Sanofi is moving deeper into agentic AI as it uses Snowflake to turn a previously fragmented data estate into a more active operating layer for research, commercial work and internal services.
Emmanuel Frenehard, the company’s chief digital officer, said the drugmaker spent years bringing together data from across the business before adding AI tools that can act directly on that foundation. The aim, he said, is not simply better reporting, but a system that allows employees t...
Continue Reading This Article
Enjoy this article as well as all of our content, including reports, news, tips and more.
By registering or signing into your SRM Today account, you agree to SRM Today's Terms of Use and consent to the processing of your personal information as described in our Privacy Policy.
o query data, trigger actions and reduce the amount of manual work that sits between information and decision-making.
According to Sanofi, the effort began with smaller data lakes, followed by semantic layers to make assets easier to interpret and ownership rules that defined how data should be retained and governed. That work was complicated by the variety of material the company handles, from structured records to PDFs, biopsy results and other unstructured information. By working with Snowflake, Sanofi built what it described as content data lakes to bring more of that information into a single secure environment.
The next step, Frenehard said, was to connect those foundations with Snowflake’s AI capabilities and partner workflows from Elementum. That has allowed Sanofi to move beyond dashboards and into AI workflows that sit directly on the data platform. In practice, that means staff can use agents to search, analyse and act on information without needing to move through conventional application layers first.
Sanofi is now rolling out the model across 80 countries, using Snowflake as a global base for governance, collaboration and deployment. One of the most visible examples is Concierge, an AI-powered service available on mobile and web that is designed to help employees find information, understand internal processes and share knowledge more quickly.
The system is fed with company-specific context, including roles, locations, cost centres, reporting lines, policies and procedures. Sanofi said this has already opened the door to use cases in procurement, human resources, IT support, sales and contract management. In procurement, for instance, the company holds orders, invoices, quotes and requests for proposal in Snowflake, allowing agents to examine spending patterns and flag what it calls shadow spend.
Frenehard said the financial upside could be substantial. Sanofi spends about €18 billion a year on purchases, he said, adding that even a small improvement in that total would have meaningful value for the company and, by extension, its research budget. He also suggested that AI could resolve a large share of routine IT queries by drawing on past cases and knowledge articles.
The company says Concierge is already used monthly by about 65,000 of its 75,000 employees. Over time, Frenehard expects workers to interact less with traditional software systems and more with agents that sit on top of them, or in some cases replace parts of them altogether.
Snowflake and Sanofi also highlighted a field-sales application called Concierge for Field, which generates pre-call plans for representatives in seconds. The tool is designed to help sales staff identify priority physicians, review past interactions and reduce the hours once spent on manual preparation. Sanofi said the same AI stack is being extended into research and development, manufacturing, commercial operations, procurement, IT and HR.
The shift marks a broader change in how Sanofi sees its data architecture: no longer just a repository for analysis, but a transactional environment where AI can help execute work as well as interpret it. Frenehard said the move required the company to write data back into Snowflake at scale, rather than treating it only as a read-only store, which represented a significant change in operating model as well as technology.
For Sanofi, the strategy is as much about freeing resources for drug discovery as it is about modernising internal systems. The company’s bet is that if agents can take over more routine work, more people and more capital can be redirected towards the research that matters most.
Source: Noah Wire Services
