Why it matters
- Consensus Meter is a unique feature no other academic search engine provides — shows the scientific consensus at a glance.
- 200M+ papers indexed makes it one of the largest academic search databases available.
- AI synthesis means you get an evidence-based answer to your question, not just a list of papers to read.
- ChatGPT plugin and GPT-4 integration brings scientific evidence into LLM conversations.
Key capabilities
- Consensus Meter: Visual indicator of what percentage of research supports, refutes, or is mixed on a claim.
- Paper search: AI-powered semantic search over 200M+ peer-reviewed papers.
- Evidence summaries: AI-generated summary of what the research says, with citations to specific studies.
- Full-text access: Access to open-access full papers (premium); abstracts for all.
- Citation export: Export found papers to Zotero, Mendeley, or BibTeX (premium).
- Study snapshots: Key information extracted per paper — study type, sample size, population, conclusion.
- Consensus GPT: ChatGPT plugin and GPT-4 integration for evidence-backed AI conversations.
- Year filtering: Filter papers by publication year for recent or historical research.
Technical notes
- Database: 200M+ peer-reviewed papers (PubMed, arXiv, Semantic Scholar, and others)
- AI: GPT-4 + proprietary models for claim extraction and consensus scoring
- Citation formats: BibTeX, RIS, formatted references
- Integration: ChatGPT plugin; API (beta)
- Pricing: Free (limited searches); Premium ~$9.99/mo or $7.99/mo annual
- Founded: 2021 by Eric Olson and Christian Salem; San Francisco; YC W22
Ideal for
- Healthcare and wellness professionals who need to quickly check what research says on medical topics.
- Students and academics researching a new topic who want a quick evidence-based orientation.
- Journalists and science communicators who need accurate, sourced scientific facts.
Not ideal for
- Deep systematic literature review requiring structured data extraction across many papers (use Elicit).
- Non-scientific topics without peer-reviewed literature.
- Finding specific papers by author or journal (Google Scholar is better for bibliographic lookup).
See also
- Elicit — More in-depth research tool for systematic reviews and data extraction.
- SciSpace — AI tool for reading and understanding individual papers in depth.
- Semantic Scholar — Free academic paper search with citation tracking.