IGeLU 2026

Conference

Twice before, this community has fought over who controls discovery. Federated search failed at runtime; central indexes prevailed by making participation effectively compulsory, since unindexed content became undiscoverable. Agentic AI has reopened the contest, with many of the same protagonists operating on new terrain.

Control now extends across a chain of defaults: what content is available, which tools are installed, how their capabilities are described to the model, which tool or MCP connector is called, and ultimately what enters the answer.

This keynote traces who might control each decision point and examines four emerging regimes: institutional gateways and aggregators, such as Clarivate’s Nexus Connect; publisher workspace strategies, such as LeapSpace; open alternatives; and direct bypass through AI labs.

It concludes by asking who should decide what an AI sees on our users’ behalf, and what this community must demand before today’s defaults become permanent.

User Experience / Discovery

General / Other