ProQuest®, part of Clarivate™, launches AI-powered research assistant

Around the world, college students are struggling post-pandemic. In the U.S. the national average score on the ACT college placement exam declined to its lowest point in 30 years. In the U.K., researchers are warning that higher ed students are facing increased pressures that significantly reduce their resilience. In the classroom, faculty are reporting high levels of absenteeism and low levels of engagement.

It’s a perfect storm: with the advent of generative artificial intelligence (AI), overwhelmed, under-confident students can be quickly lured to look for help in general-purpose chatbots, exposing them to dangers such as bias and content hallucinations.

Now, ProQuest^®, part of Clarivate^™, is collaborating with its community of educators to address these issues by harnessing AI’s powerful abilities and applying them in a responsible, reliable research companion for students. Currently in beta with top universities, ProQuest Research Assistant achieves a milestone in next generation content discovery by enabling students to use conversational inquiry to explore vast, vetted and authoritative content.

AI that’s rooted in traditional academic values

ProQuest^™ Research Assistant is being tested in an academic library staple: ProQuest One Literature, a destination resource built on a foundation of high quality, authoritative content – an extraordinary range of full text prose and poetry as well as plays, periodicals, essays, video, imagery and editor-developed topical content. ProQuest is developing its AI initiatives in alignment with traditional academic principles and strong community governance. The rigorous approach to testing and validating results is shaping a powerful new research tool that will be integrated in ProQuest solutions across major disciplines.

Navigating knowledge: The AI-powered journey in ProQuest One

ProQuest Research Assistant supports the exploratory phase of the research process and allows researchers to use natural language inquiries to navigate millions of high-quality, trusted sources of full text academic works. Their journey will enable them to discover documents and get summarized responses to research questions that propel exploration.

Patti Ginnis, Vice President, Product Management, ProQuest Information Solutions said: “Our aim is to augment the researcher’s journey, fostering discovery and introducing diverse concepts and comprehensive explorations at the point of need. Our academic AI responds and nurtures the student’s journey, paving the way for the insights that might have eluded them in traditional searches.”

With the ProQuest Research Assistant, students who default to searching on something they already know will be guided to a diversity of perspectives, broadening their vistas to think critically about what they’re learning so they can draw their own conclusions.

Ginnis continues: “This journey isn’t just about efficiency and recall; it’s about integrity, learning and productivity. ProQuest Research Assistant is rooted in traditional values of academia, ensuring that every step aligns with the core values of scholarly pursuits. We believe the synergy between technology and scholarly values is what creates and nurtures curious minds.”

Get involved

Community collaboration is key to the strategy behind ProQuest Research Assistant and the variety of AI initiatives underway at Clarivate. The company is working with librarians, students and faculty to embed AI within its academic offerings in ways that are both responsible and effective.

To explore how you can participate in the next phase of the beta, please email us at pq1devpartners@clarivate.com.