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Elicit is an AI research assistant developed by Ought, an applied AI research lab, designed to automate and streamline various stages of academic literature review and research synthesis. It primarily supports the workflow of searching, extracting, summarizing, and synthesizing information from a vast database of academic papers, significantly accelerating systematic literature reviews. Elicit is a web-based platform, accessible through any modern browser, providing a dedicated environment for researchers. Its most-used feature is the ability to answer research questions by searching over 200 million academic papers, extracting key findings, and presenting them in a structured, sortable table. Elicit leverages large language models to read and understand academic papers, extracting relevant information and summarizing methodologies, while clearly citing sources and allowing users to verify claims.
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Why It’s Useful
Elicit eliminates the labor-intensive, time-consuming process of manually sifting through hundreds of academic papers, transforming a week-long literature review into an afternoon's work. A graduate student can input a research question and Elicit will generate a table comparing methodologies, sample sizes, and key findings across 50 relevant papers in minutes, providing a robust foundation for their thesis. A medical researcher can quickly identify all studies on a specific drug's efficacy, extract reported side effects, and summarize their conclusions, accelerating the evidence synthesis process for clinical guidelines. Elicit offers a free tier with limited credits, with paid subscriptions (e.g., $10/month for "Basic" or $50/month for "Plus") providing more credits, advanced features, and priority support. It often beats general academic search engines like Google Scholar by not just finding papers, but actively extracting and synthesizing information into actionable, structured insights. A power feature for advanced users is the "Conceptual Analysis" mode, which allows researchers to identify overarching themes and concepts across a set of papers, going beyond simple extraction to reveal deeper connections. Elicit has a moderate learning curve; while basic searches are straightforward, mastering its advanced extraction and synthesis features requires understanding how to frame questions effectively for optimal AI performance.
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