Sanofi Doesn’t Want AI to Automate Work. It Wants to Reinvent It.
On June 1, at San Francisco’s Moscone Center, a speaker at the opening keynote of Snowflake Summit 2026 gave the audience a glimpse of how AI agents are beginning to reshape the pharmaceutical industry.“Imagine that you are a sales representative preparing to meet a physician,” said Emmanuel Frenehard, Sanofi’s Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer. “You call up Sanofi’s internal AI agent, Concierge, and say: ‘I’m about to meet Dr. Hannah. Help me prepare for the meeting.’”During the live demonstration, Concierge immediately produced a briefing on the physician’s prescribing patterns, clinical interests and potential conversation starters. Research and verification that once took hours could be completed in seconds through just a few questions.The demonstration showcased Concierge for Field, an AI agent developed by Sanofi in partnership with Snowflake. The tool gives Sanofi’s field representatives immediate access to relevant information before they meet physicians or visit healthcare institutions.Founded in France in 1973, Sanofi is one of the world’s largest biopharmaceutical companies, generating €43.6 billion in annual sales in 2025. Its principal therapeutic areas include immunology, neurology, oncology, rare diseases and vaccines. Dupixent, whose active ingredient is dupilumab, is one of its leading medicines.What has drawn particular attention from the AI industry is not simply Sanofi’s adoption of artificial intelligence, but the speed and scale of its transformation. The company has set out to become the first biopharma organization powered by AI at scale. To support that ambition, it has brought IT, data, AI, cybersecurity, infrastructure and digital capabilities together under a unified organization.Frenehard is one of the executives leading that transformation. Before joining Sanofi, he led digital and technology initiatives in the media and entertainment industry, including roles at Walt Disney International and Southeast Asian streaming company iflix. At Sanofi, he has sought to embed a culture of measurement, experimentation and rapid execution across the organization.As AI transformation and enterprise agents become central issues for legacy companies, The Miilk sat down with Frenehard in San Francisco to discuss what Sanofi is changing, how it is approaching the transition and what other companies can learn from its experience.Below is an edited transcript of the interview.