Elicit
Editor's pickLiterature-review assistant that screens papers into structured tables
Our verdict
The strongest tool for screening academic literature — casual questions are better left to Perplexity.
Elicit reads academic papers and pulls methods, sample sizes and findings into a sortable table, which makes screening hundreds of titles for a review dramatically faster. It works on peer-reviewed corpora, so it is the wrong tool for general web questions.
How we scored it
What we liked
- ✓Data extraction tables save hours
- ✓Draws on trusted academic sources
- ✓Bulk paper summaries
What to watch
- ✕Credits gate heavy use
- ✕Weak outside academic literature
Key features
- ◆Data extraction tables
- ◆Bulk screening
- ◆Paper summariser
- ◆Citation discovery
- ◆125M+ paper search
Best for
Alternatives to Elicit
Perplexity
AI search that answers with citations you can actually check
Perplexity searches the live web and writes an answer with every claim linked to its source, so follow-ups stay grounded in what's actually online. Pro unlocks stronger models and longer Deep Research reports, but the free tier already covers most day-to-day questions.
NotebookLM
Grounded AI notebook that answers only from your own sources
NotebookLM loads your documents, sites, videos and slides into a model that answers strictly from them, with every sentence linked back to the passage it came from. Audio Overviews turn a stack of papers into a podcast-style discussion, which is genuinely good for skimming.
Consensus
Ask a research question, get an evidence-backed yes or no
Consensus turns a question into a synthesis of what peer-reviewed studies conclude, with a consensus meter and quotes from each paper. It is built for answerable claims ('does X work?'), not open-ended exploration.
Semantic Scholar
Free AI-assisted academic search across 200M+ papers
The Allen Institute's free research index layers one-line TLDR summaries, citation intent and related-paper suggestions over a clean paper search. It is not a chat assistant — it is the best no-cost layer for finding and triaging literature.