Many of the AI research tools below can help you find and synthesize the research conversation about a variety of topics. They can offer an alternative to creating lists of key terms to enter into library databases (and some of them can help you create a list of key terms to enter into library databases). Like library databases, no AI tool covers the entire research conversation, so vary the tools that you use to get a fuller understanding of your question.
| NAME | WHAT IT DOES | WHAT IT USES | IS IT FREE? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude | Claude, created by Anthropic, is similar to ChatGPT: you can use it to help you brainstorm or analyze documents. Like ChatGPT, Claude does not pull data from the web--at least not in the free version--and can create sources that do not exist. | Publicly available information from the internet. | Freemium |
| Connected Papers | Connected Papers creates visualizations of the citational connections between research papers. | Semantic Scholar | Freemium |
| Consensus | Consensus uses LLMs to synthesize answers to research questions. | Semantic Scholar | Freemium |
| Elicit | Elicit searches and uses citational connections, then uses LLMs to synthesize answers to research questions. | Semantic Scholar | Freemium |
| Gemini Deep Research | Gemini Deep Research creates a research plan, searches the web, then reports on what it finds, showing its work along the way. | Freemium | |
| Inciteful | Inciteful is an open source visualization tool that shows the connections between research papers. Input one research paper, and Inciteful will help you find others. | Open Alex, Semantic Scholar, Crossref, OpenCitations | Free |
| Research Rabbit | Research Rabbit uses visualizations to map the citational relationship between papers. Connect Research Rabbit to a Zotero library to find papers you might have missed. | Open Alex, Semantic Scholar, and other databases | Free |
| scite | scite can help researchers develop their topics, create literature reviews, find related papers, and it contextualizes citations (supporting, contrasting, etc.) | A variety of places. See here. | No |
| Scholarcy | Scholarcy summarizes key points of articles into "summary cards" that you can annotate and review. | You must upload research papers yourself. | Freemium |
| Semantic Scholar | Semantic Scholar is an open database (much like Google Scholar), but it provides summaries of articles and links to related articles. | Semantic Scholar | Free |