Elicit

Elicit is an AI research assistant designed for scientists, academics, and anyone who needs to navigate the vast world of academic literature. Instead of typing keywords into Google Scholar and manually reading dozens of abstracts, you can ask Elicit a research question and it will search over 138 million papers and 545,000 clinical trials. It then presents the most relevant results in a structured table with summaries and citations. The semantic search is a standout feature because you don't need to know the exact jargon to find what you need.

The tool is especially useful for systematic literature reviews, where it can automate the screening and data extraction phases. Users report saving up to 80% of the time normally spent on these tasks. Elicit also generates research reports that are customizable, so you can choose which papers and what information to include. The reports come with sentence-level citations, which is important for trust and reproducibility.

Pricing follows a freemium model. The free tier gives you basic search and limited reports, which is enough to test the tool. Paid plans start at $12 per month for more searches and longer reports. For heavy users, there is a Pro plan at $49 per month and enterprise options for institutions. The main downside is that the free tier is fairly restrictive, and the report customization options can feel overwhelming at first. But for researchers who regularly deal with literature, Elicit is a practical time-saver.