The academic research landscape has fundamentally changed. With millions of papers published annually, finding relevant research, extracting key data, and synthesizing findings has become increasingly overwhelming. Traditional keyword searches miss important studies, manual data extraction takes weeks, and staying current with your field feels impossible.

Elicit addresses these challenges head-on. This AI-powered research assistant automates the most time-consuming aspects of literature reviews whilst maintaining academic rigour. With access to over 125 million research papers and sophisticated data extraction capabilities, Elicit is transforming how academics conduct research in 2025.

What is Elicit?

Elicit is a specialised AI research assistant designed specifically for academic literature review and evidence synthesis. Unlike general AI tools like ChatGPT, Elicit draws exclusively from verified academic sources, delivers structured and citable results, and supports systematic research workflows rather than open-ended conversations.

Developed by Ought (now operating as Elicit Research PBC), the platform uses advanced language models to automate tasks that traditionally required extensive manual work: finding relevant papers, extracting specific information, summarizing key findings, and identifying patterns across multiple studies.

For academics, this means conducting literature reviews that would typically take weeks in a matter of hours, with greater comprehensiveness and reproducibility than manual methods allow.

Why Elicit Stands Out for Academic Research

Beyond Keyword Matching: Semantic Search

Traditional academic databases rely on exact keyword matches, which creates two major problems. First, you miss relevant research that uses different terminology. Second, you spend enormous amounts of time wading through irrelevant results that happen to contain your keywords.

Elicit’s semantic search understands the meaning and context of your research questions. Ask “what interventions improve student engagement in online learning?” and Elicit returns studies addressing this question regardless of the specific words used. This contextual understanding dramatically improves both precision and recall in literature searches.

Structured Data Extraction at Scale

One of Elicit’s most powerful features is its ability to extract specific information from hundreds of papers simultaneously. Rather than manually reading through each study to identify methodology, sample size, key findings, and limitations, you can create custom columns in Elicit’s interface and have the AI extract this information across all relevant papers.

This structured approach transforms literature review from a narrative exercise into systematic data analysis, making it easier to identify patterns, compare methodologies, and spot research gaps.

Sentence-Level Citations for Verification

Unlike general AI tools that sometimes fabricate information, Elicit provides sentence-level citations for every claim it makes. When the AI extracts a finding or summarizes a result, it links directly to the specific sentence in the source paper. This transparency allows you to verify accuracy and provides proper attribution for your own writing.

This commitment to verifiability makes Elicit suitable for high-stakes research contexts where accuracy isn’t optional—systematic reviews, meta-analyses, policy briefs, and regulatory submissions.

Core Features Transforming Research Workflows

Literature Search and Discovery

Elicit searches across 125 million academic papers, including journal articles, conference proceedings, and preprints. The search goes beyond basic databases to include clinical trials from clinicaltrials.gov, making it particularly valuable for health sciences research.

The platform’s search interface encourages question-based queries rather than keyword strings. Simply type your research question in natural language, and Elicit returns relevant papers ranked by relevance. The AI provides instant summaries highlighting how each paper relates to your query.

Automated Data Extraction

Create custom extraction columns for any information you need: study design, sample characteristics, interventions, outcomes, statistical methods, or key findings. Elicit then processes selected papers to extract this information, presenting results in a structured table format.

This feature proves invaluable for systematic reviews where you need to extract identical information from dozens or hundreds of studies. What would take days of manual work happens in minutes, with the added benefit of consistency in how information is captured.

Paper Summaries and Chat

Generate comprehensive summaries of individual papers or ask specific questions about their content. The “Chat with Papers” feature allows you to interact with up to eight papers simultaneously on the paid plans, making it easy to compare findings, identify contradictions, or explore specific aspects of the research.

Unlike simply reading abstracts, these AI-generated summaries can focus on exactly what matters for your research, whether that’s methodology, limitations, theoretical frameworks, or practical implications.

Systematic Review Support

Elicit includes dedicated workflows for systematic reviews, automating the most time-consuming stages. The platform can screen titles and abstracts for relevance, extract data into standardized formats, and even support the generation of PRISMA flow diagrams.

Researchers conducting systematic reviews report time savings of up to 80% when using Elicit for screening and data extraction, though human oversight remains essential for quality assurance and final decisions.

