Beyond LLMs - How AI is reshaping scientific discovery

For decades, scientific progress has been shaped by a fundamental process: hypothesis, experiment, iteration. AI is changing that, compressing the space between insight and discovery. The World Economic Forum’s 2026 Top 10 Emerging Technologies report finds this shift already reshaping fields as distinct as cancer treatments, energy storage, and environmental remediation.

This session asks what that shift means for the researchers and institutions navigating it.

Stephan Mergenthaler (Managing Director and CTO, World Economic Forum) and David Parekh (CEO, SRI) will explore:

• How AI is transforming the scientific process, not just accelerating it
• What human-in-the-loop collaboration looks like across drug discovery, materials science, and beyond
• What the institutions getting this transition right have in common, and where the gaps are
• How workflows, workforces, and cultures are being rebuilt in real time