There has been a lot of talk about AI optimization in the marketing world, much of which was spurred by the release of a preprint article published to arXiv (pdf) in September which demonstrated that LLMs could be manipulated to increase product visibility. There is even a term for optimizing for search engines: Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO. Of course, we are immediately interested in whether any of this is meaningful to marketers in the life sciences.

Our friends at Laboratory Supply Network recently beat us to the punch and asked Reddit’s Labrats community if they use LLMs to help them find scientific products. Good question! Apparently it is also one with a clear answer.

This is a relatively small poll, but the results are so skewed that it is likely that the result is telling. In this poll, 80% of scientists responded that they never use AI for product discovery: literally zero percent of the time! Another 14% barely ever use it. Only two respondents said they use it roughly 10% of the time or more, with one saying they use it more than half the time.

Some of the comments indicate that scientists simply don’t see any relative value in AI for scientific product discovery, or see much better value from other means of product discovery.

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byu/LabSupNet from discussion
inlabrats

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byu/LabSupNet from discussion
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Another indicated that AI simply might not be helpful specifically within the scientific context.

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byu/LabSupNet from discussion
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Here is the full conversation in r/labrats:

Do you use LLMs / AI to get recommendations on lab products?
byu/LabSupNet inlabrats

Maybe there will be a day where scientists adopt AI for product discovery in meaningful numbers, but it seems we aren’t there yet.