Research Alerts

Stay current with your field through Elicit Alerts, which monitor new publications matching your research interests. Unlike traditional keyword alerts that generate noise, Elicit’s AI filters notifications to surface genuinely relevant research, reducing information overload whilst ensuring you don’t miss important developments.

Reports and Synthesis

The Reports feature generates comprehensive research briefs based on multiple papers, providing structured summaries of the current state of knowledge on specific topics. These reports include sections on key findings, methodologies, and research gaps, serving as excellent starting points for grant proposals or literature review sections.

Elicit for Students and Researchers: Pricing Options

Elicit Basic (Free)

Elicit offers one of the most generous free tiers among research tools, making it accessible to students and early-career researchers. The Basic plan includes:

• Unlimited search across 125+ million papers
• Unlimited chat with papers and summaries for up to 4 papers simultaneously
• Data extraction from 20 PDFs per month
• Basic columns (2 columns for data extraction tables)
• Full access to core search and summarization features

This free tier provides genuine utility for coursework, preliminary research, and exploring topics before committing to paid plans.

Elicit Plus (£10 per month)

Designed for independent researchers conducting deeper investigations, the Plus plan increases capacity significantly:

• Data extraction from 50 PDFs per month (600 per year on annual plans)
• 5 custom columns for data extraction
• Chat with 8 papers simultaneously
• Unlimited table exports
• All features from the Basic plan

At £10 per month (or £100 annually with a discount), Plus represents excellent value for graduate students, postdocs, and academics conducting regular literature reviews.

Elicit Pro (£42 per month)

Professional researchers conducting systematic reviews or meta-analyses will find Pro tier’s expanded capabilities essential:

• Data extraction from 200 PDFs per month
• 20 custom columns for comprehensive data extraction
• Advanced systematic review tools
• High-accuracy extraction mode
• Priority support

Priced at £42 monthly or £420 annually, Pro is ideal for researchers whose work depends on thorough literature analysis or those conducting funded systematic reviews.

Elicit Team (Custom Pricing)

Research groups and institutions can access Team plans with collaborative features:

• Data extraction from 300 PDFs per month per user
• Shared workspaces and real-time collaboration
• Administrative controls and usage tracking
• Custom workflows and data sources
• Volume discounts for larger teams

Contact Elicit directly for institutional pricing, which typically offers significant savings for research groups and university departments.

Pay-As-You-Go Credits

All plans can purchase additional capacity through pay-as-you-go credits at £1 per 1,000 credits. This flexibility helps researchers manage fluctuating needs without committing to higher-tier subscriptions.

Practical Applications Across Disciplines

Health Sciences and Medicine

Medical researchers use Elicit extensively for systematic reviews of treatment effectiveness, drug safety analyses, and epidemiological research. The integration with clinicaltrials.gov makes it particularly valuable for clinical research, whilst the structured data extraction supports meta-analyses and evidence synthesis.

Social Sciences

Social researchers benefit from Elicit’s ability to compare study designs, population characteristics, and findings across qualitative and quantitative studies. The semantic search proves particularly valuable when exploring concepts that may be described using different theoretical languages across subdisciplines.

STEM Fields

Scientists use Elicit to track methodological approaches, identify emerging techniques, and map research landscapes. The platform excels at extracting experimental parameters, statistical methods, and quantitative results from papers, supporting systematic comparison of approaches.

Business and Management

Business researchers use Elicit for competitive analysis, market research synthesis, and tracking industry trends. The platform’s ability to extract specific data points makes it valuable for case study comparisons and empirical business research.

Interdisciplinary Research

Perhaps Elicit’s greatest strength lies in supporting interdisciplinary work. When research questions span multiple fields, traditional database searches become unwieldy. Elicit’s semantic search identifies relevant papers across disciplinary boundaries, helping researchers discover connections that might otherwise remain hidden.

Using Elicit Effectively: Best Practices

Start with Clear Research Questions

Frame your queries as specific questions rather than keyword strings. Instead of searching “machine learning education outcomes,” ask “how does machine learning personalization affect student learning outcomes?” The more specific your question, the more relevant your results.

Iterate Your Search Strategy

Begin with broad searches to understand the landscape, then refine based on what you discover. Use Elicit’s alternative question suggestions to explore different angles on your topic.

Verify Critical Information

While Elicit’s accuracy rates are high (typically 80-90% for data extraction), always verify critical information by checking the original sources. The sentence-level citations make this verification straightforward.

