TL;DR: Elicit is an AI research assistant that searches more than 138 million academic papers and lines up their findings in tables. For a high schooler, it makes a strong first stop for a literature review, as long as you read the papers you plan to cite. Curious how the models inside those AI studies actually work? Veritas AI's AI Scholars program teaches Python and AI in live classes with one mentor for every five students. You build a real AI project with a small group of peers, and you can join with no coding experience at all.
Elicit was born inside a nonprofit AI lab, and today its makers say it's trusted by more than 5 million researchers. If you are a high schooler starting your first research project, it can save you a lot of tab-hopping. Say you want to know whether AI tutoring chatbots help students learn math. Instead of opening 20 PDFs one at a time, you can have Elicit pull those studies into one table. One column can show who was tested, and another can show what changed.
What is Elicit AI?
Elicit is an AI research assistant that finds academic papers for your question and pulls the answers out of them. It searches more than 138 million papers plus 545,000 clinical trials.
Elicit started at Ought, a nonprofit AI lab, and later became its own company. As a high schooler, you'll get the most from Elicit at the start of a project, when you need to learn what research already exists on your topic. You can sign up on elicit.com and ask your first question in plain English.
How does Elicit AI work?
Elicit uses language models to find papers by meaning, then reads them and pulls out answers tied to exact sentences. Language models are the AI behind chatbots, and they learn from so much text that they can tell "chatbot tutor" and "conversational learning assistant" describe the same idea. This is called semantic search.
Elicit's papers come from three big open databases: Semantic Scholar, PubMed, and OpenAlex. When you ask a question, Elicit ranks candidate papers by how well they match and keeps the top 500 for a closer look. As a high schooler, you'll find this helps when you don't know the technical words researchers use for your topic yet. Think of it as a lab partner who reads every methods section and hands back sticky notes with page numbers.
What are the main features of Elicit AI?
Elicit's main features are the Research Agent, its Find Papers and Extract Data skills, Research Reports, and the Library. Elicit recently moved all of these into the Research Agent. Here's what each one helps you do on a research project.
Find studies on your question (Find Papers skill): Elicit searches its full paper library and returns a table of matching studies.
Compare studies side by side (Extract Data skill): The agent builds a table with one row per paper. You pick the columns, such as sample size, age group, or main result.
Ask questions about a paper you already have (Research Agent): You can upload up to 20 files, like PDFs from your school library, and ask things like "What did this study measure?"
Get a quick overview of a topic (Research Reports): Type a question, and Elicit writes a report with references.
Keep your sources in one place (Library): You can store and organize the papers you find, so they're ready when you write.
How to use Elicit AI for research in 6 steps
You can use Elicit for research in six steps, from your first question to a gap your own project could fill. Let's follow one question the whole way through: do AI tutoring chatbots help students learn math?
Write your question as a full sentence. Semantic search reads meaning, so a complete question works better than a pile of keywords. Name who, what, and the outcome: "Do AI tutoring chatbots improve high school students' algebra scores?"
Run the Find Papers skill. Start it from the Elicit homepage, or ask the agent to find papers on your question.
Add columns for what you want to compare. Click Add column, or tell the agent what you need, such as "number of students," "grade level," "length of study," and "main result." Now a dozen studies fit on one screen.
Check each answer against its quote. Click an answer to see the sentence it came from. Elicit's own help pages say it can misunderstand what a number refers to. So if a cell says "120," check whether the paper is counting students or classrooms.
Read the papers you plan to use, then save them. Read the methods and results of your top four or five studies yourself. Then save the keepers to your Elicit Library so they stay together.
Look for the gap. Scan your finished table for what nobody has tested yet. Maybe every study checks whether students got the final answer right. None checks whether a chatbot can spot the exact step where a student went wrong. That missing piece could become your own research question.
Testing that idea means building and training an AI model of your own. If you already know some Python, Veritas AI's AI Fellowship with Publication & Showcase is built for exactly this step. You work one-on-one with a mentor across 15 sessions to design the project, build your model, and write up what you found.
Common mistakes to avoid when using Elicit AI
The three most common Elicit mistakes come from trusting the tool a little too much, and each one has a quick fix.
Searching only one side of a question: If you only ask whether AI tutors help, you'll mostly find studies saying they do. Elicit's help center recommends searching for papers on more than one side to avoid confirmation bias. That's when you only notice evidence you already agree with. Try a second search like "AI tutors show no effect on math learning."
Treating an abstract answer like a full-paper answer: When Elicit can't reach a paper's full text through open access, it answers from the abstract alone. Ask your school librarian for the full PDF of any study you rely on, then upload it.
