ICSE 2026
Sun 12 - Sat 18 April 2026 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Mon 13 Apr 2026 14:45 - 15:00 at Bora Bora IV - Industrial Application of Bots and Agents

Chatbots have become prevalent in industries such as health and pharmaceutical. They make access to streamlined information easier and faster. With recent advances in large language models (LLMs), chatbots powered by LLMs offer new opportunities to improve access to information, including information about drugs. However, developing chatbots in pharmaceutical practice remains challenging due to safety and regulatory compliance requirements and the unique nature of the data in this domain. In this paper, we share our experience deploying an LLM-based chatbot to answer drug-related questions. We highlight the challenges we encountered developing the chatbot for a global pharmaceutical company. Among these challenges are ensuring that our chatbot retrieves reliable, up-to-date information from trusted sources and that its responses are trustworthy. We also share the strategies we adopt to overcome these challenges and the lessons we learn from deploying the chatbot. We believe these insights can guide the BoatSE and the broader software engineering community when deploying chatbots for highly regulated domains like pharmaceuticals.

Mon 13 Apr

Displayed time zone: Brasilia, Distrito Federal, Brazil change

14:00 - 15:30
Industrial Application of Bots and AgentsBoatSE at Bora Bora IV
14:00
5m
Day opening
Opening
BoatSE

14:05
40m
Keynote
Keynote speech — Building an Internal Coding Agent at Zup: Lessons and Open Questions
BoatSE

14:45
15m
Talk
Experiences Developing an AI Chatbot in the Pharmaceutical Industry
BoatSE
Samuel Abedu Concordia University, Saviour Owolabi University of Calgary, Mayra Sofia Ruiz Rodriguez Concordia University, Adam Yuen University of Calgary, Cedric Lim Ah Tock Concordia University, Ali Zaraket Sandoz, Ahmad Abdellatif University of Calgary, Emad Shihab Concordia University, Nahal Nasseri Sandoz
15:00
15m
Talk
Developer Challenges in the Adoption of Model Context Protocol in AI Agent Development
BoatSE
Oluwatoyosi Oyelayo Concordia University, Samuel Abedu Concordia University, SayedHassan Khatoonabadi Concordia University, Emad Shihab Concordia University
15:15
15m
Talk
Essence Coach: A Bot for Software Practice Adoption
BoatSE
Sonia Nicoletti University of Bologna, Paolo Ciancarini University of Bologna