Pharmacists
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Calculated automation risk
Low Risk (21-40%): Jobs in this level have a limited risk of automation, as they demand a mix of technical and human-centric skills.
More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.
User poll
Our visitors have voted that it's probable this occupation will be automated. However, employees may be able to find reassurance in the automated risk level we have generated, which shows 31% chance of automation.
What do you think the risk of automation is?
What is the likelihood that Pharmacists will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?
Sentiment
The following graph is included wherever there is a substantial amount of votes to render meaningful data. These visual representations display user poll results over time, providing a significant indication of sentiment trends.
Sentiment over time (quarterly)
Sentiment over time (yearly)
Growth
The number of 'Pharmacists' job openings is expected to rise 5.4% by 2033
Total employment, and estimated job openings
Updated projections are due 09-2025.
Wages
In 2023, the median annual wage for 'Pharmacists' was $136,030, or $65 per hour
'Pharmacists' were paid 183.0% higher than the national median wage, which stood at $48,060
Wages over time
Volume
As of 2023 there were 331,700 people employed as 'Pharmacists' within the United States.
This represents around 0.22% of the employed workforce across the country
Put another way, around 1 in 457 people are employed as 'Pharmacists'.
Job description
Dispense drugs prescribed by physicians and other health practitioners and provide information to patients about medications and their use. May advise physicians and other health practitioners on the selection, dosage, interactions, and side effects of medications.
SOC Code: 29-1051.00
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Pharmacists in clinically-focused roles face the greatest risk of displacement, as Physicians become more efficient in patient care due to AI advancements. This increased efficiency will likely reduce the need for Pharmacists and other healthcare professionals who currently fill gaps in care.
Furthermore, the advancement of AI will enable more clinicians outside of conventional medicine to retrain as Physicians, as medical schools become more flexible, affordable, and accessible. The pathway to becoming a Physician while working as a Pharmacist could soon be realized through part-time programs delivered as a series of short-term courses, potentially completed in as little as ten years. This shift could help meet the growing demand for Primary Care Physicians, where shortages persist.
For Pharmacists who remain in the field, the practice of Pharmacy will be completely different; it will be primarily driven by those competent enough to oversee the increasing implementation of AI and robotics. As AI and robotics usage expands, there will be a significant demand for Pharmacists who understand how to manage these technologies and ensure compliance with the stringent regulations governing their use.
AI will transform the pharmacy role, but humans will always need drugs, and human beings to talk to about those drugs.
In such a scenario, pharmacists might still be employed to monitor the operations of multiple pharmacies from a remote location in the event that systems malfunction or become overloaded.
The net effect of this shift could lead to a decreased demand for pharmacists, as pharmacy technicians demonstrate superior performance when utilizing AI compared to when they are assisted by pharmacists.
To maintain their current employment levels, pharmacists must demonstrate to the public that they excel in remotely monitoring, evaluating, updating, and maintaining pharmacy AI platforms compared to other professions.
Otherwise, there won’t be any justification for hiring pharmacists at the current rate or paying them at the same salary levels, especially if they do not possess greater skills than the pharmacy technicians using these technologies.
The other assumption is that AI will continue to progress exponentially. Based on current sentiment from most of the tech field is that LLM development has recently slowed significantly from its earliest developmental explosion. It's largest wall to development right now is retaining information permanence for the purposes of building knowledge not previously trained on, and avoiding non-factual "hallucinations". These are two critical problems that have yet to see widespread or effective solutions implemented.
Try replacing healthcare providers with a robot that can't remember critical personal details correctly or does not have the intuition to even ask based on human cues or complex social history - the majority of effective patient counselling and interaction in healthcare requires these functions.
While AI is set to change the role of clinical pharmacists in medication management, it is crucial to understand that AI is not expected to entirely replace them. Instead, AI will eliminate the need for pharmacists to directly prescribe and manage medications, opening up opportunities for collaboration in validating, certifying, and overseeing AI-driven prescribing software. This collaboration will be vital for ensuring the quality, accuracy, and ethical application of AI technology in healthcare. Pharmacists who embrace new roles in a technology-driven future will thrive, using their expertise and technological skills to advocate for their continued involvement in validating and enhancing the performance of AI-driven solutions in medication management. The pharmacists who cling to the past, where the physical presence of a pharmacist was required over digital presence and technological solutions, will be the ones left behind.
