Moderna's AI Revolution: Merging HR and Tech with OpenAI Partnership

Moderna leverages OpenAI to transform HR and tech operations

Moderna has merged its technology and human resources departments into a single function, driven by the impact of artificial intelligence on its workforce, according to The Wall Street Journal. The biotech company created a new role, chief people and digital technology officer, and promoted its human resources chief Tracey Franklin to the position late last year. Franklin is redesigning teams based on what work is best done by people versus what can be automated with technology, including tech leveraged from a partnership with AI giant OpenAI. This has resulted in roles being created, eliminated, and reimagined across the company. Franklin had been working closely with then-CIO Brad Miller on a yearslong effort to reassess department needs and redesign them with an optimal mix of human workers and technology systems. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Moderna nearly doubled its workforce from about 830 employees to approximately 1,500 employees. The company now has over 5,000 employees globally. The OpenAI partnership has been transformative, with the company developing over 3,000 tailored versions of ChatGPT, called GPTs, to facilitate specific tasks. These include dose selection for clinical trials and drafting responses to regulator questions. GPTs can be combined to execute more complex workflows. For example, a broad human resources GPT can digest employee questions and route them to GPTs focused on performance management, equity, or benefits. Franklin described this as a "virtual HR, AI agent" that replaces junior-level HR analyst roles. In February, Moderna cut 10% of digital technology jobs, affecting about 50 people, due to lower demand for its Covid-19 vaccine. Wade Davis, head of digital for business at Moderna, noted that the number of GPTs is growing daily. "It's hard to convey -- within the hype -- how much AI is changing things and how much Moderna is using it across the board," he said. Despite recent job cuts, Franklin stated that the company will continue to increase headcount as it launches more products. Moderna reported a $971 million first-quarter loss, largely due to lower product sales, but expects demand to rise during the cold and flu season later this year.

Why Vaccine-Maker Moderna Is Injecting AI Across the Company

Moderna, the biotech company behind one of the original mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, is undergoing an AI-powered workplace transformation. In partnership with OpenAI, Moderna has created thousands of customized AI models in order to replicate work previously done by human employees. It's reportedly already having an effect on the company's organizational structure. In fact, according to a recent story from The Wall Street Journal, the biotech company has taken the unorthodox move of merging its HR and Tech departments, which now both report to a single leader. The relationship between Moderna and OpenAI dates back to 2023, when Moderna used OpenAI's API to build an internal employee chatbot. Then, in April 2024, the two companies announced a partnership to, as OpenAI said, speed up the rate at which they could develop "life-saving treatments." As part of the partnership, Moderna employees were given access to ChatGPT Enterprise, OpenAI's platform for workplace-wide adoption of AI tools. ChatGPT Enterprise enables users to create their own customized versions of OpenAI's models, called GPTs (that stands for Generative Pre-Trained Transformer if you're curious). One of Moderna's earliest AI successes was Dose ID GPT, an AI model customized to evaluate the optimal doses for vaccines. Dose ID GPT was fine-tuned on Moderna's standard dose selection criteria and principles, and according to an OpenAI post featuring Meklit Workneh, Moderna's senior director of clinical development, it enables her teams to "comprehensively evaluate extremely large amounts of data, and do it in a very efficient, safe, and accurate way."