTO’s platform both in scale and functionality. These outcomes highlight its ability to unify learning, coaching, analytics, and performance tracking into one cohesive ecosystem.

IFE comes to life when learning continues in the field, coaching is informed by evidence, and performance is consistently monitored for improvement. The integration of these formerly siloed elements is reshaping how pharmaceutical organizations define and achieve success in field operations.

What’s Next: A New LAICA and the ACTOverse

Looking ahead, ACTO is continuing its leadership in the AI-driven transformation of life sciences. The company is already working on the next version of LAICA, set to launch in May 2025. The new version will offer greater personalization, with tailored models designed for specific roles within the life sciences sector, including reps, MSLs, and patient support specialists. By fine-tuning LAICA to these distinct needs, ACTO aims to provide more personalized insights, enhancing both field operations and patient outcomes.

ACTO is also expanding its product portfolio with new AI-powered solutions, such as CxZone™—an AI-simulated role-play and practice zone that allows field professionals to practice pitching, objection handling, and clinical fluency with an avatar that matches HCPs in their territory.

“CxZone offers field teams a dedicated ‘safe space’ to practice independently—particularly valuable now, when impactful communication with HCPs is essential and face-to-face coaching time with field managers is limited,” said Muller.

With AI, continuous learning and practice can now be more dynamic and personalized to individual needs. The goal is to equip life sciences companies with a comprehensive suite of AI tools that streamline training, field operations, and compliance, while improving efficiency and reducing operational costs.

In addition, ACTO is aligning with Veeva’s long-term AI roadmap, with planned integration with tools like the Vault CRM Bot and MLR Bot, set to roll out in 2026. These integrations will enhance AI-assisted CRM navigation and automate content review, further boosting the efficiency and compliance benefits LAICA delivers. As Veeva transitions customers to its proprietary CRM platform, this integration will support deeper connections, streamlined user experiences, and more advanced AI workflows.

ACTO is furthering its commitment to enabling the use of AI in life sciences with the upcoming launch of ACTOverse, which supports the seamless use of partner data, content, and technology within the ACTO platform. This ecosystem will offer life sciences companies a unified solution, providing access to the tools and insights needed to drive success in an increasingly complex landscape.

The growing interconnectedness of AI technologies will continue to amplify ACTO’s ability to provide seamless, data-driven solutions for pharmaceutical companies. Its commitment to personalization and integration transforms innovation into real-world impact, driving positive commercial impact and patient outcomes.

LAICA’s evolution reflects the industry’s broader AI-driven shift, as ACTO helps life sciences companies navigate change, boost compliance, streamline operations, and improve patient outcomes with AI.

As Erramilli aptly puts it, “We are not just building technology; we are building the future of life sciences.” With ongoing innovations and a commitment to expanding AI capabilities, ACTO is poised to play a key role in shaping the future of the industry for years to come.