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Are corporate researchers ready to embrace GenAI?

Findings from Elsevier’s “Attitudes Toward AI” report

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Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools are evolving at an unprecedented rate, offering the potential to transform how we work, consume information and innovate. Elsevier’s survey of 300 researchers in industries including pharmaceuticals, life sciences and chemicals found that they are willing to use AI and are optimistic about its benefits, but require assurances about transparency and integrity in order to trust it fully as part of their work.

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AI: What researchers think

The survey, published as part of the wider ‘Insights 2024: Attitudes toward AI’ Report, reveals several trends in how corporate researchers view and use GenAI:

  • More than a third (38%) of respondents have already used AI for work purposes, and three quarters (76%) expect to use AI within the next 2-5 years

  • 96% think AI will accelerate knowledge discovery

  • But 96% are also worried about the potential for AI to be used for misinformation

  • 85% are concerned about the ethical implications of AI on their work

  • 77% expect transparency on the use of GenAI in the tools they use

  • 91% want GenAI’s information to be based solely on high-quality, trusted sources

Diving deeper into these results reveals how organizations can address the key challenges surrounding AI in research.

AI awareness

Corporate researchers are optimistic about AI’s potential

Almost all respondents think AI will drive knowledge discovery in their field, and 71% say the impact will be transformative or significant. Most respondents also believe AI will realize cost savings for businesses (93%) and free up their time to focus on higher value projects (85%). For researchers who believe AI can benefit their areas of work, 98% say they are likely to use it to generate syntheses of research articles and 93% are likely to use it to identify gaps in knowledge and generate new research hypotheses.

A graph showing the potential uses of AI in corporate research

Significant concerns about AI misuse

Industries like life sciences and chemicals demand a level of precision that public GenAI tools are currently unable to deliver. As such, 84% of researchers believe that AI has the potential to cause critical errors. Specific concerns include AI not having enough regulation or governance, that it is unable to replace human creativity, judgment and/or empathy, and that it is too dependent on outdated data/information.

A chart indicating the areas where AI has the potential to cause the most harm, according to corporate researchers.

What researchers demand from AI

Respondents identify several actions that would help build their trust in AI. 81% expect GenAI to always be paired with human expertise, 77% expect to be informed if the tools they use depend on AI, and 41% say robust data governance will increase their comfort using these tools. Researchers also want tools that cite references by default, are trained solely on high-quality peer-reviewed content, and keep inputs confidential.

AI transparency

A partner for your GenAI journey

The power of AI in corporate research will be unleashed when organizations are able to integrate trusted scientific data with secure computational ecosystems to build specialist AI applications that solve scientific problems and support evidence-based decisions.

Elsevier understands these challenges. We have been using and developing trusted AI and machine learning technologies for the last two decades, in combination with our world-class peer-reviewed content and machine-readable Datasets, to create products that help the research community be more effective every day.

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