There are many new AI tools available to researchers and students which focus on academic sources (rather than general AI tools such as Copilot or ChatGPT). These tools offer a powerful new method of discovering academic literature and can be a great complement to traditional methods of searching the literature in your field.
Some generative AI tools have access to millions of research papers and other academic resources. With the right prompts, such as keywords and subject headings, the right tools can help with identifying and discovering relevant academic literature. For example, generative AI may assist with suggesting a list of relevant research papers, and other academic resources associated to a particular research topic.
For thorough or comprehensive searching such as for a research paper or thesis, you should still search the major academic databases in your field. These AI tools use freely available or negotiated underlying datasets. These datasets do not necessarily contain the important journals in any field, however academic databases are produced specifically to provide this coverage. See our Literature review guide and to identify key databases for your field of research, see our Subject Guides.
Adapted from AI tools for literature searching by University of Queensland Library is licensed under CC BY NC 4.0
Adapted from "Searching for literature" by Research Practice with AI at RMIT (RePAIR) is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Some of the more popular tools you might like to explore are below. Note that there are many more, and new developments are happening all the time. You can search the web to investigate what is available.
| Tool | Access/Cost | Data Source | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elicit | An account is required to use Elicit. There is a free basic plan, and paid plans for extra features and capabilities | Semantic Scholar. Elicit can base answers on abstracts, plus the full text of open access papers | Enter your topic or question in natural language |
| Scite | Scite requires a login and payment to use Scite Assistant, or to see the full Scite Search results | Agreements with selected partners. | Scite has two main components. Scite Search lets you explore citation links between papers, and whether citations are positive, negative etc. Scite Assistant is the AI research assistant |
| Semantic Scholar | You can search Semantic Scholar and create account for free. | Agreements with selected partners. | Search for topics and authors. Semantic Scholar also provides metrics including citation counts, h-index, and highly influential citations. |
| Consensus | You can search Consensus without creating an account, although certain features do require an account. There is a free basic plan, and paid plans for extra features and capabilities | Semantic Scholar | Enter your topic or question in natural language. Turning the Copilot feature on enables you to give conversational commands such as 'Write a 3 paragraph literature review on...' or 'Give me a two sentence summary in simple language on...' |
| SciSpace | You can use SciSpace without creating an account. There is a free basic plan, and paid plans for extra features and capabilities | Unknown | Enter your topic or question in natural language |
| Litmaps | You can use Litmaps without creating an account. There is a free basic plan, and paid plans for extra features and capabilities |
Agreements with selected partners including OAmg |
Enter your topic or question in natural language or by the citation or DOI. Litmaps displays results in a visual format based on connection, using citations and references. |
| Lens | You can search and analyse patents and scholarly works free of charge. Various subcriptions are available for enhanced analysis and reporting. | Agreements with selected data partners including IP Australia. | Also enables you to search for patents and biological sequences disclosed in patents. |
| Scinapse | You can search for papers and track your history free of charge. Paid plans include extra features including topic anaylsis and reporting. |
Pubmed OpenAlex Semanitc Scholar |
Enter your topic using keywords. |
| Keenious | You can use Keenious without creating an account. There is a free basic plan, and paid plans for extra features and capabilities | OpenAlex | Keenious offers you recommendations of papers and topics, based on the text you're writing. You can write straight into the box on the Keenious website, or add the Keenious addon into Word or Google Docs on your personal device |
Adapted from AI tools for literature searching by University of Queensland Library is licensed under CC BY NC 4.0
Adapted from "Searching for literature" by Research Practice with AI at RMIT (RePAIR) is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Adapted from "AI tools for literature searching" by University of Queensland Library is licensed under CC BY NC 4.0
Adapted from "AI tools for literature searching" by University of Queensland Library is licensed under CC BY NC 4.0
Generative AI tools can assist in providing automated summaries that can help you clarify and consolidate your understanding of research topic. These tools can be a powerful digital assistant and provide clarity explanation about key terms related to your literature searches, for example. Nevertheless, be sure to remember that summaries generated by generative AI tools are frequently inaccurate.
Many existing generative AI tools can help with summarising literature resources, including:
| Tool | Access/Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| RMIT Val* | login access for RMIT staff and students. *RMIT endorsed | Use the paperclip icon to upload pdf and ask Val to summarise or answer questions. |
| Paper Digest | Subscription needed for unlimited access. There is a daily quota on free services including using Review/rewriting features. | Use Academic Reader or Research Pilot to upload a pdf or paste text. Then ask a question e.g. sumarise this paper. |
| Enago Read | Free version allows limited number of questions, summaries and insights per month. Paid option allows greater or unlimited exploration. | Quickly generate summaries and 'key insights' or ask questions about research papers. |
| SciSpace | Login needed to use 'Chat with pdf'. | 'Chat with pdf' or extract data from multiple pdfs. Also has Chrome widget to add to browser. |
| ChatGPT | Login for extra features. | Enter the abstract or upload a pdf. Ask ChatGPT to summarise or ask questions about research papers. |
| Microsoft CoPilot | RMIT has an enterprise license to CoPilot. It can be used with Microsoft Edge and other MS products. | Use CoPilot with Edge to search for articles and to ask further questions about research papers. Upload your own documents. The RePAIR sharepoint site has a short guide to using CoPilot with Microsoft Edge. (RMIT staff and students only) |
| Elicit | Login is needed to use Elicit. Summarise and chat with 4 papers a once. Free version limits number of papers you can extract data from per month. Paid options allow greater or unlimited exploration. | Generate a research report on a topic. Eliicit has a focus on analysis. |
Adapted from "Summarising literature" by Research Practice with AI at RMIT (RePAIR) is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Adapted from "Summarising literature" by Research Practice with AI at RMIT (RePAIR) is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Adapted from "Summarising literature" by Research Practice with AI at RMIT (RePAIR) is licensed under CC BY 4.0
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