Scoping a scientific topic
Semantic search, paper summaries, and cited reports help researchers understand terminology, important studies, and evidence gaps before committing to a formal protocol.
Independent tool overview
Elicit at a glance
Elicit is an AI research platform for finding scientific papers, chatting with full text, generating cited literature reviews, screening studies, extracting structured evidence, and supporting systematic-review workflows.
Visit the official Elicit site ↗
- Product type
- AI platform for scientific literature and evidence synthesis
- Search corpus
- More than 138 million papers
- Clinical-trial source
- More than 500,000 ClinicalTrials.gov records
- Core workflows
- Search, reports, systematic reviews, extraction, and Research Agent
- Citation style
- Sentence-, quote-, and figure-level evidence
- Free plan
- Yes
- Enterprise security
- SOC 2 Type II and advanced controls
- Last reviewed
- August 29, 2026
Overview
What Elicit is
Elicit is built for scientific literature rather than general web research. It searches a corpus of more than 138 million papers and conference proceedings, adds ClinicalTrials.gov records, and lets researchers import their own documents or Zotero library. Search supports both ordinary keywords and semantic matching around a research question.
The product spans quick exploration and formal evidence synthesis. A student can find and summarize papers or chat with full text, while a professional team can define a protocol, screen abstracts and full papers, extract quantitative or qualitative data into tables, generate cited reports, and document the process with search strategies and PRISMA flow diagrams.
Traceability is Elicit's strongest design choice. AI-generated findings can link to exact sentences, quotes, tables, or figures in the underlying source, making verification faster than a summary that cites only an entire paper. Exports support common document, spreadsheet, and reference-manager formats, and paid plans add alerts, collaboration, larger workflows, and API access.
Elicit still does not remove the need for research judgment. Its corpus and full-text access can have gaps, semantic ranking can miss eligible studies, extracted values can be wrong, and a cited sentence can still be misunderstood or come from a weak study. Publication, clinical, policy, or regulatory work needs a documented protocol, searches in appropriate specialist databases, duplicate review where required, and human verification of every consequential conclusion.
Use cases
Who Elicit is best for
The strongest fit depends on the job you need the product to complete, not the size of its feature list.
Systematic and scoping reviews
The dedicated workflow supports search, explicit screening criteria, inclusion decisions, full-text extraction, synthesis, and PRISMA-oriented documentation.
Structured data extraction
Researchers can define columns for study characteristics, outcomes, methods, interventions, and other variables, then inspect the source quote or figure behind each extracted value.
Evidence-based product and policy work
Pharma, medical-device, consumer-goods, and policy teams can use the platform to accelerate traceable evidence synthesis while preserving expert review.
Living research monitoring
Saved searches and alerts can help teams watch for new publications and revisit a review as the evidence base changes.
Capabilities
Core Elicit features
Academic paper search
Search more than 138 million papers and conference proceedings with keyword or semantic queries, then sort and inspect results with summaries and source metadata.
Clinical-trial search
Paid plans expand access to more than 500,000 ClinicalTrials.gov records, which can supplement the published-literature view.
Research Agent
The agent can investigate a research question across multiple sources and workflows, with plan-based monthly usage rather than a purely manual paper-by-paper process.
Paper summaries and chat
Users can summarize large result sets and ask questions of papers where full text is available, with links back to the supporting material.
Research Reports
Elicit produces literature-review style reports with methods, source tables, search details, and sentence-level citations that can be opened against the underlying paper.
Systematic Review workflow
A guided process supports protocol refinement, source gathering, title and abstract screening, full-text review, data extraction, and evidence synthesis.
Auditable screening
Researchers can define and edit criteria, review AI recommendations, record exclusion reasons, inspect supporting quotes, and use AI within a dual-review pattern.
Structured data extraction
Custom columns can capture quantitative and qualitative fields from papers, with evidence shown beside each result; higher plans add more columns and figure interpretation.
PRISMA-oriented outputs
Systematic-review reports can include documented search strategies, paper tables, and PRISMA flow diagrams to make the process easier to audit.
Imports and uploads
Users can import from Zotero and bring their own supported documents or database exports to extend the papers found inside Elicit.
Exports
Reports can be downloaded as PDF or Word, tables as CSV or Excel, and references as RIS or BIB depending on the plan and workflow.
API and MCP access
Paid and enterprise options expose search and research capabilities for programmatic workflows, with exact access and usage depending on the plan.
