system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What do computer scientists research in academia, as opposed to industry?

So I was just wondering this today after listening to a seminar from of my CS professor's about his AI research. The talk was fascinating and intelligent, but it also seemed like something that could easily be developed by a tech company for profit. Most professors of any type have a Ph.D. and they typically have teaching responsibilities, but how does their research differ from say, some of the AI research and development coming from Google?
gpt
Most university researchers have research budgets because they wrote a research grant proposal to study something. They have papers to publish, and their research gives them things to write about, and their students topics to study.

Most corporate research depends on the company's products.  Product A needs feature B so there's someone doing research on "can AI do B?"

Academic research is "B might be possible with AI".