From Dr. Google to Dr. Claude: Why the Most Important Patient Support Innovation Is Still Human Connection

July 17, 2026

In a new byline for Pharmaceutical Executive, Pleio CEO Michael Oleksiw pushes back on pharma’s rush to automate patient support. As patient adherence AI gets pitched as the answer to scale, Oleksiw points to a harder truth: patients aren’t falling off their medications because they lack information—they’re falling off because no one checks in before the gap becomes a missed dose. He points to a truck driver managing a new prescription on the road, whose gaps in care were caught by a proactive phone call. Oleksiw draws a parallel to customer service, where AI agents have been rolled back across nearly every industry, and argues healthcare can’t afford to learn that lesson the same costly way.