Research Guides: Generative Artificial Intelligence and Academic Research: AI Tools Designed for Research

Limitations of AI-Powered Research Tools

Unlike popular AI chatbots like ChatGPT, the tools included on this page are specifically designed to assist researchers. However, they also have their limitations. For example, if they use generative AI, the content generated may contain hallucinations, so it is always necessary to double check the information they provide.

It's also important to understand the limitations created by their data sources. Most of them pull information about papers from free online discovery tools like Semantic Scholar and OpenAlex. Because they have limited information about paywalled articles, they tend to highlight open access papers. So, researchers may be missing important information by relying on the tools listed here to find sources.

Searching the Literature

Some AI tools are specifically designed to assist researchers in discovering sources for a literature review or research assignment. These tools will gather information from large databases of scholarly output with the aim of finding the most relevant articles and saving researchers' time.

Name	How It Works	Cost
Semantic Scholar	Finds papers from all scientific fields by using AI to analyze meaning and identify connections between articles Utilizes an algorithm to flag highly influential articles Includes an AI adaptive research recommender that will recommend papers based on content saved to a user's account Data source: Web indexing of open access sources and partnerships with publishers and other data providers	Free
Elicit	Works best for research on topics involving experiments and concrete results Uses AI to search for relevant papers and extract details from those papers into a research report or an organized table Allows users to upload PDFs for analysis Data source: Semantic Scholar	Freemium
Keenious	Uses an AI recommendation engine to analyze text or PDF content and identify potentially relevant sources Integrates with Microsoft Word and Google Docs so users can find papers as they work Works with the LibKey Nomad browser extension to connect users to the library's subscribed content, not just open access articles Data source: OpenAlex	Freemium
Consensus	AI-powered academic search engine designed to surface the top 10 most relevant papers for a research topic and extract and synthesize information from those sources In Pro Analysis mode, utlizes ChatGPT-4 to perform tasks like writing a summary report supported by sources Data source: Semantic Scholar	Freemium
Scite	Uses AI to analyze citations, identifying whether a cited paper was supported, contradicted, or simply mentioned in an article Includes a generative AI assistant that can provide short responses supported by scholarly sources in response to questions Data source: Web indexing of open access sources and partnerships with publishers and other data providers	Subscription

Mapping the Literature

Citation mapping tools take articles selected by a researcher and use citations and artificial intelligence to create maps or networks of papers that visualize how different sources relate to each other. These tools can demonstrate the relative importance of papers to a topic and help uncover additional sources.

Name	How It Works	Cost
Research Rabbit	Creates visualizations based on collections of articles that show connections between papers and between the authors of the papers Allows users to explore papers similar to selected articles, earlier cited papers, and later citing papers Data source: Semantic Scholar, PubMed	Free
Inciteful	With the Paper Discovery tool, builds a network of papers from citations and analyzes it to find similar papers, important papers, review papers, and more Works with the LibKey Nomad browser extension to connect users to the library's subscribed content, not just open access articles Data source: OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar	Free
Connected Papers	Uses a single paper to build a graph showing similar papers; papers can be added to generate a multi-origin graph Shows prior works (papers most commonly cited by papers included in the graph) and derivative works (papers citing many papers in the graph) Data source: Semantic Scholar	Freemium

Understanding Papers

The tools help researchers learn more about the contents of articles by using generative AI to summarize and extract key information from a paper. Researchers may be able to more quickly evaluate whether an article is relevant, speeding up the research process.

Name	How It Works	Cost
ChatPDF	Summarizes and extracts information from an uploaded PDF; users can chat with the PDF to extract additional insights Can also chat with multiple PDFs at the same time	Freemium
Explainpaper	Explains highlighted text in uploaded papers at a selected level (undergrad, grad, etc.) Allows users to ask questions about the information generated in its explanations	Freemium
Scholarcy	Creates flashcard summaries of uploaded papers with explanations set at a level selected by the researcher Compares an article with related papers to place research in context NOTE: While this is a freemium product, the services offered at the free level are very limited.	Freemium