Elaine Kong writes: “For a long time, library discovery followed a familiar model: Users entered a query, reviewed a list of results, and made their own judgments about relevance and credibility. Generative AI changes that balance. Newer systems can summarize articles, suggest themes, translate questions into search strategies, and produce responses that feel closer to answers than result lists. That may help users get started more quickly, but it also means the interface is no longer just a pathway into the collection. It is becoming part of how the collection is understood.”