Development of an Evaluation Instrument on Artificial Intelligence Search Tools for Evidence Synthesis

What Was the Question? There are conflicting calls for evidence synthesis producers to adopt or avoid recent Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. Our question was: How do we evaluate rapidly evolving AI tools to enhance the production of evidence syntheses and maintain quality standards? What Did We Do? To advance information retrieval science for producing evidence syntheses at Canada’s Drug Agency (CDA-AMC), the Research Information Services team developed a process to evaluate promising AI search tools. We inventoried 51 tools in the fall of 2023, established selection criteria, assessed specific attributes, and built a standalone instrument to support continuous monitoring and evaluation of new tools. What Did We Find? Rapid development of AI search tools requires a flexible evaluation instrument to inform adoption decisions and enable comparison between tools. We identified mandatory and desirable characteristics for suitable AI tools to assist with information retrieval tasks conducted by CDA-AMC. This work enabled the development of a flexible instrument to evaluate novel AI search tools for evidence synthesis. What Does This Mean? CDA-AMC operationalized a replicable process to monitor and evaluate AI search tools. Our approach to evaluating AI technologies will advance information retrieval methods by CDA-AMC, and our evaluation instrument will assist any evidence synthesis producer interested in adopting AI search tools.