What is Elicit?

Elicit is an advanced research tool designed to streamline the process of analyzing academic papers and conducting systematic reviews. By leveraging automation and AI technologies, Elicit enables researchers to complete time-consuming tasks such as summarizing papers, extracting data, and synthesizing findings at an unprecedented speed. The tool is particularly beneficial for systematic reviews, allowing researchers to analyze more evidence accurately and efficiently. With a database of over 125 million academic papers, Elicit is tailored for professional researchers, providing them with the necessary tools to navigate complex literature landscapes.

Features

Elicit is equipped with a variety of features aimed at enhancing the research experience. Here’s a breakdown of its key features:

1. Automated Research Tasks

• Summarization: Elicit can quickly summarize research papers, highlighting key findings and relevant data.
• Data Extraction: Users can extract data from numerous papers in minutes, even from complex tables, significantly reducing manual effort.

2. Systematic Review Capabilities

• Rapid Systematic Reviews: Elicit allows researchers to conduct systematic reviews that take 80% less time than traditional methods, enabling deeper analysis of individual papers.
• Automated Screening: Generate relevant screening criteria and judgments with just one click, ensuring that no important paper is overlooked.

3. Comprehensive Database Access

• Extensive Paper Database: Elicit provides access to a vast database of over 125 million academic papers, allowing users to instantly add up to 500 relevant papers to their analyses.
• Natural Language Search: Researchers can search for papers using natural language, making it easier to find relevant studies.

4. Research Reports

• Research-Backed Reports: Elicit generates fully automated rapid systematic review reports, which can be understood and edited by the researcher.
• Citations and Supporting Quotes: Every data extraction is backed by source quotes from the original papers, ensuring transparency and reliability.

5. User-Friendly Interface

• Drag and Drop PDFs: Users can easily upload their own PDFs for analysis, simplifying the integration of personal research materials.
• Quick Summaries and Contextual Information: Elicit provides quick summaries of papers and traces claims back to quotes, giving users relevant context for their findings.

6. Collaborative Features

• Team Collaboration: Elicit offers features for team collaboration, allowing multiple users to work on research projects simultaneously.
• Admin Panel: For team plans, an admin panel helps track usage and manage seats effectively.

7. Customization Options

• Flexible Data Extraction: Users can customize how they extract data, including adding columns for organization and clarity.

Use Cases

Elicit is versatile and can be utilized in various research scenarios. Here are some common use cases:

1. Systematic Literature Reviews

Researchers conducting systematic literature reviews can use Elicit to automate the entire process, from searching and screening papers to data extraction and synthesis. This capability allows them to focus on analysis rather than tedious manual tasks.

2. Meta-Analyses

Elicit can facilitate meta-analyses by quickly aggregating data from multiple studies, allowing researchers to derive insights from large volumes of evidence efficiently.

3. Academic Research

For academic researchers, Elicit serves as a powerful tool to explore new domains, identify key papers, and gather data for their studies. The ability to summarize and extract data rapidly makes it ideal for literature reviews and background research.

4. Health Economics and Outcomes Research

In fields like health economics, where empirical data is crucial, Elicit helps researchers locate and analyze relevant studies, saving valuable time and resources.

5. Clinical Trial Design

Elicit can assist researchers in designing clinical trials by providing insights from existing literature, helping them understand previous findings and methodologies.

6. Educational Research

Educators and researchers in the field of education can utilize Elicit to gather evidence-based insights and data, supporting their work in educational leadership and policy development.

Pricing

Elicit offers several pricing plans tailored to different user needs, ranging from casual exploration to professional research. Here’s a breakdown of the available plans:

1. Basic Plan (Free)

• Automated research reports
• Unlimited search across over 125 million papers
• Unlimited summaries of 4 papers at once
• Unlimited chat with 4 papers at once
• Extract data from 20 papers per month
• Add 2 columns to tables at a time
• Import from Zotero

2. Plus Plan ($10/month, billed annually at $120)

• Everything in the Basic Plan
• Unlimited chat with 8 full-text papers at once
• Unlimited summaries of 8 papers at once
• Export to RIS, CSV, BIB
• Extract data from 600 papers per year
• Add 5 columns to tables at a time

3. Pro Plan ($42/month, billed annually at $499)

• Everything in the Plus Plan
• Extract data from 2,400 papers per year
• Dedicated workflows for systematic reviews
• Add 20 columns to tables at a time
• Binary and multi-select fields for paper coding
• Explanations for AI-generated answers

4. Team Plan ($65/user/month, billed annually at $780)

• Everything in the Pro Plan
• Extract data from up to 3,600 papers per user per year, pooled across the team
• Add 30 columns to tables at a time
• Live-editing for Notebooks and Systematic Reviews
• Admin panel with usage tracking and seat management

5. Enterprise Plan (Custom Pricing)

• Everything in the Team Plan
• Custom usage limits
• Volume discounts
• Training and onboarding
• Data configuration
• Co-branding of Notebooks and assets
• Custom workflow development

Comparison with Other Tools

When comparing Elicit to other research tools, several unique selling points set it apart:

1. Speed and Efficiency

Elicit is designed to significantly reduce the time spent on literature reviews and data extraction. It claims to save researchers up to 80% of the time typically required for systematic reviews, making it a standout option for those who prioritize efficiency.

2. Comprehensive Database

With access to over 125 million academic papers, Elicit provides a more extensive database than many competing tools. This breadth of resources allows researchers to find relevant studies that might be overlooked by other platforms.

3. User-Centric Design

Elicit’s interface is designed with user experience in mind. Features such as drag-and-drop PDF uploads and natural language search make it accessible to researchers at all levels, unlike some tools that may have a steeper learning curve.

4. Transparency and Accuracy

Elicit emphasizes transparency by providing citations and supporting quotes for data extractions. This feature ensures that researchers can verify the information they gather, which is crucial for maintaining academic integrity.

5. Automation Capabilities

While many research tools offer some level of automation, Elicit's focus on automating systematic reviews and data extraction tasks is more comprehensive, allowing researchers to focus on analysis rather than manual data handling.

FAQ

How do researchers use Elicit?

Over 2 million researchers have used Elicit for various purposes, including speeding up literature reviews, finding papers not available elsewhere, automating systematic reviews, and learning about new domains.

What types of research does Elicit excel in?

Elicit tends to work best in empirical domains that involve experiments and concrete results, such as biomedicine and machine learning. It may be less effective for theoretical or non-empirical research.

How accurate are the answers provided by Elicit?

Elicit aims for around 90% accuracy in the information presented. However, researchers are encouraged to double-check findings and verify sources, as language models can sometimes generate inaccurate responses.

What happens to papers uploaded to Elicit?

Uploaded papers remain private to the user and are not shared with anyone else, ensuring confidentiality in research.

How does Elicit improve accuracy?

Elicit improves accuracy through fine-tuning language models on specific tasks, ensuring that the information presented is based on existing academic literature, and making it easy for users to verify the original sources of information.

Can Elicit help with theoretical research?

While Elicit is primarily designed for empirical research, it may not be the best fit for theoretical domains or tasks that require information not available in academic papers.

In summary, Elicit is a powerful tool that revolutionizes the research process by automating tasks, providing access to a vast database of academic literature, and offering features that enhance collaboration and transparency. Whether you are a casual researcher or a professional conducting systematic reviews, Elicit can save you time and improve the accuracy of your findings.