A recent LinkedIn poll I ran revealed that 29% of respondents didn’t know AI could help them in their day-to-day work (15% said never because they aren’t allowed to use it, so this isn’t the reason why. See poll results below.). This statistic is shocking because AI is completely changing how MSLs do their day-to-day work. I think I know why: Many people don’t know how to converse with AI, or how to give it the right prompts.

To overcome this gap and get more MSLs on the AI train, I’m going to walk you through how I would use AI to approach a simple scenario that every MSL faces: pre-meeting planning for an introductory meeting with a KOL. I’ll give you my exact prompt, explain why I wrote it the way I did, and show you how AI can help you be more efficient in your day-to-day work. The future of MSL work is here. Are you ready to dive in?

The Future of MSL Work: How to Use AI for Pre-Meeting Planning

The Scenario & a Disclaimer

For this example, I’m getting ready for an introductory meeting with a top KOL in my territory. This is the first meeting and because I am a great hypothetical MSL, I am preparing ahead of time. Pre-meeting planning is critical to ensuring that you meet your meeting objectives, build the relationship, and position yourself as a valuable resource for the KOL.

Before we get into the prompt, one important reminder: Always follow your company’s AI policies! Never put proprietary information into a public AI model.

With that said, let’s jump into ChatGPT. Here’s the exact prompt I used for AI to assist me to plan for this introductory meeting (feel free to copy it and try it yourself!):

My MSL Pre-Meeting Planning AI Prompt

“You are an experienced senior MSL who is an expert at building relationships with KOLs. Your task is to help me pre-meeting plan for my upcoming meeting with a top KOL. This is my first meeting, and my goals are to build the relationship, understand her needs and how I can add value, and get another meeting. I need your help with setting meeting objectives, developing questions to help me build the relationship and uncover her needs, potential resources/data the KOL may be interested in, and setting the agenda. I also need your help with how to identify ways to open the conversation (such as reviewing recent publications). Please also suggest additional things I am not considering. Keep your answer brief and concise.”

Copy this prompt and tweak it to your situation! Let me know what you think of the results. 

Breaking Down the Prompt (Why I Wrote it This Way)

Let’s break this prompt down and why I structured it this way.

Assigning a Role

The first sentence of the prompt is key: “You are an experienced senior MSL who is an expert at building relationships with KOLs.” By assigning the AI a specific role, you improve the relevance of the response. When you give AI a clear role, you’re more likely to get focused, useful output. If you’ve ever used AI and felt that the response wasn’t quite right, this step can make a huge difference.

Get a prompting framework in my AI Guide for Creativity and Productivity 👇.

Clarifying the Task

Next, I tell the AI exactly what I want it to do: “Your task is to help me pre-meeting plan for my upcoming meeting with a top KOL. This is my first meeting, and my goals are to build the relationship, understand her needs and how I can add value, and get another meeting.” At this point, I could run the prompt and let the AI work, but I want to add more structure to get a really useful output.

Use a Template for Structure (to Help Make the Output better)

I used my Pre-Meeting Planning Template to give the AI more details about what I want. This template ensures that your meetings are effective, so I include specific elements from it to guide the AI’s response.

Structuring the Request (Telling the AI What You Want)

Using the pre-meeting planning template, I outline exactly what I want the AI to include:

• Meeting objectives (clear objectives = successful meeting)
• Questions (to build the relationship and uncover the KOL’s needs)
• Resources or data (that the KOL may be interested in)
• Setting the agenda (so critical to achieving the meeting objectives)
• Conversation openers/relationship builders (such as referencing recent publications)

Giving AI clear guidance helps ensure the output is relevant. That’s why I added more context and examples of what I want. Examples give the AI more to work with and help it understand what you want. If the output is not great, try adding more examples of what you do want. AI is great at copying.

Additional Pro Prompt Writing Tips

Get Additional ideas from the AI

Always include this line: “Please also suggest additional things I am not considering.” This prompt encourages creativity from the AI and often generates new ideas or perspectives I wouldn’t have thought of.

Keeping It Brief

Finally, I ask the AI to keep the answer brief and concise. With ChatGPT the output can sometimes be a bit chatty, so this instruction helps keep it short and sweet.

Reviewing the AI Pre-Meeting Planning Output

Here’s what the AI came up with.

Meeting Objectives:

The AI suggested focusing on building rapport, understanding unmet needs, and positioning myself as a resource the KOL can rely on. This aligns well with the original goals that I entered. Nothing ground breaking here.

Key Questions to Build the Relationship & Uncover Needs

The AI provided great questions to build the relationship and gather insights, such as:

• “Can you share more about your current research focus and what excites you?”
• “How do you typically stay updated on the latest data?”

These questions are gold because they open the conversation without diving straight into data (data dumping) or asking for too much upfront. They help you build trust, which is critical for MSLs. Personally, I think these are great starting points! For more ideas on questions for your took kit, check out these resources:

Potential Resources/Data: 

AI suggested coming prepared with relevant clinical trial data, pipeline updates, and literature reviews. Not terrible ideas. What I would do with this info is think about what resources I have available to me that may align with these ideas. 

As a pro tip, remember: Don’t come in hot with data, especially in an intro meeting. Have it ready, but wait until it’s clear the KOL is interested.

Setting the Agenda:

The AI proposed an agenda that focuses on the KOL and their needs, which is exactly how the agenda should be structured. The key is to make the conversation about them, not about pushing your agenda.

Opening the Conversation:

AI suggested starting by referencing the KOL’s recent publications or advances in their field. These conversation starters/relationship builders are great for showing that you’ve done your homework and are genuinely interested in their work.

Additional Considerations

Couple good ideas in here. A great idea is to ask the AI for more suggestions. 

What Does Microsoft Copilot Recommend?

Many of you are not allowed to used ChatGPT but you may have access to internal Microsoft Copilot. For comparison, I put the exact same prompt into Copilot and got this:

It’s pretty similar to the ChatGPT but with some new twists.

What do you think of these outputs? Would you use some of these ideas in a KOL meeting?