Pasting Elicit's words into your paper: Elicit advises against copying its text word for word, since its summaries stay close to each paper's wording and AI detectors may flag them. Write your literature review in your own words.
Elicit vs ChatGPT for research: what's the difference?
The biggest difference is that Elicit answers from research papers, while ChatGPT answers from its training plus the web. Here's how they compare for a research project.
|
What matters |
Elicit |
ChatGPT |
|---|---|---|
|
Where answers come from |
Academic papers and clinical trials from Semantic Scholar, PubMed, and OpenAlex |
Patterns learned in training, plus live web results when search is on |
|
How it shows sources |
A sentence-level citation behind each claim |
Cited web links when search or deep research is used |
|
Risk of made-up sources |
Built to pull only what papers say, though it can still misread details |
OpenAI says it can invent studies, citations, and sources |
|
Best for |
Finding studies and comparing their findings side by side |
Brainstorming, explaining hard ideas, and fixing code |
You can use both tools in the same project. ChatGPT is handy for talking through AI research ideas and explaining a tough concept in plain words. When you need real studies to back up a claim, Elicit is the better fit.
Is Elicit AI reliable?
Yes, Elicit is a reliable place to find real research, but it can't tell a careful study from a sloppy one. Elicit pulls information straight from papers and double-checks its results with extra models. In one customer case on Elicit's homepage, it correctly pulled 1,502 of 1,511 data points for an education policy review. That's an accuracy rate of 99.4%.
Its limits come from the research itself. Elicit's help center says it summarizes a bad study just like a good one. As a high schooler, you'll feel this most when you choose which studies to lean on, so check sample size, study type, and journal yourself. Elicit also works best on empirical research, meaning studies that test an idea with data.
FAQs
1. Is Elicit free?
Yes, Elicit has a Basic plan that costs nothing, and it includes the Find Papers skill for searching its paper library. On Basic, you can also try the Research Agent and Research Reports within a smaller monthly usage pool than paid plans get. Systematic Reviews start on the paid Pro plan.
2. Is using Elicit cheating?
Using Elicit to find and understand papers is a normal part of research. Copying its words or skipping the reading is where it can cross the line. Rules differ by class, so check your teacher's AI policy first. A short note saying you used Elicit to find sources keeps everything honest.
3. How do I cite Elicit?
Cite the papers you found through Elicit first, since those are your real sources. If you also used Elicit's own output, like a report, Elicit recommends citing it like any other source. Its suggested format is: Elicit; Elicit: The AI Research Assistant; https://elicit.com; accessed [date].
4. Can I use Elicit for a science fair project?
Yes, you can use Elicit for the background research behind a science fair project, as long as you follow your fair's AI rules. Regeneron ISEF's AI use table allows AI summaries of key points as a starting point before you read an article. It never allows using an AI summary without reading the source, or asking AI for a starter bibliography. Local fairs can set stricter rules, so ask your teacher how Elicit counts. If you're still choosing where to enter, these science competitions are a good place to start.
If you already know some Python and you're aiming past your school fair, Veritas AI's AI Accelerator is built for national competitions and college-level journals. You build an independent AI research project across 30 one-on-one sessions with a mentor. Veritas AI research has been presented at Regeneron ISEF.
5. What are the best Elicit alternatives?
The best Elicit alternatives are Semantic Scholar, Consensus, and Google Scholar, and each one fits a different job. Semantic Scholar is a free AI search engine from Ai2, a nonprofit AI institute. Consensus is an AI search engine that sums up what peer-reviewed papers say. Google Scholar casts the widest net, including theses and books.
Where to learn more about Elicit AI
Elicit's own help center is the best place to keep learning, and these pages are worth bookmarking.
Getting started with Elicit: Which Elicit workflow fits your question.
Elicit's limitations: What Elicit does and doesn't do well.
Usage limits in Elicit: How monthly usage works on each plan.
If you want to compare Elicit with a similar tool, Semantic Scholar is another AI search engine built for research papers. When your sources are ready, these steps for writing an AI research paper take you from notes to a finished draft.
Start your own AI research project with Veritas AI
If reading studies in Elicit has you wondering what your own AI research could look like, Veritas AI can help you get there. Veritas AI has taught more than 3,200 students from over 160 countries. Its 200+ mentors come from top universities and AI labs, and they guide students through a real research project. So far, 79% of student papers submitted to peer-reviewed journals have been accepted. You can compare the programs to find the right starting point.