Process
How the Elicit workflow works
Step 1
Define the decision and protocol
Write a precise research question, population or domain boundaries, outcomes, study designs, time range, languages, sources, and preplanned inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Step 2
Run multiple search strategies
Combine Elicit semantic search with reproducible keywords, ClinicalTrials.gov, specialist databases, citation chasing, and imported records as the review standard requires.
Step 3
Deduplicate and screen
Review title and abstract recommendations, document every exclusion reason, and use independent human reviewers where the protocol or stakes call for dual screening.
Step 4
Retrieve and assess full text
Obtain legally accessible papers, confirm that Elicit parsed them correctly, and evaluate study design, bias, relevance, and evidence quality.
Step 5
Build the extraction template
Define each variable precisely, pilot the schema on a representative sample, and distinguish missing, unreported, unclear, and not-applicable values.
Step 6
Verify every extraction
Open the quoted sentence, table, or figure and compare it with the original paper, including units, denominators, timepoints, arms, and statistical context.
Step 7
Synthesize with uncertainty
Separate direct findings from interpretation, account for study quality and heterogeneity, and avoid treating a frequently cited result as automatically reliable.
Step 8
Export an audit trail
Save the query, source list, screening decisions, exclusion reasons, extraction table, citations, PRISMA flow, and report so another reviewer can reproduce the work.
Step 9
Monitor for new evidence
Create alerts where available and rerun the documented search periodically when the review must remain current.
Cost
Elicit pricing and free plan
Elicit offers a useful Free plan and paid per-user plans. The lower prices below are the annual-billing rates currently shown on Elicit's pricing page; monthly billing, industry options, usage pools, and checkout totals can differ.
Basic
Free
For casual paper exploration and limited use of Elicit's agent and report workflows.
- Limited Research Agent and Research Report usage
- Unlimited search across more than 138 million papers
- Unlimited summaries across paper sets
- Unlimited paper chat where full text is available
- Zotero import and source viewing
Plus
$11 per user/month billed annually
For deeper individual research with exports, clinical-trial search, and standard workflow usage.
- $132 billed annually
- Exports to RIS, CSV, BIB, PDF, and DOCX
- Up to five added table columns at a time
- Unlimited search across more than 500,000 clinical trials
- Standard Research Agent, Reports, and Systematic Review usage
Pro
$39 per user/month billed annually
For individual researchers running systematic reviews and larger evidence-extraction projects.
- $468 billed annually
- Five times the standard workflow usage
- Dedicated workflow can screen 5,000 papers
- Reports can extract from up to 135 data sources
- Twenty added table columns, ten alerts, custom extractions, multiple templates, and API access
Scale
$89 per user/month billed annually
For collaborating teams that need more workflow usage, larger reports, and administration.
- $1,068 billed annually
- Nine times the standard workflow usage
- Reports can extract from up to 200 data sources
- Figure extraction and interpretation
- Live collaboration, thirty added table columns, and an admin panel
Enterprise
Custom
For companies and schools needing higher scale, institutional controls, custom data sources, and deployment options.
- Custom workflow usage and unlimited paper alerts
- Screen up to 40,000 papers and extract forty columns
- SSO, SAML, 2FA, analytics, domain verification, and custom deployment options
- No training on Enterprise data by default
- Dedicated onboarding and unlimited Search API access
Pricing checked . Check current pricing at the source ↗
Assessment
Elicit strengths and limitations
Where it stands out
- Purpose-built for scientific literature rather than mixed-quality general web results
- Combines search, screening, extraction, reports, and monitoring in one research environment
- Sentence-, quote-, table-, and figure-level evidence makes AI output faster to audit
- Supports both semantic discovery and reproducible keyword search
- Dedicated systematic-review workflow documents criteria and exclusion decisions
- Imports, uploads, and common export formats fit existing research workflows
- Useful Free plan for search, summaries, paper chat, and light report use
- Higher plans scale to team collaboration, API access, and large review portfolios
- Elicit reports SOC 2 Type II compliance and advanced Enterprise security controls
What to consider
- Elicit does not guarantee that a search is exhaustive, and formal reviews may require additional databases, grey literature, citation chasing, and expert librarian input
- Semantic ranking can improve discovery but is not a substitute for a reproducible search protocol
- Paywalls and missing or poorly parsed full text can limit summaries, chat, screening, and extraction
- AI screening recommendations can create false exclusions, so high-recall work needs conservative criteria and human review
- An exact supporting quote does not prove that the model interpreted the study correctly or that the study itself is credible
- Extracted numbers can lose units, denominators, groups, timepoints, uncertainty, or table context unless checked against the source
- Elicit does not replace risk-of-bias assessment, methodological expertise, statistical synthesis, or domain judgment
- Vendor-published accuracy and time-saving figures may not generalize to every field, paper format, language, or extraction schema
- The strongest systematic-review, collaboration, figure-extraction, and scale features require paid plans
- Annual per-user pricing and plan-based usage pools can become expensive for larger teams
- The pricing page contains multiple billing and industry views, so organizations should confirm the exact checkout price and included usage
- The explicit no-training-by-default commitment on the pricing page applies to Enterprise data; users on other plans should review current terms before uploading confidential or unpublished material
- Research in languages or disciplines underrepresented in the corpus may have weaker retrieval coverage
- Generated reports can encourage premature synthesis if the protocol, source coverage, and eligibility decisions have not been independently validated
Compare
Elicit alternatives
The right alternative depends on the specific output, workflow, controls and budget your project requires.
