Academic Search and Literature Review
Artificial intelligence tools aimed at searching, analysing and organising scientific literature, which facilitate the review of prior studies, the identification of relationships between publications, and support for academic research processes. Note: These tools make it easier to search and explore scientific literature, but they do not replace the critical reading, methodological selection or evaluation of source quality that are intrinsic to academic research.
Elicit
Website / AI tool designed to support the search and analysis of scientific literature based on research questions.
Main area of use:
- Academic research
- Suitable for supporting literature review processes, formulating research questions and conducting preliminary analysis of scientific studies.
Recommended purposes:
- To formulate and refine research questions from an initial topic or problem.
- To locate relevant scientific literature using question‑guided searches.
- To quickly identify key ideas, results and conclusions in articles.
- To extract and organise study information in comparative tables (method, sample, findings).
- To support the identification of patterns, trends and relationships between research studies.
- To generate preliminary summaries of articles and bodies of evidence.
- To facilitate the creation of thematic maps and initial categorisation of literature.
- To help build a reference base for narrative or systematic reviews.
Access model:
- Freemium
- Offers a free version with limited functionality and paid options that increase the number of queries and provide advanced features.
Conditions of use:
- Permitted
- Can be used to support research, provided that results are contrasted and validated.
- Available features and specific conditions may vary depending on the access plan or licence and account configuration.
- It is recommended to review the original sources and verify the interpretation of findings before academic use.
Data use:
- Medium
- Information entered is processed on external servers in accordance with provider policies, with explicit protection measures.
- Data handling (storage, retention and use for service improvement) may vary depending on the plan or licence and account settings.
Scite
Website / AI‑based platform that analyses scientific citations and shows how a work supports, contradicts or contextualises other studies.
Main area of use:
- Academic research
- Especially useful for critical analysis of literature and evaluation of the impact and use of scientific citations.
Recommended purposes:
- To identify whether an article is cited as supporting evidence, contradiction or contextualisation.
- To evaluate the interpretative quality of citations within a research field.
- To detect debates, controversies or inconsistent results from citation usage.
- To analyse the evolution of a study’s impact through citation type and pattern.
- To quickly locate articles that replicate or challenge relevant findings.
- To explore citation networks to understand relationships between works and research lines.
- To support literature reviews by identifying key studies and their scientific reception.
- To facilitate verification of claims by contrasting cited evidence in the literature.
Access model:
- Freemium
- Limited free access is available, with subscription plans for advanced functionality.
Conditions of use:
- Permitted
- A support tool for bibliographic analysis that does not replace critical reading of original sources.
- Features and specific conditions may vary depending on the access plan or licence and account configuration.
- It is recommended to verify the full citation context and review original articles before drawing conclusions.
Data use:
- Medium
- Data is processed externally for citation analysis, in accordance with provider policies.
- Data handling (storage, retention and use for service improvement) may vary depending on the plan or licence and account settings.
Connected Papers
Website / Visual AI tool that allows exploration of networks of related scientific articles starting from a reference work.
Main area of use:
- Academic research
- Suitable for exploring antecedents, related works and thematic evolution within a field of study.
Recommended purposes:
- To identify related articles based on a reference work (“seminal paper”).
- To explore literature networks to locate antecedents and thematically connected studies.
- To detect emerging research lines and conceptual evolution within a field.
- To uncover key but lesser‑known works through bibliographic connections.
- To support initial theoretical framework building from grouped literature.
- To compare approaches or research currents within the same theme.
- To locate bridging articles between subfields or related topics.
- To organise literature review via visual maps of relationships between studies.
Access model:
- Freemium
- Offers a limited number of free graphs and paid plans for expanded use.
Conditions of use:
- Permitted
- Can be used as exploratory support in scientific literature review.
- Available features and specific conditions may vary depending on the access plan or licence and account configuration.
- It is recommended to contrast findings with additional bibliographic searches and review original sources.
