Elicit

Elicit is an AI research assistant built for literature reviews: ask a research question in plain language and it searches a corpus of hundreds of millions of academic papers, returns one-sentence abstract summaries, and lets you add extraction columns — population, intervention, outcomes, findings — to build a structured synthesis table across many papers at once, with every claim traceable to the source text.

Key facts: Beyond search and summaries, Elicit offers a systematic-review workflow with screening, a Research Agent and research reports, figure extraction on higher plans, and exports to CSV and BibTeX plus Zotero import. It is strongest for evidence synthesis — screening hundreds of papers and extracting comparable data — rather than casual web browsing, and like every AI extraction tool it still needs human quality checks, especially on nuanced limitations.

Plans: Basic is free, with unlimited paper search, summaries and chat with papers, plus limited Research Agent and report usage. Paid pricing is audience-dependent and shown in two ladders on Elicit's pricing page, so check the live page for your case: industry Pro is listed around $49/user/month billed annually, with Scale around $169/user/month, while academic pricing runs lower (Plus around $11/month and Pro around $39/month billed annually). API access starts on Pro.

Best for: PhD students, academic researchers, medical professionals and policy analysts running literature or systematic reviews. Start on Basic to test whether Elicit finds the right literature for your topic; upgrade when screening volume, extraction columns or collaboration become the bottleneck. Who should skip it: casual web browsers who want quick general answers rather than evidence synthesis.

Pros

• Searches a corpus of hundreds of millions of academic papers from a plain-language question
• One-sentence abstract summaries, plus extraction columns for population, intervention, outcomes and findings
• Structured synthesis tables across many papers at once, with every claim traceable to source text
• Systematic-review workflow with screening, a Research Agent, research reports and exports to CSV and BibTeX

Watch out for

• Like every AI extraction tool, it still needs human quality checks, especially on nuanced limitations
• Paid pricing is audience-dependent, with separate industry and academic ladders, so check the live page for your case

Pricing

Basic is free, with unlimited paper search, summaries and chat with papers, plus limited Research Agent and report usage. Paid pricing is audience-dependent: industry Pro is listed around $49/user/month billed annually, with Scale around $169/user/month, while academic pricing runs lower (Plus around $11/month and Pro around $39/month billed annually). API access starts on Pro.

FAQs

What is Elicit for? Literature reviews: it searches academic papers and builds structured synthesis tables with extraction columns.

Can I export Elicit results? Yes, exports to CSV and BibTeX plus Zotero import are supported.

Is there a free plan? Yes, Basic is free with unlimited paper search, summaries and chat with papers.

Can Elicit replace reading the papers? No, it still needs human quality checks, especially on nuanced limitations.