Elicit

Where Elicit shines

Elicit is an AI research assistant for literature review. You ask a question, and it searches academic databases, extracts key info from papers (methods, outcomes, samples), and organizes the results in a table you can sort and filter. You can quickly scan abstracts, pull out quoted evidence, and save a shortlist for deeper reading. It is built to reduce the “where do I start?” friction in evidence gathering.

Elicit is a research assistant that searches academic papers, summarizes findings, and extracts key fields to speed up early stage reviews. You describe a research question, it retrieves relevant papers, and it produces concise summaries with objective statements and study details. You can add or remove results, adjust filters, and extract structured information such as population, intervention, outcome, and methodology. For many teams this replaces the first few hours of manual search and skimming and turns a sprawling query into a manageable candidate set with notes that are ready to compare.

Elicit works well when you need to map a domain, collect representative studies, and prepare a brief that cites specific papers. It is practical for planning experiments, framing policy questions, and building evidence summaries for non technical stakeholders. Strong habits include refining the research question into precise terms, pinning must include papers, exporting tabular summaries for offline review, and reading full texts for any claim that affects a decision. When conclusions diverge, ask Elicit to surface limitations and to highlight differences in sample size, study design, and statistical power so you can explain divergence in your own words.

Elicit does not guarantee comprehensive coverage and it can miss paywalled or very new studies depending on access pathways. Summaries are helpful but they cannot substitute for careful reading of methods and results. Treat the tool as an organizer and accelerator, not as an authority. Keep a record of the exact papers you rely on with links and publication metadata. For proprietary or sensitive topics, avoid placing confidential information in prompts and store your annotations in your own systems. Used with these disciplines, Elicit speeds the move from question to an evidence map while preserving the rigor that research demands.

We like Elicit because it reduces the overhead of early stage reviews and helps teams compare studies on consistent fields. We do not like that coverage can be uneven when a topic spans multiple disciplines or when key results sit behind strict paywalls. It could be better with clearer indicators of search completeness and with per paper confidence notes tied to extraction quality. The interesting effect is how it nudges better questions by showing gaps and divergent results early. Security and ethics come down to process. Track sources, verify claims in the full text, and keep sensitive data out of prompts. Elicit is for researchers, policy analysts, clinicians in training, and product teams that need to brief quickly. Its strength is structured summarization of scholarly work. Its weakness is reliance on your follow through for depth and validation.

At a glance

Coverage & data

Plans & limits

Community signal

Compared to similar tools

Elicit is a fast extractor and organizer for literature review. Consensus emphasizes “what studies say” answers; Scite focuses on citation context (supporting, disputing, mentioning).

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