Google has announced an 'AI co-scientist' to assist human researchers in speeding up discovery. In a preliminary experiment, the technology resolved a scientific conundrum that had baffled researchers for almost ten years.

To speed up and improve the efficiency of scientific and biomedical research, the AI co-scientist is made to provide new testable ideas, thorough research summaries, and experimental protocols.

The program is based on Google's most recent chat-based AI assistant, Gemini 2.0, which reacts to user input similarly to other chat-based big language models, such ChatGPT from OpenAI. Human scientists use natural language to describe their study goal to collaborate with the AI co-scientist.

They can also provide critiques and comments, as well as their ideas and proposals.

“AI co-scientist is a collaborative tool to help experts gather research and refine their work — it’s not meant to automate the scientific process,” Google says.

The system is only known as "AI co-scientist" for the time being. The technology promises to help people in several ways, including reducing the amount of time needed to evaluate in-depth literature in areas that researchers may not be familiar with. Additionally, it can immediately provide theories for scientists to test experimentally using the grey matter.

According to reports, the AI co-scientist is now only accessible to researchers who are enrolled in Google's new Trusted Tester Program, which consists of about 20 major researchers. An online application is available to those who would like to participate in the program.