Hi Halie,
I evaluated their "natural language search" feature (perhaps this has been
rebranding as "AI-assisted search"?) in a presentation earlier this year, here
is where those slides start
<https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1f7geBNOmpphST9idIcvliADot0o430Svirb9Jp6A0ow/edit?slide=id.g3d4320f7a04_0_0#slide=id.g3d4320f7a04_0_0>.
It performed ok. Aaron Tay also did his own analysis
<https://aarontay.substack.com/p/a-deep-dive-into-ebscohosts-natural> of
this feature. I experimented with Ask this Document briefly, only long
enough to find it refused to discuss topics not discussed in the text,
which is probably for the best. I have not seen many others
discuss these specific tools.
For what it's worth, I was disappointed when EBSCO made the announcement
that AI features would become opt-out. I feel like it is inconsistent with
how their other news features are rolled out and generally not what the
librarians I talk to want. EBSCO said that their customers asked for this
change, but I don't know how they determined that. I sent a complaint to
their support site voicing my disagreement.
Best,
Eric Phetteplace
Systems Librarian
California College of the Arts
libraries.cca.edu
On Mon, Aug 31, 2026 at 7:00 AM Kerns, Halie <
000002afab0e7404-dmarc-request_at_lists.clir.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> We use EDS for our discovery layer. With the AI tools changing from opt-in
> to opt-out very soon, I was wondering if anyone had an experience opting in
> to any of the tools (AI- assisted search, Ask this Document, AI
> Conversational Search, and so on).
>
> I would love to hear any positive or negative experiences/feedback from
> students, faculty, and admin. Are you finding them helpful or not?
>
> I've manually turned them off for now, but I'd be really interested to
> hear what others have seen in practice and whether you've found them worth
> enabling.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Halie Kerns
> Systems & Technology Librarian
> Bridgewater State University
> hkerns_at_bridgew.edu
> she/her
>
Received on Mon Aug 31 2026 - 17:22:43 EDT