Students
Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM)
A source-grounded workspace for asking questions and generating outputs from documents the user supplies, without Elicit's full systematic-review workflow.
Explore Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) →Science
SciSpace BioMed Agent
A biomedical-focused research agent for teams whose work centers on clinical phenotypes, multi-omics, and laboratory reasoning.
Explore SciSpace BioMed Agent →Educators
ResearchGPT (now Consensus)
A simpler custom-GPT experience for academic paper search and research assistance inside ChatGPT.
Explore ResearchGPT (now Consensus) →Questions
Elicit FAQs
What is Elicit used for?
Elicit is used to find scientific papers, summarize and chat with full text, generate cited research reports, screen studies, extract structured data, and support systematic or scoping reviews.
Is Elicit free?
Yes. The Basic plan includes unlimited search across more than 138 million papers, summaries, paper chat where full text is available, source viewing, Zotero import, and limited Research Agent and Report usage.
How much does Elicit Pro cost?
Elicit currently shows a lower annual-billing rate of $39 per user per month, or $468 billed annually. A month-to-month or industry-specific view may cost more, so verify the selected checkout option.
Can Elicit conduct a complete systematic review automatically?
No. It can accelerate major steps and preserve an audit trail, but researchers remain responsible for the protocol, source coverage, duplicate review, eligibility decisions, data verification, bias assessment, synthesis, and compliance with the applicable review standard.
How large is Elicit's paper database?
Elicit currently advertises search across more than 138 million academic papers and conference proceedings, updated weekly, plus more than 500,000 ClinicalTrials.gov records on eligible plans.
Does Elicit search PubMed?
Elicit's systematic-review workflow can combine its corpus with PubMed and ClinicalTrials.gov searches, as well as records imported from other databases. Formal reviews should document every source and query used.
Can Elicit read paywalled papers?
Not automatically. Full-text features depend on the content Elicit can legally access, documents the user uploads, and any eligible organizational subscription integration.
Are Elicit's citations trustworthy?
Sentence-level citations make claims easier to inspect, but users must still open the source, verify the quoted context, and assess study quality. A citation can support a sentence without supporting the broader conclusion.
Can Elicit export to Zotero or a spreadsheet?
Yes. Depending on the plan and workflow, Elicit exports references as RIS or BIB, tables as CSV or Excel, and reports as PDF or Word. It also supports importing from Zotero.
Does Elicit have an API?
Yes. Pro includes API access, and Enterprise offers expanded or unlimited Search API access. Elicit also publishes MCP capabilities for connecting research functions to agent workflows.
Is Elicit suitable for confidential research?
Elicit describes encryption and SOC 2 Type II controls, and its Enterprise plan states that data is not used for training by default with additional deployment and identity options. Teams should complete their own security, privacy, rights, and data-retention review before uploading sensitive materials.
Bottom line
Our Elicit verdict
Elicit is one of the strongest specialized platforms for researchers who need more than a paper chatbot. Its search, auditable screening, structured extraction, sentence-level evidence, and PRISMA-oriented workflow can remove substantial manual work, but the platform is most valuable when it strengthens a rigorous human process rather than replacing one.
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