Leverage Custom Columns Strategically

Think carefully about what information you need before creating extraction columns. Well-designed columns save enormous time, whilst poorly designed ones may require starting over. Consider pilot testing column definitions on a small sample of papers first.

Combine with Traditional Methods

Use Elicit to accelerate your workflow, not replace critical thinking. The AI helps you process information faster, but human judgment remains essential for evaluating study quality, identifying nuances, and drawing conclusions.

Export and Document Your Process

Export your search results, extraction tables, and summaries regularly. Document your search strategy and inclusion criteria to support reproducibility and transparency in your research.

Elicit vs. Alternative Research Tools

Elicit vs. SciSpace

SciSpace emphasizes conversational interaction with PDFs and writing assistance, whilst Elicit focuses on structured data extraction and systematic review workflows. Researchers often find SciSpace more intuitive for understanding individual papers, whilst Elicit excels at comparing and synthesizing information across many studies.

Elicit vs. Connected Papers

Connected Papers visualizes citation networks, helping researchers understand relationships between papers. Elicit goes further by actually extracting and comparing the content of those papers. They’re highly complementary—use Connected Papers for discovery, Elicit for analysis.

Elicit vs. Research Rabbit

Research Rabbit offers free network visualization and paper recommendations based on collections you build. Elicit provides deeper analysis capabilities with data extraction and synthesis. Budget-conscious researchers often use Research Rabbit for discovery alongside Elicit’s free tier for analysis.

Elicit vs. ChatGPT Deep Research

ChatGPT’s Deep Research conducts autonomous web research across general sources, whilst Elicit focuses exclusively on academic literature with verifiable citations. For academic research requiring scholarly sources, Elicit’s specialized approach provides greater reliability and transparency.

Limitations to Consider

Database Coverage

Whilst 125 million papers is extensive, Elicit may not include every specialized journal, recent preprints, or papers behind certain paywalls. Always cross-reference with discipline-specific databases for comprehensive searches.

Accuracy Requires Verification

Even with high accuracy rates, AI extraction can misinterpret complex content, especially in papers with unusual structures or highly specialized terminology. Critical information should always be verified against original sources.

Limited Support for Non-Empirical Research

Elicit performs best with empirical research presenting structured information—methods, results, conclusions. Theoretical papers, opinion pieces, and humanities scholarship with narrative arguments may not work as well with the platform’s data extraction approach.

Learning Curve for Advanced Features

Whilst basic search is intuitive, mastering systematic review workflows and custom data extraction requires time investment. The platform’s power comes from understanding how to structure research questions and design extraction columns effectively.

Internet Dependency

Elicit requires a stable internet connection and doesn’t offer offline functionality. Researchers working in locations with unreliable connectivity should plan accordingly.

Getting Started with Elicit

For Undergraduate Students

1. Create a free Elicit Basic account at elicit.com
2. Start with a specific research question from your coursework
3. Use the search function to find 5-10 relevant papers
4. Try the summarization feature to understand key findings
5. Export citations in your required format

For Graduate Students and Early Career Researchers

1. Begin with the free Basic plan to learn the interface
2. Identify a literature review project where Elicit could save time
3. Design custom columns for the specific information you need
4. Consider upgrading to Plus if you regularly exceed the 20 PDF limit
5. Integrate Elicit exports with your reference manager

For Established Researchers and Principal Investigators

1. Start a free trial to evaluate fit with your research workflow
2. Test the platform with an ongoing systematic review or meta-analysis
3. Calculate time savings against subscription costs
4. Consider Team plans if collaborating with research group members
5. Explore custom workflow options for recurring research tasks

For Research Teams and Institutions

1. Contact Elicit about institutional licensing options
2. Identify team members who would benefit most from access
3. Establish shared protocols for using the platform
4. Create template workflows for common research tasks
5. Schedule training sessions to ensure effective adoption

The Future of AI-Assisted Research

Elicit represents a significant evolution in how we conduct research. By automating time-consuming mechanical tasks—searching databases, screening papers, extracting data—the platform frees researchers to focus on what humans do uniquely well: formulating important questions, evaluating evidence critically, synthesizing insights creatively, and generating novel ideas.

This isn’t about replacing researchers with AI. It’s about augmenting human capabilities, making it possible to engage with research literature more comprehensively than ever before. When a systematic review that would take three months can be completed in three weeks, researchers can tackle more ambitious questions, update reviews more frequently, and respond more quickly to emerging issues.

