Elicit
AI for scientific research
About Elicit
Elicit is an AI-powered research assistant that helps academics and industry researchers conduct literature reviews, extract data from papers, and synthesize findings at scale. It searches across more than 125 million academic papers using semantic search, automatically builds evidence tables, and supports all AI-generated claims with sentence-level citations. Used by over 2 million researchers, Elicit dramatically reduces the time required for systematic reviews and evidence synthesis.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Sentence-level citations on every AI claim dramatically reduce hallucination risk compared to general-purpose LLMs
- Semantic search consistently surfaces relevant papers that traditional keyword-based database searches miss
- Proven time savings — Formation Bio reduced hundreds of hours of work to ~10 hours across 300 papers
- Covers 125M+ papers in a single searchable corpus, eliminating the need to query multiple databases
- Structured evidence table workflow is well-suited for systematic reviews and meta-analyses
- Supports custom column definitions, allowing highly flexible, task-specific data extraction
Cons
- Sensitivity is insufficient to fully replace traditional database searching for exhaustive systematic reviews
- Free plan credits are one-time only and do not refresh monthly, making the free tier very limited
- Cannot bypass paywalls — extraction quality depends on access to full-text PDFs
- Results lack repeatability compared to classical screening methods, a concern for rigorous evidence synthesis
- Steeper learning curve than conversational AI tools due to its structured, multi-step workflow
Key Features
Semantic Paper Search
Search over 125 million academic papers using concept-based semantic queries rather than exact keyword matching, surfacing relevant papers that traditional searches miss.
Automated Literature Review
Ask open-ended research questions and receive synthesized answers drawn directly from peer-reviewed literature, with each claim backed by sentence-level citations.
Data Extraction Tables
Automatically extract structured data from up to 20,000 data points across thousands of papers into customizable evidence tables with user-defined columns.
PDF Upload & Analysis
Upload your own PDF documents to extract specific data, ask questions, and integrate private literature alongside Elicit's indexed paper database.
Automated Reports
Generate comprehensive research reports summarizing findings across multiple papers, with configurable frequency and scope depending on your subscription plan.
Systematic Review Support
Supports formal systematic review workflows including screening, data extraction, and evidence synthesis across large corpora of academic literature.
CSV / BIB / RIS Export
Export extracted data and paper metadata in standard formats compatible with reference managers and spreadsheet tools.
Research Alerts
Set up automated alerts to monitor new publications matching your research topics, available on Pro and Team plans with up to 10 concurrent alerts.
Sentence-Level Citations
Every AI-generated claim is linked to the exact sentence in the source paper, dramatically reducing hallucination risk compared to general-purpose AI tools.
Pricing
- 5,000 one-time credits (no monthly refresh)
- Search 125M+ academic papers
- Chat with papers
- Basic data extraction
- 4 automated reports per month
- Extract data from 50 PDFs per month
- Tables with up to 5 columns
- Summarize 8 papers at once
- Unlimited CSV/BIB/RIS export
- 12 automated reports per month
- Extract data from 200 PDFs per month
- Unlimited high-accuracy columns
- Systematic review support
- 10 concurrent research alerts
- 20 reports per month per user (pooled)
- 2-seat minimum
- All Pro features
- Team collaboration
- Centralized billing
Best For
Academic Literature Review
Researchers use Elicit to quickly scan hundreds of papers on a topic, extract key findings, and synthesize evidence to support or challenge a hypothesis.
Systematic Review & Meta-Analysis
Research teams conducting formal systematic reviews use Elicit to automate initial screening and data extraction phases, reducing labor on large corpora of studies.
Drug & Clinical Research
Pharmaceutical and biotech companies extract technical variables from clinical trial papers at scale, enabling evidence-based decision-making during drug development.
Competitive Intelligence & Market Research
Industry analysts query the academic literature to track emerging technologies, identify trends, and benchmark findings against published research.
Graduate & Doctoral Research
PhD students and early-career researchers use Elicit to get up to speed on unfamiliar research areas quickly and identify gaps in the literature.
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