How Mike Colburn Uses Logos AI and Advanced Search to Research Like a Pro
How a longtime Logos power user built a research workflow around Favorites, Smart Search, curated collections, and author-specific AI queries without letting the software do his thinking for him.
Mike Colburn doesn’t fit the typical profile of a Logos power user. He’s not a pastor. He’s not a seminary professor. He’s a financial executive and, by his own description, someone who treats deep biblical research as a calling, not a career.
His Logos library has grown to over 32,000 books. He uses the software the way a researcher uses a lab. He’s methodical, intentional, and operates with a clear framework built to keep him from letting the tools do his thinking. In this interview, Mike walked me through exactly how he does that.
Favorites as a Filing System, Not Just a Bookmark
One of the first things Mike explained is how he uses the Favorites panel and it’s not to bookmark passages he likes, but as a full organizational system for his research. He creates folders from A to Z, each representing a different topic or study thread. Inside those folders, he saves active searches, clipped notes, and annotated passages.
The practical benefit is simple but significant: your research trail doesn’t disappear. Anyone who has spent time in Logos knows how easy it is to find something useful, get pulled in another direction, and lose that original result entirely. Mike’s Favorites system solves that problem before it starts.
AI with Guard Rails
Mike’s approach to AI inside Logos is worth paying attention to, especially if you’ve ever felt uneasy about letting an AI tool loose across your entire library. His concern is straightforward: because Logos AI pulls from every resource you own, it can surface perspectives from theological traditions that may not align with your own commitments.
His solution is to build custom Collections in Logos, becoming curated subsets of your library that either include or exclude specific resources or theological traditions. When you restrict your AI queries to a Collection, the results stay within the theological guardrails you’ve set. As Mike put it, that’s not limiting the tool, that’s stewardship.
Author-Specific Queries: A Smarter Way to Search
Perhaps the most immediately useful technique Mike shared involves Smart Search. Rather than running a broad keyword search across his entire library, he uses author-specific syntax to narrow the results to a single scholar’s body of work. Outside of Smart Search, the format is typically simple: type author: followed by the scholar’s name in the search bar. Now it’s even easier than ever! Just ask Smart Search.
From there, he asks a pointed theological question to Study Assistant like the kind you’d ask a trusted colleague. What is this author’s view on a specific topic? How does this scholar interpret a particular passage? The results aren’t aggregated from dozens of voices. They come from one trusted source, making them far more precise and easier to evaluate.
This is the difference between a library search and a research interview. Mike has figured out how to do both inside Logos.
Quick Update: There have been significant updates to Study Assistant since this interview. Be sure to check it out for yourself if this is all new to you.
What to Try This Week
Mike’s workflow isn’t complicated. It’s disciplined. And the discipline is what makes the difference. Here are three things you can start doing in Logos right now, drawn directly from this conversation:
Create one Favorites folder this week. Pick a topic you’re currently studying and build a dedicated folder for it. Save your searches and notes there as you work. Don’t let the research trail disappear.
Try an author search in Smart Search. Use the author: prefix followed by a scholar you trust, then ask a specific theological question. See how targeted the results become compared to a standard search.
Audit your Collections. If you haven’t built any, start one. Decide which resources in your library should be included when you’re doing AI-assisted research, and which ones should sit out. That decision is yours to make.
The text deserves rigor. Logos is built to support that rigor. But the tools only serve you well if you’ve set them up to do so.