A Q&A with Philip R.O. Payne: Where AI in healthcare is headed
Why trust, training and judgment still matter.
Designing better AI tools
Four Sam Fox School students served as the inaugural design consultants in WashU’s Digital Transformation Research Corps, ensuring AI-based tools were designed with human users in mind.
WashU research finds gaps in Google AI Overview citations, claims
In the broadest independent audit to date, researchers found Google AI Overviews generally cite credible sources, but citations don’t guarantee accuracy: about 11% of verifiable claims lacked support or contradicted cited sources.
Some assembly required, with machine learning
WashU researchers are working on ways to use machine learning to not just make predictions about potential chemical compounds but also to model out the synthesis of those materials.
Building an Ethical, AI-Competent 3D Library of Human Remains
As part of the 2026 Digital Transformation Research Corps, principal investigators Sarah Baitzel and Thomas Cody Prang explored possibilities for ethically enabling the future study and teaching of human skeletal remains.
AI agents prompt redesign of web for security, privacy, reliability
Funded by a NSF Career Award, Umar Iqbal plans to redesign the web with infrastructures catered to AI agents and to meet higher, safer and stricter standards.
New technique evaluates reliability of AI-enabled medical imaging
WashU researchers have developed a method called that ranks AI-based imaging tools for accuracy, even when there’s no known “ground truth” to compare against. In tests, it correctly identified the most precise imaging method 95% of the time.
Machine learning methods move self-driving labs closer to materials discovery at scale
WashU researchers are training AI agents to screen thousands of chemical possibilities and flag the most promising candidates. One project already found 10 new materials that outperform current water-harvesting tech.
WashU Research Seed Grants Offer New Funding for AI-Integrated Research
WashU’s Research Development Office is opening a new round of Research Seed Grants this fiscal year that will fund projects that meaningfully integrate artificial intelligence into research.
New Research Shows AI Can Help Pre-Bunk Election Misinformation
The research finds that LLM-generated pre-bunking significantly reduced belief in election rumors and modestly offset declines in confidence in national election administration.