Data use:
- Medium
- Information entered is used to generate visualisations and analyses on external servers.
- Data handling (storage, retention and use for service improvement) may vary depending on the plan or licence and account settings.
Research Rabbit
Website / AI tool for the discovery of scientific literature that allows users to follow authors, topics and publication networks.
Main area of use:
- Academic research
- Suitable for continuous monitoring of scientific literature and identification of relevant works.
Recommended purposes:
- To discover relevant articles from a reference publication, author or topic.
- To explore literature networks and relationships between works through visualisations.
- To follow authors and research lines to monitor new publications.
- To identify emerging literature and trends in a field of study.
- To organise bibliography through thematic collections and lists of saved articles.
- To facilitate finding related works for narrative or systematic reviews.
- To locate bridging articles between connected areas or related disciplines.
- To support preliminary analysis of the state of the art via guided recommendations.
Access model:
- Free
- The tool offers free access to its core functionalities.
Conditions of use:
- Permitted
- Can be used to support discovery and organisation of academic literature.
- Available features and conditions may vary depending on the access plan or licence and account settings.
- It is recommended to contrast recommendations with additional bibliographic searches and review original sources.
Data use:
- Medium
- Data is processed on external platforms to provide personalised recommendations.
- Data handling (storage, retention and use for service improvement) may vary depending on the plan or licence and account configuration.
Consensus
Website / AI platform that helps find answers based on scientific literature, using natural language processing to extract key conclusions.
Main area of use:
- Academic research
- Allows users to obtain summaries and answers from scientific articles, facilitating literature review and evidence extraction.
Recommended purposes:
- To obtain preliminary answers based on scientific literature from research questions.
- To locate articles directly relevant to a specific question.
- To extract key conclusions and main findings from scientific studies quickly.
- To compare evidence and results across articles to identify agreements and discrepancies.
- To support the construction of evidence‑based arguments for narrative or systematic reviews.
- To identify claims backed by studies and locate original sources.
- To generate evidence‑oriented summaries for reports, theoretical frameworks or discussions.
- To explore the state of knowledge on a topic through initial literature syntheses.
- Access model:
Freemium
- Free access with limited functionality and subscription options for advanced features.
Conditions of use:
- Permitted
- Use is allowed for literature review and extraction of relevant information from scientific articles.
- Available features and specific conditions may vary depending on the access plan or licence and account settings.
- It is recommended to contrast results with reading the original sources and verifying context before academic use.
Data use:
- Medium
- Processed data is stored on external servers and may be used to improve responses and system accuracy.
- Data handling (storage, retention and use for service improvement) may vary depending on the plan or licence and account configuration.
Perplexity
Website / AI‑assisted search tool that provides direct answers from online sources, including scientific articles and academic resources, showing references and links to the sources used.
Main area of use:
- Academic research
- Ideal for obtaining quick summaries, locating relevant sources and accelerating initial exploration of scientific literature and academic content.
Recommended purposes:
- To obtain fast responses based on sources, with verifiable links and references.
- To locate relevant articles and academic resources based on a question or topic.
- To generate brief summaries of articles, reports or scientific content available online.
- To compare perspectives and approaches on a topic through synthesis of multiple sources.
- To extract key concepts, definitions and specialised terminology for theoretical frameworks.
- To support the identification of evidence and relevant studies to justify arguments.
- To explore a topic via iterative questions, refining searches and subtopics.
- To create initial lists of references and recommended readings for literature review.
Access model:
- Offers free access to core functionalities, with subscription options for extended features in certain versions or services.
Conditions of use:
- Permitted
- Use is allowed to obtain answers and guide searches for publicly available scientific literature and academic content.
- Available features and conditions may vary depending on the access plan or licence and account settings.
- It is recommended always to verify original sources and contrast information before academic use.
Data use:
- Medium
- Input data is processed to generate source‑based responses and improve service quality.
- Data handling (storage, retention and use for service improvement) may vary depending on the plan or licence and account configuration.