Accelerating science and medicine with collaborative agents

Vivek Natarajan, Research Lead for AI, science and medicine at Google DeepMind, on porting the self-play and search recipe behind AlphaGo into scientific and clinical reasoning. He walks through the AI co-scientist, which generates and debates hypotheses (one matched a decade of lab work in two days), and AMIE, a diagnostic dialogue system trained in simulation. Recorded at RAAIS 2026.Chapters:0:00 Welcome and introducing the AI co-scientist1:41 Origins: Med-PaLM and the leap to hypothesis generation5:10 System 1 versus System 2 thinking6:34 Borrowing from AlphaGo: self-play and search8:02 Generate, debate, evolve, and tournaments11:47 Testing in real labs: Imperial College and antimicrobial resistance13:29 Ten years in two days: Penadés reacts15:44 More breakthroughs: leukemia, liver fibrosis and vorinostat18:44 Plant immunity and protein design20:09 Democratizing medicine: from Med-PaLM benchmarks21:28 AMIE and the value of experience23:12 Diagnosis, empathy and augmenting doctors25:19 Real patients: the Beth Israel feasibility study27:21 The co-clinician and the new triad of care28:31 Audience Q&A