Life science companies and entrepreneurs using the Bonneville Labs and Lab Launch work spaces have been given free access to the world’s first AI digital lab assistant, LabTwin, through a partnership created between the Berlin software company and the two Californian enterprise centres.

The LabTwin app which is available on iPhone and android operating systems, is a voice-activated software that allows its users to record real-time data to its memory by voice which the software can place into excel-like tables and reports. The app can also read out protocols to the user while they are working so no more taking up space for your sheets at the laminar flow hood. For the this reason alone you can understand why shared lab spaces like Bonneville Labs and Lab Launch have adopted the smart technology for their smart labs.

“Creating a state-of-the-art smart lab means bringing in the most innovative tools for scientists and entrepreneurs,” said Marie Rippen, CEO of Lab Launch. “LabTwin gives our biotech start-ups an intelligent, AI-powered digital assistant to eliminate time-consuming manual note-taking and help them automatically structure their data. This is a game changer for scientists who are time constrained and need ways to make their research more reproducible”.

Founded in 2014, Lab Launch, is an IRS approved 501(c) (3) non-profit company with 11,000 sq. feet of laboratory and co-working space in the San Gabriel valley in California. By 2016 it had 12 start-ups in residence with a capacity of 22. Lab Launch’s current residents include early stage biotech and clinical and analytical laboratories.

Bonneville Labs, founded in April of this year and who are based in Berkeley, CA, takes advantage of the Bay Area’s rising costs of real estate, allowing its members to start up their companies putting their resources into talent and science rather than physical space or equipment. These plug and play co-working spaces have been an excellent way for IT companies to speed up their start-ups and now life science companies are allowed to pick up the pace.

As part of this partnership with LabTwin, residents in these facilities will be able to avail of the software free of charge for a fixed period and discounts on the subscription on the app to follow. These scientists will never have to worry about leaving notepads behind again, or scribbling data onto their hands, as the LabTwin records everything the user says and can be recalled at any moment.

Labs can be scary places sometimes when scientists are working. All that can be heard is small voices, whispers like ghosts in the walls, words and numbers coming from ambitious minds at work, giving the labs a haunted feel. All this data has until now been just a way for a scientist to keep track on what they are doing. But now with advent of LabTwin, an assistant will be there on your shoulder, guiding you through protocols and jotting down all this data, without ever having to worry about your own note-taking skills.

The idea of LabTwin conjures up scenes from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the voice-activated and talking HAL9000 computer has all the vital data the crew needs. Hopefully for these biotech start-ups they will only have to worry about their cantankerous cells rather than a cantankerous computer.