LibGuides: Artificial Intelligence Tools for Teaching, Writing & Research: Research Tools

AI, Machine Learning, and Research

There are many tools that utilize AI and machine learning to assist with the research process. Remember that these tools can make mistakes and should not be taken as always 100% accurate. It is essential for you to verify their work appropriate to the context in which you will be using them.

Note that many of these tools are very similar.

Comparison chart of popular research tools
Tool	Description/Features	Free or Paid?	Desktop App?	Citation Manager Integration?*	ChatGPT Plugin?	What does it search?	Need an account?
Elicit	Summarizes papers and provides an overview summary. Can also upload your own PDFs for summaries.	Free	Yes	No	No	Semantic Scholar dataset	Yes
Research Rabbit	Makes visualization maps of connected literature	Free	No	Yes: Zotero	No	Unclear	Yes
System Pro	Summarizes papers and gives an overview summary of them to answer your question/topical search.	Only get 4 free searches a month	No	No	No	PubMed	Yes
System	The open graph of world's systems. See how topics relate. 4,733,808 statistical relationships between 30,940 topics based on 1,638,364 sources as of 2/20/24. Will pull out the variables from the source that it is pulling the statistical relationship from.	Free	No	No	No	PubMed	Yes
Consensus	Summarizes papers and gives an overview summary of them to answer your question. Also includes Consensus Meter.	Limited amount of summaries and consensus meters per month	No	Yes: Zotero & Paperpile	Yes	Semantic Scholar dataset	Yes
Perplexity	Perplexity is a conversational search engine. You can select if you want the results to be more academic, all of the internet, and more. You can also upload files of your own and ask questions about them.	Free and Paid Versions	No	No	No	You can select what you want it to search.	Yes

This chart is up to date as of 2/21/24. These tools are rapidly evolving so please check each site for the most current information.

*This refers to a specific integration with a citation manager. Even if it does not have one, you still can download RIS or BIB files to upload into citation managers.

Research Tools

Consensus
Consensus is a search engine that allows you to find answers from scientific research. You can enter a question and it will provide a list of literature, all with summaries of their findings as they relate to your questions. You need to create a free account to use Consensus.
Elicit.org
Elicit.org allows you to enter a research question and it will return relevant scholarly literature. It will provide a short summary of the literature to answer your question. It will also list the literature and a one-sentence abstract summary of each. You can also run this analysis on your own PDFs.
Perplexity
Perplexity is a conversational search engine. You can select if you want the results to be more academic, all of the internet, and more. You can also upload files of your own and ask questions about them.
Research Rabbit
Research Rabbit helps you to visualize connections between research through interactive literature maps. This can help you find relevant research and explore citations. You need to create a free account to use it.
Semantic Scholar
Semantic Scholar uses AI to provide short summaries of scientific literature.
System (BETA)
The open graph of world's systems. See how topics relate. Will pull out the variables from the source that it is pulling the statistical relationship from.
System Pro
Summarizes papers and gives an overview summary of them to answer your question/topical search. Only searches PubMed.