Health-Tech / Digital Product
PfizerAI Covid Diagnostic App
Creative director and lead writer on a Pfizer app that used AI to rule out COVID from the sound of a cough. I created its entire voice from the ground up. It featured a three-persona system that gave a clinical AI the bedside manner of a trusted nurse. I led the team and the cross-agency alignment that brought it to life.
Role
Creative Director, Lead Writer
Client
Pfizer
Discipline
Health-Tech / Digital Product
An App that could rule out COVID by listening to your cough
Answer a few symptom questions, cough into your phone five times, and an AI analyzes the sounds of your airways for patterns associated with COVID. It was to be a quick, at-home first step to tell you whether it's worth taking a real test. My job was to build the voice of the product from whole cloth, and give it life within pharma's medical and legal regulations.
Can your voice really tell if you might have COVID? You bet.
We had to take people from disbelief to relief
Two years of swabs and second-guessing every sore throat had worn everyone out, so a tool that could tell you whether to bother testing felt like a relief. But an AI analyzing the sounds of your body could prove uncanny, and a little hard to believe. In 2023 it genuinely felt like science fiction. So the voice had one job: guide people, over time, from “there's no way this is real” to “wow, this is real, and it's kind of amazing” — turning that disbelief into wonder, and a clinical AI into something that felt like genuine support.
Give the AI the voice of the best nurse you've ever had.
I built the voice around a single, human idea.
You know that nurse who always made you feel comfortable, even when you were scared? The one with the kind smile who also knew how to crack a joke at the right time to break the tension? The one who could explain every exam, and answer every question with simplicity and patience?
That became the product's voice. Warm, plainspoken, good-humored, and genuinely reassuring: a stress reliever for a stressful moment.
One voice, three personas.
A health product has to talk to you in very different moments, so I designed the voice to flex across three personas without ever stopping being itself.
The marketer invites you in with charm and a light touch: “Imagine not imagining the worst-case scenario.”
The care provider guides you through the app with a nurse's empathy and patience: “Let's get started. You'll have results in just minutes.”
The scientist explains the new and the technical with clear, confident reassurance, cutting through the skepticism an AI cough test naturally invites.
I defined each persona, wrote the Do's and Don'ts for every voice trait, and built the full tone-of-voice system. Then I presented it to our team and the branding agency to align us around one voice.
A voice that touched everything
I ensured the voice was in every corner of the product — onboarding, the symptom tracker, the record-your-cough flow, the in-app recording guide, results (the good news and the hard news), the FAQ, a lifecycle email, and long-form education on what endemic COVID actually means. I led the writing team, including the medical and pharma specialists I brought on for the technical depth, and worked shoulder to shoulder with the clinical team, Pfizer's legal group, the client, developers, and localization.
A human touch through regulations and restrictions
The most fascinating and challenging part was staying human while staying legally airtight within an emerging tech product that had no precedent. Working with Pfizer's clinical and legal teams, I authored the language rules that kept the product safe and clear: it's never a “test” or a “screening,” it helps you “rule out COVID” rather than “detect” it, it “analyzes” sounds rather than “listens,” and it's about “coughing sounds,” never your “voice.” I made sure the reassurance and regulated language sounded like a single voice, so the disclaimers never broke the spell of a calm friend walking you through it.
A clinical AI, with the bedside manner of your favorite nurse.
Built, voiced, and ready for the world.
The product was complete: a full voice, a full flow, ready to launch. Pfizer ultimately shelved it before release, the fate of a lot of ambitious emerging-tech work. What's left is a complete, human voice for an AI health product, and proof that even the most clinical technology can sound supportive, wise, and warm.
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