‘Human first, human last’: How one healthcare company used AI to increase its output threefold

When healthcare marketers talk about generative AI, the conversation often veers quickly towards risk.

Accuracy, compliance and trust loom large, particularly in a category where misinformation can have real world consequences. For Alberto Hernandez, chief growth officer at Opella, those concerns are valid, but they can also be met head-on.

“We see Gen AI as an amplifier of our efforts,” he tells Marketing Week. “An amplifier to talk to our consumers and ensure they have the right information to make the right choices for them in terms of self-care.”

That framing, AI as amplifier rather than replacement, underpins how Opella, one of the world’s largest self-care companies, which was spun off from Sanofi in April 2025, has embedded generative AI into its marketing and creative operations.

Rather than treating the technology as a productivity hack bolted onto existing processes, the business has rethought how ideas are generated, how content is produced at scale and how guardrails can be built in from the start.

The result, Hernandez claims, is a threefold increase in content output, stronger engagement and measurable commercial impact – without compromising the credibility on which the brands depend.

In 2024, 27% of all content for Opella’s global brands was produced with generative AI, generating 1,500+ assets at a cost six times cheaper than traditional agency production.

A human approach

At the heart of Opella’s approach is a principle Hernandez repeats frequently: “Human first, human last.”

“A human starts, a human ends,” he explains. “That has been helping us understand how to bring people to help us scale Gen AI capabilities as an organisation.”

In practice, that means generative AI is never left to operate autonomously. Humans define the brief, provide the inputs, interpret the outputs and ultimately decide what goes live. For a healthcare company, that is non-negotiable.

“Nothing will go out without a human picking an eye, looking at it and saying, ‘That’s good. It makes sense. It’s going to help’,” Hernandez says.

Crucially, those humans are not just marketers or creatives. Regulatory, legal and scientific stakeholders are embedded into the process from the outset, shaping how AI tools are used rather than acting as a final checkpoint.

Why one healthcare company is looking to the lifestyle category to grow its brandsOpella has re-engineered its relationship between marketing and regulation. Instead of generating large volumes of content and then pushing it through compliance, regulatory and legal teams are involved at the briefing stage.

“In the teams that are creating the content, we have regulatory folks and legal folks participating in the briefing protocols,” Hernandez explains. “It’s not at the end, when the content is created and we dump a tonne of stuff for them to approve. It’s upfront.”

This early involvement helps define the “guardrails” within which AI can operate – ensuring content is “compliant by design”. Legal and regulatory teams also remain involved at the approval stage, effectively bookending the process.

That structure, Hernandez says, has helped to “erase, a little bit, the fear of content creation through Gen AI”.

“There’s a lot of debate about quality versus speed,” he adds. “I actually think that’s a little bit dated. At this moment in time, we can get quality at speed, but only if you have the right guardrails in place.”

The payoff is not just faster content creation, but a different kind of conversation.

Rather than endless micro-edits, teams focus on higher-level questions: “Are we comfortable with this as a business or not?” If not, content is discarded and replaced, rather than endlessly tweaked.

Scaling creativity from within

Opella’s AI journey is not limited to a single centre of excellence. The company has created dedicated groups of creatives – copywriters and designers – equipped with AI tools and clear brand guidance. The model was developed in France and is now being rolled out globally, including Brazil, India and the Philippines.

“We’re giving them the tools to be able to create, with clear guidance of how our brands have to come alive, with clear briefs regarding what type of content has to be created,” Hernandez says.

Work happens in two- to three-week sprints, allowing teams to rapidly generate and test content across social, websites and other channels. According to Hernandez, output has “multiplied by three times versus where we had been in the past”.

For a category that has historically lagged others in digital content velocity, that shift matters. “Before, we were far behind any other industry,” he says. “Now we’re actually capable of bringing new news to the table in a more consistent way.”

Perhaps more importantly, the tools have democratised idea generation. Where once the ability to visualise or articulate an idea was a barrier, now anyone in the organisation can bring something tangible to the table.

“Anyone in Paris or Brazil can come with an idea, make it visually appear and say, ‘I believe this idea is worth exploring,’” Hernandez says. “That has created an amplification of ideas as an organisation.”

Like many companies experimenting with generative AI, Opella started with efficiency gains. Early use cases focused on adaptation, translation and repetitive production tasks. Those areas where quick wins were possible.

“That proved to be very good at the beginning, because we could see results very quickly,” Hernandez says.

