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Tools · Comparison

Ask an AI vs Consensus vs Semantic Scholar

All three are research tools. Here is what separates them.

Ask an AIConsensusSemantic Scholar
What it isCurated, quality-checked AI answers. Ask anything — only answers that pass an independent editorial AI review become permanent, citable pages.Answers a yes-or-no research question by aggregating what the papers actually found.Semantic Scholar uses groundbreaking AI and engineering to understand the semantics of scientific literature to help Scholars discover relevant research.
CategoryResearchResearchResearch
PricingPaidFreemium · Free · from $8.99/moFree · Free
How it billsNot publishedFlat monthlyFree
Free tierNoYesYes
RatingNot yet ratedNot yet ratedNot yet rated
Features—
  • Evidence-based answers from papers
  • Consensus meter across studies
  • Study quality indicators
  • Citation export
  • Filters by study type
  • Over 200 million indexed papers
  • One-sentence paper summaries
  • Influential citation detection
  • Free public API
  • Author and topic feeds
What works
  • Sits in Uncategorised, one of the better-covered categories here — easy to compare
  • Shows disagreement rather than hiding it
  • Every answer traces to papers
  • Good free tier
  • Completely free and non-commercial
  • Underpins many paid tools
  • Open API for building on
What does not
  • No free tier — it has to be paid for before it can be tried
  • Does not publish a price on its own site, so the cost is only clear after signing up
  • 93 other tools in this catalogue claim to do the same job
  • 21 tools in the same category have a free tier
  • Only covers questions research has addressed
  • Consensus meter oversimplifies
  • Field coverage is uneven
  • Interface is plainer than commercial rivals
  • Summaries are terse
  • No workflow or note-taking features
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