Elicit

AI research assistant that searches, screens, and extracts data from 138M+ papers

Intermediate API Free trial

Elicit is an AI platform for scientific research that searches over 138 million papers and 545,000 clinical trials, generates cited research reports, automates systematic-review screening and data extraction, and organizes sources through a Library with alerts for new publications.

About Elicit

Elicit is an AI-driven research platform built to help scientists, academics, and industry R&D teams work through published scientific literature faster and with more rigor. Its core is semantic search across more than 138 million academic papers and over 545,000 clinical trials, meaning researchers can surface relevant work without knowing the exact terminology original authors used. Beyond search, Elicit generates structured research reports with sentence-level citations, screens and extracts data from large paper sets, and lets users interrogate sources directly for evidence-based answers. The tool is built for anyone who needs to synthesize scientific evidence at scale, spanning academia, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, policy and government, consumer goods, industrials, and software teams. Documented case studies describe a pharmaceutical team cutting data-extraction time roughly tenfold across 1,600 papers, an independent reviewer reaching over 99% data-extraction accuracy on a policy-informing systematic review, and a research consultancy scaling reviews across 40 questions and 500 papers for pharma clients. In practice, a user starts with a research question rather than a keyword search. Elicit screens matching papers against inclusion criteria, extracts structured data points into tables, and compiles a report modeled on systematic-review methodology. Reports are customizable, so teams can control which papers are considered and which fields get extracted, and the Systematic Review workflow now supports PRISMA 2020 guidelines with traceability at each step. A Library stores and organizes sources for reuse across projects, and Alerts flag new relevant publications so long-running projects stay current without repeated manual searching. What separates Elicit from general-purpose AI chat tools is its emphasis on scale and verifiability: a single workflow can process up to 1,000 relevant papers and analyze up to 20,000 data points, with every generated claim traced back to a specific source sentence. An API and MCP server extend these capabilities into custom agents and pipelines, positioning Elicit less as a one-off search tool and more as infrastructure for evidence-based research, sitting alongside general AI assistants and dedicated systematic-review software as an alternative built specifically for scientific literature work.

How to use Elicit

Type a natural-language research question into Elicit's search. The semantic search engine returns ranked papers from its 138M+ paper database and 545,000 clinical trials without requiring exact keyword matches.

Pros

Semantic search across 138M+ papers and 545K clinical trials removes dependence on exact keyword matchingAI
Systematic-review-inspired screening and reports, with case studies citing over 99% extraction accuracy and up to 80% time savingsAI
Every AI-generated claim carries sentence-level citations back to the source, supporting verificationAI
Reports are customizable, letting users control which papers and data fields are included in outputAI
Public API and MCP server allow teams to build custom research agents around Elicit's data and workflowsAI

Cons

Specific plan pricing is not published on the homepage, making cost comparison difficult before signupAI
No support channels such as live chat, email, or community forum are described on the siteAI
Only a web app is mentioned; there is no indication of native mobile or desktop appsAI
Research Agent usage is governed by a monthly usage pool, so heavy users may hit caps depending on planAI
PRISMA-compliant systematic review and large-scale extraction features are aimed at specialized workflows, adding complexity casual users may not needAI

Details

Free trial

The site prompts visitors to "Try now," implying an accessible way to test the product, but exact free-tier limits, trial length, or whether payment is required upfront are not detailed on the homepage.

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Pricing

The homepage does not display specific plan prices. It offers a "Try now" entry point and includes an unanswered FAQ item titled "Is Elicit free?" It also notes the Research Agent recently moved from workflow-based limits to a monthly usage pool rather than fixed per-action pricing.

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Integrations

Elicit provides a public API and an MCP server for connecting its search, screening, and report-generation capabilities to custom agents and research pipelines; its report generation has also been evaluated against underlying models including Claude Opus 4.5.

Features

Semantic search across 138M+ papers and 545K clinical trials, AI-generated research reports with sentence-level citations, automated systematic-review screening and data extraction (PRISMA 2020-ready), a source Library, and Alerts for new research.