Consensus vs Elicit

Consensus

Consensus Search revolutionizes academic research by enabling users to ask natural language questions and receive synthesized, evidence-based answers drawn from millions of peer-reviewed papers. The AI-powered search engine goes far beyond traditional keyword matching—it understands research context, interprets scientific methodology, and identifies relevant findings even when papers use different terminology. When a user asks a question like 'Does meditation reduce anxiety?', the system analyzes hundreds of relevant studies, extracts their conclusions, and presents a coherent synthesis showing what the collective research indicates. Each answer includes the Consensus Meter visualization showing agreement levels, plus direct links to source papers for verification. The search also highlights key findings from individual studies, showing sample sizes, methodologies, and statistical significance to help users evaluate evidence quality. Transform hours of manual literature review into seconds of AI-powered research synthesis with fully cited, verifiable answers

✓ Transform hours of manual literature review into seconds of AI-powered research synthesis with fully cited, verifiable answers

Elicit

Elicit's semantic search capability goes beyond keyword matching to understand the conceptual meaning behind research questions. When users enter a query like 'What interventions reduce anxiety in college students?', the system interprets the underlying research intent and searches across millions of academic papers to find semantically relevant results—even if papers don't contain the exact search terms. The AI understands synonyms, related concepts, and contextual relationships, surfacing papers that traditional keyword searches would miss. Results are ranked by relevance to the specific research question rather than just citation count or recency. Researchers discover more relevant papers faster, including studies they would have missed with traditional keyword-based searches.

✓ Researchers discover more relevant papers faster, including studies they would have missed with traditional keyword-based searches

Consensus

Study Insights provides AI-generated summaries of research papers that extract and highlight the most critical information without requiring users to read entire publications. The machine learning models are trained to identify paper structure and extract key elements including research questions, methodology, sample characteristics, primary findings, statistical results, and author conclusions. Each summary is structured consistently, making it easy to quickly compare findings across multiple papers. The system also identifies and highlights limitations acknowledged by researchers, potential conflicts of interest, and funding sources—critical context often buried in paper text. For quantitative studies, key metrics and statistical significance values are prominently displayed, helping users quickly assess the strength of findings. Understand the essential findings, methodology, and limitations of any research paper in minutes rather than hours

✓ Understand the essential findings, methodology, and limitations of any research paper in minutes rather than hours

Elicit

Elicit's data extraction engine automatically reads through research papers and pulls out structured information based on user-defined columns. Researchers can specify what data points they need—such as sample size, study duration, intervention type, primary outcomes, effect sizes, or limitations—and Elicit will extract this information from each paper in a systematic, tabular format. The system handles variations in how information is presented across different papers and journals, normalizing extracted data for easy comparison. Users can export extracted data to spreadsheets for further analysis or meta-analysis calculations. Transforms weeks of manual data extraction work into hours, enabling more comprehensive systematic reviews with larger paper sets.

✓ Transforms weeks of manual data extraction work into hours, enabling more comprehensive systematic reviews with larger paper sets

Consensus

The Consensus Meter is Consensus's signature feature that visually represents the level of scientific agreement on any research question. When users search for a topic, the meter displays the percentage of studies that support, oppose, or show mixed results on the question at hand. This visualization transforms the abstract concept of 'scientific consensus' into an immediately understandable graphic. The meter is powered by AI that reads and classifies findings from relevant papers, categorizing each study's conclusions and aggregating them into an overall consensus view. Users can click through to see which specific papers support each position, enabling deeper investigation of why certain studies reached different conclusions. This feature is particularly valuable for contested topics where understanding the weight of evidence—not just individual studies—is crucial. Instantly understand whether scientific research supports, opposes, or is divided on any topic without manually reviewing dozens of papers

✓ Instantly understand whether scientific research supports, opposes, or is divided on any topic without manually reviewing dozens of papers

Elicit

Beyond individual paper analysis, Elicit synthesizes findings across multiple papers to identify patterns, consensus views, and contradictions in the literature. The platform can generate summaries that aggregate key findings from dozens of papers, highlighting where studies agree, where they diverge, and what gaps exist in current research. This synthesis capability helps researchers quickly understand the state of knowledge on a topic without reading every paper in detail. The AI identifies methodological trends, common limitations, and emerging research directions across the literature. Enables researchers to rapidly develop comprehensive understanding of research landscapes and identify opportunities for novel contributions.

