Ben started his PhD in January in the kinesiology department at McMaster University, returning to academia after a few years away. His research asks whether nutritional and exercise interventions can support brain health in people at higher risk of Alzheimer's disease, part of a large clinical trial, recently funded by the Alzheimer Society.
Before settling on EMET, he ran the same questions past two other AI tools side by side to see which one held up.
"EMET just stood out for me. It thinks the way that I think, and it organizes things in a great way. Everything is referenced.”
Ben mentioned that he was able to really augment his literature review by using EMET to find research that he ”probably just couldn't find."
A dashboard he never asked for
Working through a large systematic review on brain health and exercise, he asked EMET to help him understand it, without specifying a format. It responded with an interactive, module by module breakdown, alpha and beta amyloid burden in one section, mitochondrial function in another, each with its own supporting studies attached.
"I didn't even ask for it to provide me that. I didn't even know it could do this. It just felt like I was taking notes."
The same review also produced a radar chart he could toggle between aerobic and resistance exercise outcomes for brain health.
Concept maps that matched his own thinking
Ben was trained during his master's to think in cause and effect concept maps, a standard approach in his field for laying out a physiological mechanism. More than once, EMET produced one before he had even finished describing the question.
"There's been times where I've drawn something up, and then EMET gave me a similar concept map, before I put the prompt in… I feel like it really thinks like a scientist."
Staying honest about what is still ahead
Ben is candid that he has not yet used EMET on his own data, and is still learning what else it can do. That restraint, alongside the enthusiasm, is what makes an early career researcher's case for an agentic workbench worth taking seriously: not that it replaced his thinking, but that it kept pace with it.
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