Generative AI and information access: A sustainability model and a research agenda

Since the arrival of ChatGPT in November 2022, many Generative AI chatbots have appeared in the marketplace. Some of these tools like Consensus, Scholar GPT and Scholar AI are specifically designed to facilitate access to research and scholarly information. Also, research database aggregators and vendors like Scopus, Clarivate and JSTOR have introduced their version of Gen AI applications for use on their databases. Will the widespread use of these tools change the ways people seek, access and use information? How can the contemporary, and future, information science research contribute to the sustainability of the Gen AI-augmented information systems and services, especially in the context of research and scholarly information? By critically analysing a diverse range of research papers, and industry and institutional reports and documents, this article discusses various issues associated with the social, economic and environmental sustainability of research and scholarly information systems and services in the era of Gen AI. It proposes a model for sustainability of the information ecosystem in the era of Gen AI, focusing particularly on access to research and scholarly information using LLM-based chatbots, and proposes a research agenda to achieve the social, economic and environmental sustainability of information.