We are entering a new era of "living intelligence," where AI is advancing economic sectors, technology, and scientific breakthroughs and enhancing daily life, often without our awareness, according to the Future Today Institute’s latest report, The Era of Living Intelligence. Navigating the technology supercycle powering the next wave of innovation.
New intelligence in healthcare
The report introduces the concept of "living intelligence," which combines artificial intelligence, ubiquitous data-collecting sensors (such as those in smartphones and smartwatches), and bioengineering. This convergence promises rapid advancements in fields historically constrained by data access and analysis capabilities, particularly in scientific research and healthcare.
Amy Webb, founder of the Future Today Institute, envisions artificial intelligence as a driving force behind innovation. AI can analyze vast datasets, identify previously unseen patterns, and generate novel insights. In the pharmaceutical industry, AI is already accelerating the research and development of new therapies. Experts believe AI could significantly reduce the drug development timeline – currently around 13.5 years – and associated costs, estimated at $2.6 billion per drug. A notable success is the rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccine, which was made possible by AI. Beyond data analysis, AI also holds the potential to generate synthetic data and identify promising drug candidates.
Cost and time are the biggest barriers to developing new chemical drug molecules quickly. However, AI innovations like AlphaFold 3, co-developed by Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs, offer new frontiers. The Nobel Prize-winning system can “predict the structure and interactions of all of life's molecules.”
Life sciences will benefit most from AI
Today, 1 in 5 AI studies focus on life sciences – down from 1 in 2 five years ago. In January 2025, the launch of Project Digits, an NVIDIA supercomputer about the size of a box that fits in the palm of your hand, offers hope for further global advancements in AI. Despite its small size, it is approximately 1,000 times more powerful than standard laptops and costs only $3,000. This leap in computing power, which was previously a major obstacle to applying AI to large-scale scientific research, is now accessible to smaller research centers due to its affordability.
AI is poised to address some of pharma’s biggest challenges, such as the high cost, long timelines, and a failure rate of nearly 80% in drug development. New solutions are improving hit identification by predicting drug-target interactions, thus saving time and reducing experimental validation costs. The advent of generative AI in 2023 introduced generative antibody design alongside in-silico clinical trials using human digital twins. Early results show that AI-powered digital twins can predict the outcomes of phase 3 clinical trials with impressive accuracy, accelerating the development of AI-designed chemical molecules.
AI-driven medical devices and generative biology
AI’s impact extends to medical devices and sensors, which offer previously unimaginable capabilities when enhanced with AI. These innovations enable continuous diagnostics and monitoring, not just during doctor visits or lab tests but around the clock. This continuous monitoring can detect diseases early, allowing for timely treatments or even preventative care.
The new generation of AI-powered medical devices includes mobile ultrasound and compact devices that assess skin lesions, which primary care physicians can use without referring patients to specialists. The first smart blood glucose sensors are already on the market, dynamically adjusting insulin doses in bioengineered pumps to improve diabetes management. Additionally, the latest da Vinci 5 surgical robot utilizes AI to analyze data during procedures, assisting surgeons in real time to improve outcomes.
The Future Today Institute report also predicts more radical developments, which may seem far-fetched today but are imminent. AI will likely enable generative biology (genBio) – a technology that simulates biological interactions, designs new proteins and genes, and even creates entire organisms and organs. Innovations in this space include protein therapies, organoid creation (allowing drugs to be tested on living tissues without human involvement, such as "organs on a chip"), and the 3D printing of body organs. Moreover, advances in chip miniaturization and greater computational power are paving the way for nanorobots capable of precisely delivering drugs to tumors or clearing blocked blood vessels.
To unlock AI's potential in medicine, we must first address the existing barriers
The technology is there, but several challenges for AI in medicine remain. The most significant obstacle is the limited availability of digital healthcare data—only 3% of healthcare information is stored in digital formats. The quality of the data and its interoperability also require significant improvements. Growing concerns over cybersecurity and better data sharing further complicate progress. Additionally, regulation has not kept pace with AI’s advancements in medicine.
New financing models for innovative therapies and preventive care must be developed to fully realize AI's potential in medicine. There is also a pressing need to educate healthcare leaders about emerging AI technologies, invest in training medical personnel, and retrain existing talent, as the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 highlights.
The volume of data available for AI analysis is expected to grow exponentially, enabling AI systems to learn patient behavior patterns that lead to disease development and to diagnose conditions based on novel biomarkers rather than just traditional and often limited blood tests. Among the most immediate innovations for consumers are AI-powered agents to help maintain healthy lifestyles.
