Elicit

Elicit is an AI research assistant built specifically for systematic literature review and evidence synthesis, trusted by over 2 million researchers across medicine, social sciences, computer science, and policy. Developed by Ought, an AI safety nonprofit, Elicit is purpose-built for the most rigorous type of academic research: systematic reviews that require screening hundreds or thousands of papers, extracting structured data, and synthesizing findings into evidence-based conclusions.

Unlike general AI assistants or even academic search engines, Elicit automates the most time-consuming steps of the systematic review process. Its title and abstract screening tool applies user-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria to large paper sets automatically. Its structured data extraction creates spreadsheet-style comparison tables — sample sizes, methodologies, primary outcomes — with each cell traceable back to the exact sentence in the source PDF. Research Reports generate cited evidence synthesis documents from multiple papers, while the Research Agent autonomously searches, screens, and summarizes literature from a single research question. The full-text chat feature allows researchers to interrogate individual papers in natural language with grounded, sourced answers.

Elicit is the right tool for academic researchers, PhD students, systematic reviewers, healthcare professionals conducting evidence reviews, and policy researchers who need to process large volumes of scientific literature with rigorous source attribution — particularly those running formal systematic reviews or meta-analyses where every extracted data point needs to be traceable to its source.

Elicit offers a genuinely functional free Basic plan with unlimited paper search, unlimited abstract summaries, and unlimited full-text chat with papers — no credit card required. Research Agent and Research Reports are available with limited usage on the free tier.

Plus at $12/month (individual) expands Research Agent runs, Research Report generation, and adds figure extraction from PDFs — designed for independent researchers running regular systematic reviews.

Teams at $14/user/month adds collaborative workspaces, shared project libraries, and higher usage limits for research groups and labs. An Enterprise tier is available for institutions requiring SSO, audit logs, higher volume limits, and dedicated support. Note: Elicit significantly lowered its top-tier pricing in April 2026 (from $780 to $79/user/month for the highest plan). Verify current rates at elicit.com/pricing.