On May 8, 2025, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the completion of its first AI-assisted scientific review pilot. Alongside that announcement came a clear directive: generative AI capabilities will be implemented across all FDA centers by June 30.
This is more than just an operational update. It represents a turning point in how regulatory agencies review scientific submissions. For the first time, FDA reviewers are using generative AI to analyze documents, extract insights, and speed up decision-making.
From Pilot to Practice
According to the FDA, scientific review tasks that previously took three days can now be completed in minutes. AI tools are being used to help internal reviewers sift through large volumes of complex data and text. And this is just the beginning.
FDA Commissioner Dr. Martin Makary emphasized the need for urgency: “There have been years of talk about AI capabilities… but we cannot afford to keep talking. It is time to take action.”
Under his directive, every center within the FDA will adopt a secure, unified generative AI system integrated with the agency’s internal data platforms. This isn’t an isolated pilot, it’s an institutional shift that will reshape how regulatory content is evaluated.
Why This Matters for Life Sciences Companies
If the FDA is using generative AI to read and summarize documents, it follows that content must be written in a way that these tools can parse and understand accurately. This may sound obvious, but it represents a major departure from traditional writing strategies.
Historically, sponsors have often taken a minimalist approach to narratives: lean text supplemented by tables, cross-references, and linked documents. The assumption was that expert human reviewers would “fill in the gaps,” synthesizing across components to get the full picture.
That assumption no longer holds.
Generative AI tools are powerful, but their accuracy depends on the quality, clarity, and structure of the source content. Ambiguous references, embedded figures without explanation, or overreliance on external links can all weaken the signal. What the AI doesn’t see, or understand, may never make it into the review summary. That, in turn, can impact how a submission is evaluated.
Adapting Content for a New Review Process
To meet this new reality, submission documents must be:
- Self-contained, with narrative that can stand on its own
- Clearly structured and aligned to regulatory expectations
- Consistent and traceable from source data to final text
This shift enables AI to interpret documents accurately and deliver useful summaries to human reviewers.
Writing for the Reviewer, and the Reviewer’s AI
At Yseop, we’ve long advocated for structured, scalable approaches to regulatory writing. Our technology automates the creation of documents like CSRs, summary documents, and narratives, but equally important is how we generate them.
Yseop Copilot doesn’t just write quickly. It writes with structure, consistency, and traceability while producing content that aligns with both human and machine readers. As regulators embrace AI, these qualities become mission-critical.
We believe this moment validates what we’ve been building toward: a future where regulatory content is not only compliant and clear, but optimized for AI-assisted review.
What Comes Next
With the FDA mandating generative AI across all centers by mid-2025, the countdown has already begun. Life sciences teams need to act now, not only to accelerate their own processes, but to ensure their submissions are effectively interpreted by the very systems that regulators now depend on.
For sponsors, the message is clear: AI is no longer just an internal tool. It’s a reviewer, too.
If your team is ready to adapt to this next era of regulatory transformation, we’re here to help.
Talk to us about making your content AI-ready for the new FDA review mode
