Can AI accelerate aspects of the scientific process? Microsoft seems to be thinking about it.
At the company’s 2025 conference on Monday, Microsoft announced Microsoft Discovery, a platform that sinks Agentic AI to “convert the [scientific] The discovery process, “according to a press release provided in TechCrunch. Microsoft Discovery is” expandable “, says Microsoft and can handle some” science -related workloads “.
“Microsoft Discovery is a business platform that helps to accelerate research and discovery by transforming the whole process of discovery with Agentic AI – from scientific knowledge to formulating cases, producing candidates and simulation and analysis,” explains Microsoft in its liberation. “The platform allows scientists and researchers to work with a team of specialized AI representatives to help promote scientific results with speed, scale and precision using the latest innovations in AI and supercomputing.”
Microsoft is one of the many AI Labs Bullish in AI for science. Earlier this year, Google presented a ”AI co-scientist“That the technological giant said that could help scientists create cases and research plans. Anthropic and his lead opponent, Openai, along with clothes such as Futurehouse and Lila Sciences, have, have, have, have, have, have, have, have, have, have, have, have, have, have, claimant That AI tools could massively accelerate scientific discovery, especially in medicine.
But many researchers do not believe that AS today is particularly useful for guiding the scientific process, mainly because of its unreliability.
Part of the challenge for the development of an “AI scientist” is to predict an unspeakable number of confusion factors. AI can come useful in areas where widespread exploration is required, such as reducing a huge list of capabilities, but it is less clear if it can make the type of out -of -box solving that leads to bona fide discoveries.
The results from the AI systems designed for science have so far have been sluggish.
In 2023, Google said about 40 new materials were synthetic with the help of one of his AIS, called Gnome. But an external analysis Not one of these materials were found, in fact, new. Meanwhile, several businesses employing AI for discovery of drugs, including Exscientia and Benevolentai, have suffered high profile clinical trial failures.
Microsoft is undoubtedly hoping that her effort will get better than those who have come ahead of her.
