AI Tools for Research

PDF version of the slides presented at the workshop "AI in Academia: Efficiency, Transparency, and Responsibility" organized by Emily Kate Genatowski at the University of Vienna (13-15 October 2025). The presentation covers five main points relating to the efficiency of using AI tools in research: Choose your tool: a presentation of the criteria to consider when selecting a tool, including the question whether AI should be used for certain tasks. Refine your prompts: an overview of the OpenAI Playground, including possible settings for LLMs, and an example of using the OpenAI API. In the cloud or local?: advantages and disadvantages of using a model in the cloud/locally. Presentation of several options for running models locally (GPT4All, Ollama etc.) Talk with your data: how Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) works and what are its benefits. Let AI do more for you: conclusion and a very quick sneak peek at evolving technologies in AI.