AI tools for academic search

Consensus

Consensus is an AI-powered academic search engine.

Terms of Use

Only use the licensed version when processing confidential data and personal data.

Why be careful?

Engages in fairly extensive tracking and online profiling.

Availability

• ❌ Not open source
• ✅ Free version
• ✅ Licensed version
• ❌ Not available in the Software Centre

Link

https://agouti.eu/ 

Elicit

Use AI to search, summarise, extract data and chat. Elicit draws on more than 125 million scientific articles.

Terms of Use

No terms and conditions of use

Availability

• ❌ Not open source
• ✅ Free version 
• ✅ Licensed version
• ❌ Not available in the Software Centre

Link

https://elicit.com/welcome 

Humata.ai

Humata is an AI document assistant that allows users to unlock insights from their data files by simply asking questions.

Terms of Use

Only use the licensed version when processing confidential data and personal data.

Why be careful?

Data is processed and stored in the US.

Availability

• ❌ Not open source
• ✅ Free version 
• ✅ Licensed version
• ❌ Not available in the Software Centre

Link

https://humata.ai 

Iris.ai

AI-native research platform used to analyse multiple documents and data sources.

Terms of Use

Do not use for the processing of confidential data and personal data.

Why be careful?

States that it is permitted to use your data on the grounds of legitimate interest and commercial interest.

Availability

• ❌ Not open source
• ❌ No free version 
• ✅ Licensed version
• ❌ Not available in the Software Centre

Link

https://iris.ai 

NotebookLM

NotebookLM is an online research and note-taking retrieval-augmented generation tool that uses artificial intelligence, specifically Google Gemini, to assist users in interacting with their documents. NotebookLM is known for its Audio Overviews feature, which generates podcast-like discussions about the uploaded content.

Terms of Use

Only use the licensed version when processing confidential data and personal data.

Why be careful?

In the free version, Google is permitted to use your input data.

Availability

• ❌ Not open source
• ✅ Free version
• ✅ Licensed version
• ❌ Not available in the Software Centre

Link

https://notebooklm.google/ 

Perplexity

Perplexity is an AI answer engine that researches the open web in real time and returns concise, cited answers. 

Terms of Use

No terms and conditions of use

Availability

• ❌ Not open source
• ✅ Free version
• ✅ Licensed version
• ❌ Not available in the Software Centre

Link

https://www.perplexity.ai/ 

Quilbot

Writing assistant, text review on spelling, grammar and tone.

Why be careful?

Extensive tracking and online profiling. Collects an unnecessary amount of personal data.

Availability

• ❌ Not open source
• ✅ Free version
• ✅ Licensed version
• ❌ Not available in the Software Centre

Link

https://quillbot.com/ 

Scite

Scite is an AI-powered platform that helps researchers discover and evaluate scientific literature through Smart Citations, showing whether studies support or contradict a claim.

Terms of Use

No terms and conditions of use

Availability

• ❌ Not open source
• ❌ No free version 
• ✅ Licensed version
• ❌ Not available in the Software Centre

Link

https://scite.ai/ 

Semantic Scholar

Semantic Scholar is a research tool for scientific literature. It uses natural language processing to generate automated summaries of papers.

Terms of Use

Do not use for the processing of confidential data and personal data.

Why be careful?

Data is processed and stored in the US.

Availability

• ❌ not open source
• ✅ Free version 
• ❌ No licensed version
• ❌ Not available in the Software Centre

Link

https://www.semanticscholar.org/ 

Summon

A platform to manage an academic library. Make it searchable, discoverable, …

Terms of Use

No terms and conditions of use

Availability

• ❌ Not open source
• ❌ No free version 
• ✅ Licensed version
• ❌ Not available in the Software Centre

Link

https://exlibrisgroup.com/products/summon-library-discovery/