AI tools for research

Research tools search, read and summarise for you: answer engines that cite their sources, assistants for academic papers, and tools that pull facts out of long PDFs.

Always open the cited sources. The best tools make that easy by quoting the exact passage they relied on.

Good places to start

Perplexity
Research
Quick research questions that need sources
Free plan · from $17/month
Semrush
Research
SEO specialists researching keywords and backlinks
Free plan · from €134/month
Elicit
Research
Academics running systematic literature reviews
Free plan · from $49/user/month

29 tools

Tools with checked details come first, then ones with a confirmed free plan, then the rest A to Z.

Free plan only (7)

Perplexity
Ask questions and follow cited sources into deeper research.
Free plan · from $17/month
Semrush
Research search and AI-answer visibility.
Free plan · from €134/month
Elicit
Find papers and assemble cited research briefs.
Free plan · from $49/user/month
Consensus
Search academic papers with AI support.
Free plan · from $20/month
SciSpace
Search papers and work with research PDFs.
ChatPDF
Ask questions about a PDF document.
Free plan · from €16.99/month
Humata
Ask questions across an internal knowledge base.
Free plan · from $9.99/month
ResearchRabbit
Explore connections between academic papers.
Free plan · from $12.50/month
Ahrefs
Research search and AI visibility.
Anara
Work with research sources and citations.
Andi
Ask search questions and receive conversational answers.
Brand24
Monitor brand mentions with AI assistance.
Cision
Analyze media coverage with AI support.
Crayon
Collect competitive intelligence for sales teams.
Exa
Search current web data for AI agents.
Explainpaper
Get plain-language help with difficult papers.
Jina AI
Build AI search with embeddings and reranking.
Klue
Track competitor signals with an AI agent.
Komo
Search for answers with Komo AI.
Meltwater
Unify media, social, and AI visibility signals.
Mendeley
Organize references and explore them with AI.
Page Optimizer Pro
Review on-page signals for SEO work.
Qor
Monitor life-sciences evidence and positions.
Scholarcy
Summarize and organize dense reading.
Scite
Check how later studies discuss a paper.
SE Ranking
Analyze SEO and AI visibility signals.
Similarweb
Ask AI questions about digital market data.
Tavily
Connect agents to web search and extraction.
You.com Web Search APIs
Add web search and grounded answers to AI applications.