New AI platform aims to supercharge your company research workflow – here’s how

The Independent was not involved in the creation of this sponsored content.

From improving medical diagnostics to streamlining corporate operations and overhauling recruitment, AI’s potential to enhance efficiency and drive innovation across multiple industries is undeniable. There are trillions of dollars in estimated efficiency?waiting to be unlocked by generative AI, which has been cause for excitement – but also skepticism.

The initial optimism surrounding generative AI tools like ChatGPT has been challenged by the reality that these tools can be imperfect. Generative AI can hallucinate information, passing off made-up answers as being factual in order to cover up gaps in its knowledge. Some AI platforms also retain user data for training, feeding inputs from the user back into the AI’s large language model (LLM) in order to improve the platform. Trusting your technology and data partners can seem more challenging than ever.

Little wonder, then, that LexisNexis’s 2024 Future of Work Report found that even as businesses are excited about incorporating AI into their working processes, they are also extremely choosy about the tools they use. Nearly 90 percent of professionals surveyed said that they prioritize quality and accuracy of AI outputs when selecting generative AI tools. Putting a premium on quality and accuracy is what led LexisNexis to bring to market a first-of-its-kind research platform designed to harness the best of AI’s potential while mitigating some of its well-established risks.

Into this dynamic landscape, LexisNexis has introduced Nexis+ AI, a research platform designed to help professionals find and synthesize data from trusted sources more efficiently by harnessing the power of generative AI. Nexis+ AI combines the extensive LexisNexis data universe with advanced AI capabilities to streamline research processes and enhance decision-making. Its features include AI-generated first drafts that use cited sources, AI-generated news summaries that speed up research, and a timesaving document analyzer that extracts valuable information from uploaded files in minutes.

Conducting more than 700 hours of market interviews made it clear to LexisNexis developers the desire professionals have for precise, actionable data that maintains transparency and data integrity. Developed with safeguards like citations that mitigate the risk posed by hallucinations, it allows researchers to create generative AI outputs using licensed global content from LexisNexis – meaning authentic claims made by the platform’s AI can be linked back to an original source. Building trustworthy AI tools also means preserving the integrity of the user’s own uploads and queries, which aren’t ever used for training an AI model.

Nexis+ AI also uses retrieval augmented generation (RAG) as a foundational component for ensuring the integrity of content generated by the platform. In essence, RAG helps Nexis+ AI provide answers to user questions that are backed by an authoritative source. While other LLM-powered generative AI tools will only rely on the information they’ve previously been trained on when generating content – running the risk of fabricating an answer that sounds convincing – RAG makes Nexis+ AI check against its data pool for sources when generating an answer to user queries. If it can’t find any, it will tell the user it can’t answer the question. From input to output, Nexis+ AI is built with transparency in mind.

Responsibly unlocking efficiency has been a focus for the developers of Nexis+ AI, and this extends to how licensed content is used within the platform. The news insights feature turns lengthy individual articles into bite-sized summaries in seconds, letting you get the gist of an article quickly before diving in deeper. This capability is particularly valuable in today’s fast-paced business environment, where staying informed about industry trends is crucial. Tools like these already have Nexis+ AI users estimating as much as 25 percent in time-savings* in their research workflows, with more than two hours saved^? on routine tasks like document review and report writing.

LexisNexis news content has been keeping businesses up-to-date for more than 50 years, but use of licensed content by AI is a new frontier for many publishers. So far, LexisNexis has secured rights to use licensed content in its AI tools by some of the world’s largest publishers, including Associated Press, Gannett, and McClatchy. Even in the relatively new world of commercial AI offerings, LexisNexis maintains a “publisher-first” philosophy, wherein publishers are fairly paid for use of their content. In the interest of user privacy, documents uploaded to the platform for AI analysis are deleted after the session ends.

Gaining user trust when using AI tools also applies to how content is generated in Nexis+ AI. The first draft capability generates cited reports that link back to the original source, whether it’s one you’ve found on the open web, or discovered within the LexisNexis content library. According to the Future of Work Report, professionals consider transparent decision-making processes essential for building confidence in AI tools. By automating repetitive tasks and providing intelligent insights, AI enables professionals to focus on more strategic and creative aspects of their roles. This shift not only improves productivity but also contributes to a more fulfilling work experience, creating opportunities for higher job satisfaction across your workforce. The report found that a majority of professionals surveyed experienced “significantly” or “moderately” improved job satisfaction with the adoption of generative AI.

Integrating AI tools like Nexis+ AI into business operations can not only enhance efficiency but also support informed decision-making. That ultimately contributes to a more innovative and productive future, where workers find their jobs more meaningful and are freed up to use their talents for additional projects. And because two-thirds of those surveyed in the report said they value ease of use when taking on new generative AI-powered tools, Nexis+ AI was made to seamlessly integrate into existing workflows. This is not a tool that will demand weeks of extra training; from the outset, it is built to be accessible and straightforward.

For those interested in exploring the capabilities of Nexis+ AI and understanding how it can transform their research and competitive intelligence efforts, more information is available on the Nexis+ AI product page. The future of AI is bright, and platforms like Nexis+ AI are leading the way in unlocking its full potential.

*Calculation based on interview with 10 users of Nexis+ AI Collect feature. Users estimated the feature would, on average, save up to 25% of their time spent on research. Calculated April 2023.

^?Based on comparison of time estimated by user to create a summary of a report by manual review against time to create a summary using Nexis+ AI Document Analyzer to summarize the same report. Calculated May 2024.