Elsevier launches new AI service designed to speed up R&D

ICHEME’s journals publisher Elsevier has launched a new AI tool to help engineers extract, summarise, and compare information from millions of peer-reviewed papers and book chapters to speed up their R&D.

Elsevier’s paid-for service, ScienceDirect AI, has helped industry and academic researchers save up to 50% of the time they spend on literature research, according to pilot test results.

ScienceDirect AI works much like other AI services with the user typing in a question and receiving an answer from a chatbot. In a promotional video for the service, a user asks, “How can I test the effects of additive manufacturing on the structure, mechanical properties, and crystallinity of polymers?”

The answer it provides includes references that link directly back to the source material, providing similar functionality to the Deep Research subscription available through ChatGPT developer OpenAI. Elsevier says this is designed to help researchers guard against so-called “hallucinations” produced by AI services where chatbots return false information and references.

Once the user opens an article they want to read, the chatbot can then summarise the paper and answer questions about the research, again providing links to the specific passages that have been referenced. It also allows researchers to compare experiments from across a set of research articles, arranging them in a table showing details like materials, methods, results, and conclusions.

Research in the seven IChemE journals published by Elsevier is included in the ScienceDirect AI service, with a spokesperson for the company saying this could help boost their discoverability and impact by driving users to the full-text articles.

Claudia Flavell-While, IChemE’s director of learned society, said: “This is an exciting new development and shows how AI can support scientists and engineers by speeding up their literature reviews and enabling them to focus more attention on other aspects of their research.”

Elsevier has worked with more than 30,000 researchers from universities and companies to trial the new service.

Stuart Whayman, Elsevier’s president of corporate markets, said: “ScienceDirect AI has the potential to dramatically accelerate research by transforming the way researchers discover knowledge and extract insights.”

TCE has been told that employers are restricting engineers from using AI services to prevent them from potentially revealing confidential information and organisational knowhow by typing it into an online tool.

Whayman said Elsevier is committed to privacy and security in order to safeguard intellectual property and protect user data.