Merck and Mastercard are seeing real agentic AI results. Both say the plumbing came first.

Merck is using AI agents to cut drug discovery cycles by a third and ship compliant marketing materials up to 80% faster — but VP of Digital Platforms Sean Finnerty says the only reason it's working is because they built the infrastructure first.And the pharmaceutical manufacturer is seeing promising early results: AI is generating marketing drafts that are “99% right” when it comes to compliance, shrinking review c…