1️⃣Accountability in Medical Affairs: We Don’t Need More Training

One of the most telling moments came from an Executive Director at Gilead. They shared that their team has strong frameworks and great training, but struggles to get it to show up in day-to-day work.

This same theme came up in the Field Medical Masterclass. Not a lack of training. Too much of it. MSLs are getting hit with workshops, frameworks, and new expectations constantly. And teams are still asking why nothing is sticking.

The conversation has moved on.

Not what should we build next.

How do we hold people accountable to use what we already have?

That looks like managers reinforcing it, more consistent discussions in team meetings, and leaders expecting to see it in field rides. There is a lot of great content sitting inside organizations that never gets adopted by the field. That is the gap everyone should be trying to close.

2️⃣ Manager Coaching in Medical Affairs: This Is the Job Now

Once accountability came up, coaching followed immediately. Because someone has to make sure the behavior actually changes. That someone is the manager. This is where the role is changing.

Managers don’t need to manage more. They need to coach more.

Not did you submit this.
Not did you log that.

→ How did that KOL conversation go?
→ What would you do differently next time?
→ Let’s work through this together.

That’s a different job than most managers signed up for. Most were strong MSLs who got promoted. Now they are expected to drive behavior change across a team. And now layer in AI.

What does it mean to coach when your team can also be coached by AI? When they can practice, get scored, and improve without you in the room? The role of the manager shifts.

Less gatekeeper.
More guide.
More context.
More helping people think.

Managers need support. They need examples of what good coaching looks like in this new environment. And leadership needs to back that shift. Because this is not a small tweak. It is a different expectation of what it means to lead a team. They need to know what it means to lead in the era of AI.

Without that support, managers default back to what they know. And then nothing changes.

This came up over and over again. Because without good coaches, accountability just turns into pressure. And pressure without support breaks trust fast.

3️⃣ AI Coaching Tools in Medical Affairs: The Next Big Thing

In the Field Medical Masterclass, we ran a prompt in Copilot to simulate a KOL interaction and told it to be mean (we gave out a huge prompt pack at the masterclass, contact me if you want a copy). The audience reaction was immediate. Gasps. Cringes. A few people just shaking their heads.

It was brutal. And pretty accurate. That’s when the conversation shifted.

Several leaders brought up hesitation from managers. Not because the tools don’t work, but because they do. There’s real concern about what happens when AI can give consistent, objective coaching at scale.

Are managers’ jobs at risk?

That’s where the discussion got much more interesting.

→ How do you introduce these tools without creating fear?
→ How do you position them as support instead of replacement?

And this wasn’t just in the Field Medical Masterclass. AI coaching tools kept coming up throughout the main conference. In a storytelling session, people were excited about building specific personas to practice with. In a workshop on MSL learning journeys, tables were challenged to think through how to use them across different experience and skill levels.

We’ve been using a super cool AI coaching tool to supplement our trainings since May 2025, and it’s changed how we build skills.. The level of personalization is bananas. You can tailor scenarios to exactly what MSLs are encountering in the field and get instant personalized feedback. MSLs love it.

But that’s not even the best part:

We can finally measure skill development in an objective way. Not just self reported confidence, attendance or satisfaction. We can now answer a better question:

Are people actually improving?

It’s completely changing how we can upskill MSLs. 

Conclusion: 3 Topics Top of Mind for Medical Affairs

These 3 topics point to the same shift. They are all related to how skills actually get built in Medical Affairs. 

Not from another one-and-done training. Or another another framework.

From repetition.
From coaching.
From feedback.

We don’t need more ideas. We need execution. That means:

1️⃣ Holding people accountable
2️⃣ Helping leaders coach in a more intentional way
3️⃣ And using AI tools to personalize and show impact

That’s where Medical Affairs is heading. And MAPS Americas 2026 made that very clear.

For comparison, here was what was happening at MAPS EMEA 2022 Recap,MAPS 2023 Recap, and MAPS 2025 Recap.

And don’t forget to ping me for the MAPS field medical masterclass prompt pack. It’s pretty cool!