✓ Enables researchers to rapidly develop comprehensive understanding of research landscapes and identify opportunities for novel contributions

Consensus

The Citation Network feature maps the intellectual lineage of research by visualizing how papers cite and build upon each other over time. Users can explore interactive network graphs showing foundational papers that established key concepts, subsequent studies that replicated or extended findings, and recent developments pushing the field forward. The visualization identifies highly-cited influential papers, research clusters working on related questions, and the evolution of ideas across decades of scholarship. This feature helps researchers understand not just what is known, but how knowledge developed—which early studies were seminal, which findings have been consistently replicated, and which represent emerging areas of investigation. The network also reveals connections between seemingly disparate research areas, enabling interdisciplinary discovery. Trace the evolution of scientific ideas and identify the most influential foundational research in any field

✓ Trace the evolution of scientific ideas and identify the most influential foundational research in any field

Elicit

Elicit maintains rigorous academic standards by providing transparent citations and direct links to source documents for all extracted information. Every data point, quote, or finding extracted by the AI includes a citation to the specific paper and often the specific section where the information was found. Users can click through to verify any extracted information against the original source, ensuring accuracy and enabling proper academic citation. The platform also flags when information is uncertain or when papers contain conflicting claims. Maintains academic integrity and enables researchers to confidently cite findings while quickly verifying AI-extracted information.

✓ Maintains academic integrity and enables researchers to confidently cite findings while quickly verifying AI-extracted information

Consensus

Research Collections enables users to organize discovered papers into custom folders for ongoing research projects, literature reviews, or collaborative team efforts. Users can create hierarchical folder structures, add personal notes and annotations to saved papers, tag papers with custom labels, and share collections with collaborators. The collaboration features support real-time teamwork on literature reviews, with team members able to add papers, comment on findings, and discuss research within the platform. Collections sync across devices, and users can export entire collections to reference management tools like Zotero, Mendeley, or EndNote in standard citation formats. The system also provides collection-level analytics showing research trends, publication dates, and consensus patterns across saved papers. Organize, annotate, and collaborate on research projects with team members while maintaining seamless integration with existing reference management workflows

✓ Organize, annotate, and collaborate on research projects with team members while maintaining seamless integration with existing reference management workflows

Elicit

Elicit supports flexible research workflows that adapt to different research methodologies and project requirements. Users can create custom extraction templates with specific columns tailored to their research questions, save and reuse search strategies across projects, and organize papers into collections for different aspects of their research. The platform supports iterative refinement of searches and extractions, allowing researchers to progressively narrow focus or expand scope as their understanding develops. Collaboration features enable research teams to share workflows and build on each other's work. Adapts to diverse research needs from quick literature scans to comprehensive systematic reviews requiring PRISMA-compliant documentation.

✓ Adapts to diverse research needs from quick literature scans to comprehensive systematic reviews requiring PRISMA-compliant documentation

Consensus

Approach: Consensus automates the entire outbound prospecting workflow using AI. The platform identifies ideal customer profiles, enriches contact data from multiple sources, and generates personalized email sequences at scale. Sales teams can set targeting criteria and let the AI handle research, outreach, and follow-ups.

Outcome: 70% time savings on prospecting activities, 3x increase in qualified meetings booked, 50% improvement in email response rates through AI personalization.

Elicit

Approach: Elicit automates the entire outbound prospecting workflow using AI. The platform identifies ideal customer profiles, enriches contact data from multiple sources, and generates personalized email sequences at scale. Sales teams can set targeting criteria and let the AI handle research, outreach, and follow-ups.

Outcome: 70% time savings on prospecting activities, 3x increase in qualified meetings booked, 50% improvement in email response rates through AI personalization.

Consensus

Approach: Consensus uses AI to automatically qualify and score leads based on firmographic data, behavioral signals, and engagement patterns. The system continuously learns from conversion data to improve scoring accuracy and prioritize the highest-value opportunities.

Outcome: 45% increase in lead-to-opportunity conversion, 60% reduction in time spent on unqualified leads, 2x improvement in sales team productivity.

Elicit

Approach: Elicit uses AI to automatically qualify and score leads based on firmographic data, behavioral signals, and engagement patterns. The system continuously learns from conversion data to improve scoring accuracy and prioritize the highest-value opportunities.

Outcome: 45% increase in lead-to-opportunity conversion, 60% reduction in time spent on unqualified leads, 2x improvement in sales team productivity.