Building an In-House AI-Enabled Creative Services Capability

for a Global Pharmaceutical Client

How we helped a global pharma company build an AI-enabled in-house creative services capability: from a manual multi-agency model to a structured, scalable model across three regions.

The Challenge

A global pharma company was running marketing through a fragmented network of external agency partners across its business units and markets. Each team worked with its own agencies, creating duplicated costs, siloed execution, and knowledge that lived outside the organisation. AI capabilities were maturing, but inside the agencies, not inside the client. The risk wasn't just inefficiency. It was that the organisation was ceding control of its data, its expertise, and its future AI readiness to third parties.

What We Built

We led the design and rollout of a new in-house creative services model across different regions. We established governance forums and stakeholder engagement across global, regional, and local levels, and built the operating model to enable seamless coordination between internal teams and external partners. Alongside that, we identified and embedded AI use cases directly into creative workflows, from content automation to review acceleration, and designed the measurement framework to track adoption, performance, and impact as the model scaled.

The Results

  • Up to 40% reduction in production costs, eliminating duplication across brands and markets
  • +20% faster campaign delivery through aligned workflows and reduced handoff friction
  • Measurement framework established, tracking programme performance from activation through to commercial impact
  • 100% of prioritised markets activated and ready by end of programme

“What makes Forge DC different is that they actually understand pharma, not just the processes, but the people. They know how we think, what holds us back, and what it takes to bring an organisation like ours along on a significant change. That combination of deep subject matter expertise and genuine change management capability is rare. They navigated the complexity of our environment without ever losing sight of the human side of it. And through all of it, they delivered. Every milestone, every market, every goal.”