This panel discussion brings together senior voices from Merck, Pillar VC, Renaissance Philanthropy and ARIA to interrogate where AI is genuinely accelerating scientific discovery, and where expectations risk outpacing reality. The panel will explore automation’s impact on research productivity, reproducibility and scale, alongside the practical constraints of data quality, infrastructure and human judgement. Expect an honest discussion about hype versus hard evidence, what’s working now, and how funders, industry and academia can collaborate to turn promise into progress without losing scientific rigour.