About Shoulders

Shoulders is an AI workspace for researchers. It combines text editing, reference management, coding, and AI assistance in one application. The aim is to integrate AI into the research workflow in a way that preserves agency and critical thinking.

AI research tools built with intention and purpose

Software development has seen major disruption from AI. What started as better autocomplete has become agentic workflows where entire applications are built autonomously by AI.

Meanwhile, many researchers are still copy-pasting from a ChatGPT browser window.

Over the next few years, this will change. AI will take on a central place in how researchers work. While this holds enormous potential to accelerate scientific discovery, it also carries risks.

Sycophantic AI, automation-induced complacency, and the mass-production of low-quality, AI slop papers threaten the integrity of research. We need to establish new practices, new norms — and build better tools with intention and purpose.

The patterns from software engineering – AI works autonomously, human reviews – will not transfer to research. Researchers require more iteration, critical judgment, and fine-grained controls. They must retain agency and oversight.

We believe AI research tools must be built around the human — as tools for thought that increase not just the speed, but the quality of research.

That is why we are building Shoulders.