Ian Mulvany

February 20, 2026

current state of AI scholarly discovery services

This post is great - https://aarontay.substack.com/p/how-agentic-are-academic-deep-research 

I learnt a lot. 

My main reflection is that the fixed workflows that the current crop of tools are showing were developed when models were weaker, yet from a product perspective, trying to build something that is simultaneously specific and general, is really hard. 

Models are going to continue to improve in 2026. There was a moment towards the end of 2024 when we were unsure about that. 

This tension between having immense power, and making it easy to use, is going to be an ongoing product tension over the next few years (not a novel thought). My thoughts and prayers are with all the researchers and product folk out there. 

About Ian Mulvany

Hi, I'm Ian - I work on academic publishing systems. You can find out more about me at mulvany.net. I'm always interested in engaging with folk on these topics, if you have made your way here don't hesitate to reach out if there is anything you want to share, discuss, or ask for help with!