How NIH Accelerated Research 1,000× with You.com

The Challenge: Accuracy in a Research-Driven Environment

For the past year and a half, NIH had been exploring AI tools to support its research. But most were single-model solutions with limited capabilities. What’s worse, many produced outputs that were unreliable or inconsistent.

As a biomedical research institution, accuracy is paramount. Tools that couldn’t tie every claim back to peer-reviewed sources and withstand academic scrutiny were essentially unusable.

“When you’re doing research, being able to tie that back to verifiable, justifiable sources is absolutely critical,” Chuck Lynch, Director of IT Infrastructure & Security, NIH, said. 

That left NIH in search of an AI solution that could deliver automation without sacrificing credible, citation-backed results. 

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Implementation: Choosing a Partner for Reliable Outputs

NIH selected You.com for its ability to deliver consistent, verifiable results that researchers could trust — while also providing the efficiency gains of AI.

“Other tools were just too questionable for research. With You.com, my queries were understood better, the results were consistent, I could point to our own data sets, and every output tied back to verifiable sources,” Lynch said. 

The rollout began with a pilot group of 30–35 users, giving scientists and IT staff a chance to test the tool and provide feedback. Demand grew quickly, with consistent requests for broader access — leading to an expansion toward 120 licenses across NIH.

Training was a key part of the rollout. Rather than dropping in another tool that risked going unused, You.com worked with NIH to ensure researchers could fully integrate it into their workflows.

“It’s not like I’ve purchased some product from a box and then had to make a phone call to nobody on the other end. From sales to training to support, the service with You.com has been excellent — and that’s made the experience better for me and everyone at NIH,” Lynch said.

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Application: Putting You.com to Work at NIH

NIH researchers now rely on You.com’s deep research capabilities to tackle projects that previously required hours of manual effort. Instead of digging through digital libraries and validating every claim by hand, they can surface hundreds of relevant sources in minutes — with citations that tie directly back to peer-reviewed material.

The impact goes beyond staff researchers. Lynch also applies the tool with the 50–60 contractors he manages, multiplying their efficiency on tasks like programming, analysis, and review. Projects that once consumed a full day can now be completed in a fraction of the time.

You.com acts as a “force multiplier” across NIH in a variety of ways:

• Research synthesis: compiles insights from hundreds of sources in minutes
• Document review: summarizes and cross-references content far faster than manual methods
• Verification support: provides source-backed answers that withstand academic scrutiny
• Drafting: accelerates the creation of explainers, reports, and other written outputs
• Ad hoc use cases: speeds up tasks like programming and data analysis, often cutting hours of work down to minutes

“[NIH researchers] are kind of awestruck because their experience has been limited to a single LLM or a small private tool. I’ve had scientists use it for a week and then come back asking, ‘Can I get licenses for my entire team?’” Lynch said. 

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Results

With You.com, NIH researchers are no longer bogged down by hours of manual research and verification. Instead, they can surface hundreds of relevant sources in minutes, with citations that tie directly back to peer-reviewed material. Lynch calls it a way to multiply research efforts by 100 or even 1,000, since the tool not only synopsizes vast volumes of content but also allows researchers to dive deeper where needed.

Researchers are seeing value on two fronts:

• Speed — literature reviews, research, and writing that once took hours are now completed in minutes
• Accuracy — results are consistent and traceable to credible sources, ensuring outputs withstand academic scrutiny

Contractor Impact‍

The benefits extend beyond staff researchers to the 50–60 contractors Lynch manages. These highly skilled specialists build and maintain NIH’s cloud infrastructure, high-speed computing, security, and machine learning environments — work that requires top talent and comes at a premium.

At an average fully loaded cost of roughly $250,000 per contractor per year, even small efficiency gains have an outsized impact.

Lynch estimates that saving just 2–3 hours per week per contractor translates into:

• 100–150 hours saved annually
• $12,000–$18,000 saved per person
• Well over $1 million in productivity value returned to the NIH each year

“The real value of You.com to NIH is efficiency. And that’s the key word today all throughout government — becoming more efficient. This allows us to do more with less — and in many cases, more than before, even with fewer resources and less time,” Lynch said.