Source: Nature
Research institutions are outsourcing lab design and execution to AI systems that simulate experimental workflows, optimize equipment configurations, and run protocols without human intervention. This collapses the gap between computational modeling and wet lab reality. Labs are becoming products that AI agents configure for specific research problems, reducing friction around equipment procurement, training, and hands-on troubleshooting—barriers that traditionally limit access to advanced research. The tradeoff is speed and wider participation against concentration: whoever controls the AI platforms that design these systems controls what gets built and what research scales.