How to Use Elicit for 10x Faster Automated Research in 2026

Research often feels like looking for a needle in a haystack.

You spend hours on Google Scholar, drowning in PDFs that aren’t even relevant to your topic.

You need a smarter way to work in 2026. Enter Elicit.

This isn’t just a search engine; it is an AI assistant that automates the heavy lifting.

It finds, reads, and extracts data for you in seconds.

In this guide, you will know precisely how to use Elicit to speed up your workflow.

Ready to save time? Let’s dive in.

Elicit

Transform your research with elicit ai! Over 2 million researchers already use it to search across 125 million academic papers and cut data extraction time by 50%. Explore its power now!

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Elicit Tutorial

Learning how to use Elicit is very easy for everyone.

You can start your first search and literature review in just a few seconds. The tool helps you find the best papers for your work.

Just follow these simple steps to master the basic features today.

How to Use Topic Finder

The Topic Finder acts like a smart research assistant for your brain. It helps you explore new ideas without getting lost in too much data.

This tool uses artificial intelligence to show you how different concepts connect.

It is a great way to start your work in 2026.

Step 1: Enter a Broad Theme

• Open your elicit library to begin a new brainstorming session.
• Type a general area of interest using natural language instead of complex codes.
• For example, you could type “latest trends in clinical trials for heart health.”
• The language models will then scan millions of papers to find related themes.

Step 2: Explore Suggested Concepts

• Look at the list of sub-topics the AI creates for you automatically.
• These suggestions help you extract key information about what other researchers are studying.
• You might find a niche topic that you never considered before.
• This step is perfect for narrowing down a very large subject into a small one.

Step 3: Pivot to Detailed Research

• Click on a specific sub-topic to see the key findings from recent studies.
• The tool will instantly build a table with all the relevant papers for that niche.
• Use the data extraction feature to see summaries of each paper side-by-side.
• Now you have a focused list of papers ready for your full review.

How to Use Paper Researcher

The Paper Researcher is like having a personal AI research assistant by your side.

It helps you find relevant papers from a huge database of over 125 million articles. You do not need to guess the right words to find what you need.

This elicit ai research assistant that reads and finds the best matches for you.

Step 1: Ask a Clear Research Question

• Start by typing a full research question into the search box on the home page.
• Avoid using just one or two words like “heart health” or “fast cars.”
• Instead, ask something like, “How does sleep impact memory in teenagers?
• Using natural language helps the AI understand your goal and find better results.

Step 2: Filter and Sort Your Results

• Look at the table Elicit creates to see a list of relevant papers.
• Use the “Filter” button to sort by the year the paper was written.
• You can also filter by the type of study, such as clinical trials or reviews.
• This helps you focus on the most trusted and recent research reports.

Step: 3 Star the Best Papers

• Click the “Star” icon next to any paper that fits your project perfectly.
• When you start a paper, Elicit learns more about what you are looking for.
• The tool will then suggest more articles that are similar to the ones you liked.
• This simple step makes your research workflows much faster and more accurate.

How to Use Data Extractor

The Data Extractor is a powerful tool to automate research workflows in 2026. It saves you from the boring task of reading every page to find one number.

You can use it to pull specific facts from academic papers and put them into a neat table.

Step 1: Gather Your Papers

• You can start by searching for the most relevant papers on the Elicit home page.
• If you already have your own files, simply upload your PDFs into the elicit’s content library.
• You can also connect your account to Semantic Scholar to find additional papers easily.
• This feature is great for a systematic review where you need to look at many studies at once.

Step 2: Set Up Your Columns

• Click the “Add Column” button to start your specific research tasks.
• Do not worry about finding a perfect keyword match for your data.
• You can ask questions in simple English to find details like “What was the total sample size?”
• This helps you find evidence for your empirical research without doing the manual work.

Step 3: Check and Download Data

• Always click on the answers to see the exact text from the original paper.
• This ensures that the AI is giving you the right facts every single time.
• Once your table is full, export everything to a CSV file to save your work.
• Now you have a professional spreadsheet ready for your final report.

Elicit Alternatives

Elicit Compared

• Elicit vs Paperpal: Elicit aids research tasks; Paperpal refines academic writing with grammar checks, paraphrasing, and plagiarism detection.
• Elicit vs Yomu: Elicit directly answers research questions; Yomu summarizes papers and assists with academic writing, offering citation help.
• Elicit vs Jenni: Jenni assists in writing with AI prompts and citations, whereas Elicit directly answers research questions using information from papers.
• Elicit vs Writesonic: Elicit specializes in research and summarization; Writesonic generates diverse content formats beyond research papers.
• Elicit vs Frase: Elicit analyzes research papers; Frase optimizes content for SEO, from research to writing within one platform.
• Elicit vs CoWriter: Elicit answers research questions; CoWriter aims to streamline research and writing for efficiency.
• Elicit vs SciSpace: Both aid in understanding research, but SciSpace offers broader paper analysis, while Elicit directly answers questions.
• Elicit vs Scite: Elicit finds and summarizes papers; Scite evaluates research reliability through citation analysis.
• Elicit vs Quillbot: Elicit focuses on research insights; Quillbot rephrases and summarizes text to enhance clarity and avoid plagiarism.
• Elicit vs Grammarly: Elicit extracts information from research; Grammarly improves writing with grammar, style, and tone suggestions.
• Elicit vs Paperguide: Elicit answers research questions; Paperguide simplifies complex research concepts and aids literature review.

Conclusion

Elicit is a great tool for all researchers who want to work faster.

You can find many articles and reports right from the home page.

It helps you analyze complex data without any stress.

You can even upload PDFs of your own work to quickly find key information. The AI will summarize the findings and provide supporting quotes for you to use.

If you see a mistake, you can manually override any answer provided.

It is easy to filter by study type to find exactly what you need.

Use the search bar to discover relevant literature for your project.

A detailed description of each paper is provided to save you time. This allows you to gain more in-depth insights into the existing research.

You can then define the scope of your own investigation more clearly.

Watch how the AI automates the most tedious parts of your workflow.

Frequently Asked Questions

More Facts about Elicit

• A Smart Research Partner: Elicit is an AI tool that helps students and scientists do their research much faster than they could alone.
• Huge Library of Papers: It searches through more than 200 million academic papers to find the right information for your projects.
• Saves Lots of Time: This tool can save researchers about 5 hours every week by doing the hard work of searching for them.
• Quick Summaries: Elicit writes short, simple summaries of long papers so you don’t have to read every single page to understand the main idea.
• Answers Your Questions: You can type in a research question, and the AI will find answers hidden inside many different science papers at once.
• Checks the Facts: It is very accurate at finding specific data, getting the details right between 94% and 99% of the time.
• Smart Sorting: The tool automatically ranks papers by how useful they are to your specific topic, putting the best ones at the top.
• Huge Search Results: If you need more info, you can keep loading papers until you have a list of up to 100 different sources.
• Automatic Organizing: It can look at a long list of papers and automatically throw out the ones that don’t fit your specific rules.
• Always Double-Check: Even though the AI is smart, you should always look at the original paper to make sure the summary is 100% correct.
• Free to Start: Anyone can try out the main features of Elicit by simply signing up for a free account.