Why AI-powered agencies will be at the forefront of marketing’s next digital revolutionWhat surprised the team was how quickly AI moved upstream into ideation. Rather than waiting for fully formed ideas, marketers now use AI as a creative sparring partner.

Ideas are then tested rapidly using agile methodologies, often generating performance signals within one or two days. Low-performing ideas are dropped. Those that resonate are developed further, with investment following evidence rather than instinct.

“It has become a sparring partner on ideation and creation,” Hernandez says, “not only in content creation, but in innovation, product development, white space, consumer insights.”

For a business that has invested heavily in creative ambition over the past five years, this could have been a moment to stand still.

After all, Hernandez spoke to Marketing Week when the brand was still owned by Sanofi in 2023, about his ‘Crazy Elevate Creativity’ scheme – which helped the brand scoop numerous Cannes Lions awards. You could argue this could be seen as a distraction from a mission that was working.

Instead, Hernandez sees AI as a way to reinforce – not dilute – that creative focus.

“Our model shouldn’t be at the expense of technology adoption,” he says. “If we’re innovative, we have to embrace both.”

Rebalancing agency relationships

The rise of in-house AI-enabled content creation inevitably raises questions about agencies. Hernandez is clear that Opella’s intention is not to marginalise partners, but to refocus their contribution.

“We’re taking workload out of repetitive aspects and reallocating the efforts into places in which the agency can bring much more value,” he says.

That means less time spent on banner adaptations and more on strategic, brand-shaping ideas.

“I want the top chief creative officers to come with ideas of how to evolve my business, how to help more people, how to break through the clutter,” Hernandez says. “That essence is much more valuable than making a four-by-three adaptation of a social post.”

Transparency has been key. Agencies were informed early about Opella’s AI ambitions and invited to help shape the future model.

“We haven’t hidden things or done things in the dark,” Hernandez says. “We’ve been very transparent about the fact we’re testing and learning.” Rather than weakening relationships, he argues, this has made them “tighter”.

Commercial impact across brands

Opella is already seeing tangible results. Hernandez points to several campaigns where AI-enabled creativity has driven significant performance uplifts.

Magnesium brand Magne B6 saw an average 50% increase in engagement across social channels. Pharmaton, a multivitamin brand, delivered a full end-to-end campaign (from media to point-of-sale) resulting in a two-times uplift in clickthrough rates, 20% increased conversion rate and share gains in launch markets. Elsewhere, improved content has driven a 53% increase in website visits for Dulcolax against the previous year.

“What we’re proud of is that it’s happening across the board, across brands, consistently,” Hernandez says.

That consistency has helped overcome initial scepticism internally. As engagement, sales and market share increase, adoption accelerates – making the need for strong controls even more important.

While much of the focus so far has been on storytelling and content, Hernandez is acutely aware of a bigger challenge on the horizon: how consumers increasingly use AI itself as a source of health advice.

“As a self-care company, consumers are looking at Gen AI as a tool to receive advice,” he says. “We have to understand how to give the right information so that LLMs are using factual-based data when it comes to health recommendations.”

This has become increasingly prescient this week with the reveal Google had to remove some of its AI Overviews after a Guardian investigation showed it gave misleading health advice to some consumers.

Opella is already testing approaches in this area, though Hernandez is cautious about sharing details. The motivation, he insists, is not purely commercial.

“It’s an ethical interest of us,” he says. “As one of the biggest OTC players in the world, we need to make sure that the information those LLMs are using is influenced by clinical data – information we know is factual.”

Why marketing still matters

Hernandez sounds energised rather than fatigued by the pace of change. For him, AI reinforces the strategic importance of marketing rather than diminishing it.

“Our discipline can shape the business overall,” he says. “We are the people who can gather insights and respond to them in a better way.”

At Opella, that belief is reflected structurally. Hernandez is not a chief marketing officer, but a chief growth officer – accountable for business growth, not just communications.

“It comes from the sponsorship and support from the CEO,” he says. “A consumer-centric mindset with a brand-led approach is the right way to grow the business.”

As AI blurs the boundaries between art and science, Hernandez believes success will depend on knowing when to trust the data – and when to trust human judgement.

“Sometimes we can trust the numbers. Sometimes we should trust our gut,” he says. “Knowing when to do what is what’s going to define success or failure.”

For Opella, generative AI is not a shortcut or a silver bullet. It is a tool, a powerful one, yes, but only when paired with human creativity, ethical discipline and organisational alignment.

In a category where trust is everything, that balance may prove to be the most valuable innovation of all.