AI technology offers cost-effective solutions that surpass Clinical Pharmacists in medication reviews, questioning the need for non-physician involvement in assessing patients' medication effectiveness and appropriateness. As AI becomes more integrated into healthcare, it has the potential to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of physician-led prescribing, potentially rendering roles like Clinical Pharmacists obsolete in this aspect. This shift necessitates non-physician healthcare providers to adapt to changing responsibilities, as the tasks of prescribing and evaluating medication appropriateness and effectiveness, in a healthcare setting, will no longer be within their domain.
However, AI is not expected to completely replace Clinical Pharmacists and other healthcare professionals. Instead, it will remove the necessity for these professionals to directly prescribe and review medications, creating opportunities for collaboration in validating, certifying, developing, and managing AI-driven prescribing software in healthcare settings and software companies. This collaboration is crucial for ensuring the quality and reliability of the technology, as public trust in AI outcomes will require continuous validation and certification from other healthcare professionals.
The decision on who will provide these ongoing validations, whether it will be led by nurse practitioners, physician assistants, or clinical pharmacists, remains uncertain as the healthcare landscape evolves. If none of these professions takes on this role, physicians are likely to step in, seizing the chance to further establish themselves as the most qualified authorities in medication management.
While Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants, and Clinical Pharmacists have sought to expand their roles over time, the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) software presents a significant shift. AI technology has the potential to disrupt this trend by offering cost-effective solutions that surpass the capabilities of Clinical Pharmacists in medication review. This development challenges the traditional arguments used to justify the involvement of non-physician providers in prescribing practices.
As AI software becomes more prevalent in healthcare, it is poised to enhance the efficiency of Physician-managed prescribing processes, potentially rendering the need for Clinical Pharmacists and other non-physician prescribers obsolete. This shift may prompt a reevaluation of the costs associated with employing these professionals outside their traditional scope. While AI is not expected to entirely replace Pharmacists and other healthcare providers, it will redirect their focus towards their core competencies, creating new opportunities for collaboration with Physicians and technology companies.
The evolving landscape of healthcare will require Pharmacists and other healthcare professionals to pivot towards roles that align with their original training, while also offering them opportunities to contribute to the development and maintenance of AI-driven prescribing software. This collaboration will be essential in ensuring the quality and reliability of these technological advancements, thereby fostering trust among the public in the outputs generated by such systems.
Physicians, unlike the general public, are trained experts in diagnosing and treating patients, with prescribing medications falling within their domain rather than that of pharmacists. While pharmacists traditionally excel in reviewing medication therapies, the integration of AI in data analysis is reshaping the landscape. This technological advancement is expected to reduce the necessity for clinical pharmacists to conduct extensive reviews in clinical settings. With physicians inputting data into AI systems for analysis and interpreting the outputs themselves, there will be a significant decrease in the previous reliance on pharmacists for medication optimization assessments.
The evolving role of AI may assume tasks previously handled by Clinical Pharmacists, such as ensuring prescribed medications align with patient needs and care goals. However, Pharmacists will still play a crucial role in training, updating, and refining AI systems to adapt to changing regulations and advancements in medicine. The responsibility will increasingly fall on Informatics Pharmacists, Information Technology Pharmacists, Data Scientists, Machine Learning Engineers, and Software Engineers, rather than solely on Clinical Pharmacists.
With technology playing an expanding role in the Pharmaceutical Industry, there will be a growing need for regulatory frameworks to supervise the sector. This shift will create a demand for Pharmacists specializing in Compliance and Regulatory Affairs within pharmacies. Increased site inspections will become necessary, requiring Pharmacists to intensify their monitoring efforts. Pharmacists will also face a rising burden of conducting independent assessments and detailed reporting to ensure that the technologies utilized comply with industry standards and regulations.
They had 0% human error in the years they launched it. This is so pharmacists can do more patient care which I think is a great idea. But for those who didn’t do residency vs those that did, I’m sure employers will choose the residency trained pharm over the non residency trained pharm.
Maybe the option to not do residency will diminish in the future.
There’s already low applicants as of this year with over 90% acceptance rates. It’s crazy bc seeing how much it was in demand ten years ago.
I think sooner or later other hospitals will follow, along with other companies in terms of AI and robots. Community pharmacists will have issues in the future if robotics are indeed what companies will invest in. Invest in robotics and you won’t have to pay 130-180k for each human to do the same job. They might be highly trained, but the job used to be on the job training, used to be Bachelor level. Lots of admin work. The whole PharmD was from greedy leaders that wanted to take advantage of the loans for higher education. Sucks.
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