As AI capabilities continue advancing, tools like Elicit will become increasingly essential for staying competitive in research. The researchers who learn to leverage these tools effectively will produce work that’s more comprehensive, more rigorous, and more impactful than those relying exclusively on traditional methods.

Conclusion

For academics navigating the exponentially growing research literature, Elicit offers a powerful solution to one of research’s most persistent challenges: conducting comprehensive, rigorous literature reviews efficiently.

The platform’s combination of semantic search, structured data extraction, and systematic review support makes it particularly valuable for researchers who need to process large volumes of literature systematically. The generous free tier removes barriers for students, whilst the paid plans offer genuine value for researchers conducting substantial reviews.

Most importantly, Elicit maintains the transparency and verifiability essential for academic work. Every claim includes sentence-level citations to source materials, supporting both accuracy and proper attribution.

Whether you’re a student working on your first literature review, a researcher conducting systematic analyses, or an established academic trying to stay current with your field, Elicit deserves serious consideration as part of your research toolkit.

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Explore more AI research tools: Discover how SciSpace enhances literature discovery, learn about Tableau for data visualization, or browse our complete directory of AI tools for academics.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is Elicit free for students?

Yes, Elicit offers a genuinely useful free Basic plan accessible to all users, including students. This includes unlimited searches across 125 million papers, unlimited chat and summaries for up to 4 papers simultaneously, and data extraction from 20 PDFs monthly. This free tier is sufficient for many undergraduate and masters-level research projects.

How accurate is Elicit’s data extraction?

Elicit typically achieves 80-90% accuracy in data extraction tasks, which represents high performance for AI systems. However, this means approximately 10-20% of extracted information may contain errors or misinterpretations. Researchers should always verify critical information by checking the original sources, especially for systematic reviews or meta-analyses where accuracy is paramount.

Can Elicit replace traditional literature review methods?

Elicit accelerates and systematizes literature review workflows but doesn’t replace human judgment and critical thinking. The platform excels at finding papers, extracting structured information, and identifying patterns, but researchers must still evaluate study quality, interpret findings, identify nuances, and draw conclusions. Think of Elicit as a powerful assistant that handles mechanical tasks whilst you focus on analysis and synthesis.

What’s the difference between Elicit and ChatGPT for research?

Elicit is purpose-built for academic research, drawing exclusively from verified scholarly sources and providing sentence-level citations for all claims. ChatGPT is a general-purpose conversational AI that searches the broader web and may generate plausible but non-verifiable information. For academic work requiring scholarly sources and citations, Elicit provides significantly greater reliability and transparency.

How many papers can I analyse with Elicit?

The free Basic plan allows data extraction from 20 PDFs monthly. Plus subscribers can extract from 50 PDFs monthly (600 annually), whilst Pro subscribers get 200 monthly extractions. Search, summarization, and chat features are unlimited on all plans, meaning you can explore as many papers as needed before deciding which warrant detailed data extraction.

Does Elicit work for systematic reviews?

Yes, Elicit includes dedicated systematic review workflows supporting title/abstract screening, data extraction, and synthesis. Many researchers report 80% time savings for screening and extraction tasks. However, systematic reviews require methodological rigour beyond what AI can currently provide alone. Use Elicit to accelerate mechanical tasks whilst maintaining human oversight for quality assessment and final decisions.

Can I collaborate with team members in Elicit?

Team and Enterprise plans include collaborative features allowing multiple researchers to work in shared workspaces, access the same systematic reviews, and maintain version control. Basic and Plus plans are single-user subscriptions, though you can export and share results through other means.

What databases does Elicit search?

Elicit searches across 125+ million academic papers from various sources, including journal articles, conference proceedings, and preprints. The platform also includes clinical trials from clinicaltrials.gov. However, coverage may not include every specialized journal or very recent publications. For comprehensive searches, consider supplementing Elicit with discipline-specific databases.

Can I export my Elicit data?

Yes, you can export search results, data extraction tables, and paper lists in various formats compatible with reference managers like Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote. Plus and Pro subscribers have unlimited exports, whilst Basic users have some limitations. This interoperability ensures Elicit fits into existing research workflows.

Does Elicit work in languages other than English?

Elicit supports multiple languages including English, Spanish, and German, though performance is strongest with English-language academic literature. The interface and search functionality work in supported languages, but the underlying database is predominantly English-language scholarship.