Reimagining Sophia: From Chatbot to AI-Powered Digital Assistant

Using GenAI and agentic capabilities to reduce friction, improve patient enrollment, and create a more scalable model for digital support.

The opportunity wasn’t simply to add AI to an existing experience. It was to reimagine the experience itself—moving from a system that could answer questions to one that could understand intent, guide the customer, and take action.

Leveraging GenAI and agentic AI, the vision was to create a more consistent and intelligent experience while automating high-value interactions, improving productivity, strengthening customer relationships, and creating a scalable foundation for future growth.

The Opportunity 

230K+ inquiries. One proven digital touchpoint. A much bigger opportunity.

Since 2017, Novo Nordisk's Sophia chatbot had helped more than 230,000 customers find answers and navigate information.

But customer expectations—and the technology landscape—were evolving.

Sophia could answer questions, but it couldn't yet deliver a truly personalized, insight-driven experience or help customers complete tasks across the digital journey.

The opportunity was bigger than improving a chatbot.

It was to rethink what a digital assistant could do.

Move beyond answering questions to reducing friction where it matters most.

Sophia had already established a significant digital relationship with patients, but the greatest opportunity was to connect that digital experience to the moments creating the most friction—and the greatest operational demand.

Call volume and patient enrollment were critical value drivers.

The highest-volume interactions centered around affordability and Savings Card registration, creating an opportunity to shift appropriate, repetitive interactions from the call center to a more intuitive digital experience.

The vision for the NextGen Digital Assistant was therefore not simply to make Sophia smarter.

It was to:

Reduce avoidable call volume
by helping patients find answers and complete tasks digitally.

Improve patient enrollment
by making registration and affordability support easier to navigate.

Increase service productivity
by allowing agents to focus on more complex or higher-value interactions.

Create a more connected patient journey
by moving seamlessly between self-service, digital guidance and human support when needed.

The Vision

From answering questions to helping customers get things done.

We set out to evolve Sophia from a traditional chatbot into a NextGen Digital Assistant powered by GenAI and agentic AI.

The vision was to create a consistent, intelligent experience that could:

Understand customer intent
Answer questions with greater relevance
Guide customers through complex journeys
Connect customers with the right human support
Take action to complete tasks

The result: a digital experience designed to be more engaging, responsive, personalized and scalable across patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals.

Start with customer needs. Prove value. Scale responsibly.

Rather than treating AI as a technology deployment, we approached the transformation as a business, experience and organizational change initiative.

We identified five priority capabilities:

01 — Registration & Task Support

Move beyond providing information to helping customers complete key tasks and processes.

02 — Live-Agent Connection

Create a seamless transition between AI and human support when a conversation requires human expertise.

03 — Enhanced Search

Use conversational AI to make information easier to discover, understand and navigate.

04 — Web Concierge

Understand intent and dynamically guide customers across Novo Nordisk's digital ecosystem.

05 — Agent-Facing Chatbot

Extend AI capabilities to service teams, helping agents access information faster and improve productivity.

The Transformation

A staged path from concept to scalable capability

One of the biggest challenges wasn't determining what AI could do.

It was determining what AI should do—and when the organization was ready to scale it.

AFFORDABILITY
High-volume patient inquiries → AI-powered guidance & self-service

SAVINGS CARD REGISTRATION
High-friction enrollment → Digital task completion

CALL CENTER
Repetitive inquiries → AI-assisted resolution & smarter escalation

PATIENT JOURNEY
Disconnected interactions → Connected digital experience

We therefore created a staged approach designed to validate both technology and organizational readiness.

ANALYZE

Prove the concept

Launch targeted POCs around priority use cases to test platform capabilities, customer value and technical feasibility.

Establish the foundation

Assess the current state, gather requirements, define guardrails, evaluate compliance and security considerations, and identify the operating model required to support an AI-enabled experience.

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EXECUTE

Launch the MVP

Move validated use cases into a live environment with defined KPIs and learning objectives.

Configure the Digital Assistant around Novo Nordisk's requirements for security, compliance, personalization and scalability.

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IMPLEMENT

Scale what works

Prioritize additional capabilities based on demonstrated value, platform maturity, technology readiness and evolving priorities across brands and patient-support programs.

Staged Approach to Validate Concept and Organizational Readiness

Analyze Phase

Proof of Concept - Deliver select use cases to test and validate the platform. Review compliance and guardrails.

Foundation Setting – Assess current state, gather requirements, validate plan, identify operating model

Execute Phase 

MVP - deliver select use cases with defined KPIs to live environment. A phased strategy to configure
Digital Assistant capabilities aligned with Novo's security, compliance, and personalization goals—ensuring scalable integration.

Implementation

Roll out based on roadmap and use case prioritization to unlock long-term value from the Digital Assistant. Phased based on platform maturity, technology, readiness, and evolving strategic priorities across Brand and patient support programs.

This wasn't about building a better chatbot.

It was about establishing a new model for digital engagement.

By evolving Sophia into a NextGen Digital Assistant, we created a strategic path toward an AI-enabled experience that could connect content, conversation, people and action within a single customer journey.

The approach balanced innovation with the realities of healthcare—using experimentation and measurable outcomes to build confidence before scaling.

Strategy at the intersection of customer experience, AI and enterprise transformation

I defined the strategic vision and roadmap for evolving Sophia into a NextGen Digital Assistant, aligning Commercial, Marketing, IT, Data, Legal, Analytics and external technology partners around the opportunity.

My work included:

• Defined the AI and Digital Assistant vision and use-case strategy
• Established the POC and MVP learning agenda
• Evaluated AI capabilities and platform approaches
• Defined KPIs and OKRs to measure value
• Helped establish data, compliance and AI guardrails
• Developed the phased roadmap and operating model considerations
• Led cross-functional alignment across teams that did not report directly to me
• Managed $1M+ program budgets
• Translated emerging AI capabilities into practical business and customer-experience opportunities