Burson launches AI solution to optimise impact of healthcare communications

New York, USA – Global communications firm Burson has announced the launch of ‘Decipher Health,’ its new cognitive artificial intelligence (AI) offering designed to optimize communications impact and stakeholder engagement across patient, advocate, healthcare provider, health decision makers and analyst communities. 

This is the third AI offering of its kind from Burson and a key addition to the growing capability within PR Studio in WPP Open, WPP’s intelligent marketing operating system powered by AI.

‘Decipher Health’ by Burson has trained cognitive AI models on a broad spectrum of disease areas, including general health, oncology, neurology, diabetes, respiratory, and sexual health. It integrates predictive believability and virality indicators. The result is a robust framework for forecasting the potential impact of different types of content across healthcare-focused audience segments that is based on observable, repeatable data. 

Moreover, the solution–created in partnership with cognitive AI company Limbik–makes predictions about communications impact by determining an audience’s level of commitment to a particular topic and the believability of online content related to that topic. 

As part of WPP Open, ‘Decipher Health’ will be made available to all WPP healthcare clients and is the latest innovation for Health@WPP.

In addition to message testing, ‘Decipher Health’ tracks the impact of a variety of global macro themes that can affect the healthcare system, including: The economy; drug costs, pricing and access; supply chain; DEI; sustainability; elections; reproductive rights; women’s health and armed conflict.

Chad Latz, chief innovation officer at Burson, said, “The volume of information in the healthcare space can be both daunting and riddled with inaccuracies for people who are searching for material on a particular disease or therapeutic area. We created this capability to predict with near certainty the potential for impact – including credibility and engagement – that content can have on a wide range of healthcare-specific audiences. This ensures we can help our clients cut through with communications and marketing that build their reputations, but also deliver valuable and effective resources across the patient journey.”

Meanwhile, Brenna Terry, global chair for healthcare at Burson, commented, “What makes this such an extraordinary tool is the depth of our audience modeling. Our patient audience is segmented beyond typical demographics to include a wide range of social determinants that can make people more – or less – likely to be susceptible to a disease and receptive to information. Drilling down to such a precise level ensures that we reach the right people at the right time with precisely the right content.”

She added, “Decipher Health allow us to analyze gaps in message uptake among different critical healthcare stakeholders. What resonates with a patient is different than what will make an impact with a physician or an analyst. With WPP Open, we can forecast what works well with each audience and then develop compelling content that facilitates high-impact communications with all stakeholder groups. We now have instant market research right at our fingertips.”