Search engine giant, Google, has introduced Scholar Labs which leverages AI to answer users’ scholarly research questions.
It is essentially an upgraded yet a separate version of Google Scholar but adds generative AI “to act as an advanced research tool.”
Google Scholar has been traditionally pulling up papers based on keywords from the search query. Now, Scholar Labs analyzes the full question, breaks it down into key topics, angles, and relationships, then scans Google Scholar for the most relevant studies.
We’ve tried making a search on both the old and new platforms by searching “how effective are silicon carbon batteries on smartphones?”
As expected, Google Scholar pulled up studies that contained the keywords from our search query, but it showed the results much faster in a mere second.
Scholar Labs on the other hand was much slower as it ‘evaluates’ over 80 top results, then eventually coming up with 10 most relevant results. The pulled-up results actually attempt to answer the question by showing what seems to be a summary in bullet points.
There’s also the option to ask a follow-up question or show more results from the original query.
While the UI is mostly the same as before, Scholar Labs lacks the filters such as adding a custom year range which is crucial for academic research.
Users can try out the new Scholar Labs here.
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