Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI), understood as software designed for generating and processing content, has become an active component of many disciplines, including the historical sciences. At present, it is used mainly as a virtual assistant for the digitization, recognition, and cataloguing of sources, thereby accelerating work with large data sets and improving processing accuracy. This study provides an overview of selected AI-based projects, programs, and applications that are focused on, or applied within, historical research. The selection includes examples from Europe and North America from the period between 2022 and mid-2025, complemented by several earlier projects of methodological significance. Only projects demonstrating the use of AI in the strict sense (machine learning, neural networks, language models, and AI-assisted OCR/HTR tools) and providing publicly accessible methodological documentation or detailed procedural descriptions were included. The study concentrates on four main areas: digitization and recognition, extraction of structured data from texts, heuristic support and hypothesis formulation, and academic writing practices including ethical aspects.
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