AI: A game-changer for researchers and innovators
While research is an intellectually rewarding experience, it can sometimes be a tedious and time-consuming process.
AI has many applications that can provide assistance to researchers, in all fields, and at all stages of the research process, from identifying research gaps to preparing the slides for presentations. This article will discuss some of these research-oriented applications.
One of these AI applications is Consensus, which helps in the literature review as it offers quick answers to research-related questions by reviewing existing relevant studies and articles and drafting research outlines.
A similar tool is Elicit, which serves the same purpose, but is a more comprehensive and advanced application. Another research assistant is NotebookLM, which helps with immediate summarisation and note-taking. It also serves as a personalised assistant, allowing users to upload their own sources and ask questions to receive simple explanations.
Johnson (2024) states, 'Within seconds, NotebookLM becomes a virtual research assistant, capable of answering questions or tracking down references based entirely on the source materials you've supplied.'
The most well-known AI-powered tool is ChatGPT. It is a significant tool for researchers since it is used for many purposes, such as drafting and editing academic writings, scanning and summarising articles, and responding to different questions that researchers ask for.
Another application is Gemini, which is great for multi-modal processing, real-time research, analysing articles and academic papers, and could be used for scripting too. The Visily application is also helpful in data analysis and helps users prototype digital tools and present visual ideas (AI tools); researchers may also use it for quick and creative designs.
Another very useful tool is Research Rabbit, in which researchers can discover various research papers and find connections between different authors and their works. James Cook University maintains that Research Rabbit is a 'citation-based literature mapping tool,' which also helps in organising the collections of papers based on the researchers' interests.
All the aforementioned applications are useful throughout the whole research process, starting from planning to writing and data analysis. A single researcher might take months to find and analyse data, whereas, with the help of AI, these tasks could be performed in a short time frame.
AI can discover relationships that may not be immediately obvious to the human mind and can help researchers draw more penetrating and impactful conclusions. With the combination of both, the human mind and AI, a researcher can come up with more creative and innovative outcomes.
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