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.
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.