Elicit is an AI research assistant that helps researchers work through academic papers more quickly. It focuses on making research tasks easier by using AI to summarize papers, pull out important data, and bring together findings from many sources. This tool is made for researchers who need to review lots of papers and want to save time.
What Elicit Offers
Elicit provides tools that speed up the research process. Users can analyze evidence for systematic reviews much faster than traditional methods—the company claims it takes 80% less time while keeping the same quality. The platform can extract data from hundreds of papers in just minutes, even from tables and charts which are usually hard to process. It can also screen papers based on criteria you set and add up to 500 relevant papers from its large database of over 125 million papers.
A helpful feature is Elicit's ability to create research-backed reports with fully-automated rapid systematic reviews. These include search, screening, and data extraction all in one place. Users can also upload their own PDF files to get quick summaries or ask specific questions about the papers, with the AI showing where it found each answer.
Benefits of Using Elicit
- Time savings are a major advantage, with Elicit claiming users save up to 5 hours weekly. Some research groups have reportedly cut costs by 50% and saved more than half their time by using the platform to automate data extraction.
- The tool works with various pricing options to fit different needs. There's a free Basic plan for casual users, a Plus plan at $10 monthly (billed yearly), a Pro plan at $42 monthly (billed yearly), a Team plan at $65 per user monthly, and custom Enterprise pricing for larger organizations.
- Elicit has gained trust from researchers at many institutions. Users who have tried the platform praise its accuracy and ability to correctly understand research evidence.
Research Assistance Features
Elicit's paper analysis tools help researchers quickly understand key points without reading entire papers. The platform can create summaries that highlight the most important information, saving hours of reading time. The data extraction feature pulls specific information from many papers at once, making it easy to compare findings across studies.
The search capabilities go beyond simple keyword matching. Elicit understands research concepts and can find papers that are truly relevant to your work, not just ones that happen to use the same words. This helps researchers find connections they might otherwise miss.
For systematic reviews, which are typically very time-consuming, Elicit automates much of the process. It can search for papers, screen them based on your criteria, and extract the data you need, all with minimal input from you. While the company notes their AI has about 90% accuracy, they provide tools to help users verify the results.
Final Thoughts
For researchers looking to make their work more efficient, Elicit appears to be a legitimate and valuable tool. Its AI-powered features can save significant time on tasks that would otherwise take days or weeks to complete manually. The platform's focus on research-specific needs makes it particularly useful for academics, scientists, and others who regularly work with scholarly papers.
What do you think? If you have any experience with Elicit, whether positive or negative, please share it in the comments below to help others make informed decisions.
