Consensus
Consensus · Coding
Consensus is an AI academic search engine that answers research questions with evidence from peer-reviewed papers, showing what studies agree on rather than guessing.
About Consensus
What Is Consensus
Consensus is an AI search engine built for research, not for open-ended chat. This research AI tool asks you for a question in plain language, then pulls answers from more than 200 million peer-reviewed papers instead of the open web. Every answer links back to the studies behind it, so you can check the source before you trust the claim. That evidence-first approach is what separates it from a general chatbot that will happily invent a citation.
The product is aimed at people who need to know what the literature actually says: students writing a review, clinicians checking a treatment, or anyone weighing a supplement claim they saw online. This is scientific literature search that reads the abstracts, extracts the findings, and groups them by stance when the evidence conflicts, rather than handing you a list of papers to skim. Ask whether a drug works and you might see a meter split between papers that support the claim, papers that reject it, and papers that stay neutral.
Free accounts cover the basics. Paid tiers add stronger AI models, more summaries, and the deeper analysis tools that researchers reach for once they're using it daily. The two things worth knowing up front: the paper database skews toward English-language science, and the tool summarizes studies, it doesn't replace reading the ones that matter for your argument.
Getting Started
- Go to consensus.app and sign up with an email address or a Google account; you can also run a first search without logging in.
- Type a research question in plain language, such as "does caffeine improve focus."
- Switch on a filter to narrow results by study design, sample size, or journal quality.
- Open the Consensus Meter to see how the papers split on a yes or no question, then read the summaries behind each side.
- Export citations in RIS, BibTeX, or CSV, or save the papers into a Collection for later.
Product Information
A quick look at Consensus's pricing, supported platforms, and performance.
Best for
The users, tasks, and scenarios where this tool fits best.
Users
- Students and grad researchers
- Clinicians and health professionals
- Analysts and writers who cite sources
Tasks
- Testing a yes or no claim
- Surveying an unfamiliar field
- Filtering by study quality
- Collecting references
Scenarios
- Starting a dissertation
- Fact-checking a claim before you repeat it
- Prepping a journal club or briefing
Key features
Evidence-Based Answers, Not Just Links
Consensus reads the abstracts behind your question and returns findings rather than a wall of search results. Each answer keeps its source attached, so a claim is something you can trace. It's the difference between "here are 40 papers" and "here's what the literature concludes, and here's who says so."
The Consensus Meter
For yes or no questions, the Consensus Meter sorts the relevant papers into supporting, opposing, and neutral findings and shows the split. It's a fast read on whether a claim is settled or contested, which matters more than any single study when you're trying to state what's actually known.
Deep Search and Pro Analysis
Paid tiers add deeper modes that go past single answers. Deep Search runs a broader sweep and builds a fuller report, while Pro Analysis groups evidence by study design and flags where the research is thin. These modes suit people who need more than a quick summary.
Filters by Study Design and Quality
You can narrow results by study design, like randomized controlled trials or systematic reviews, and by sample size and journal quality. That filtering is what keeps a small pilot study from standing in for a large trial when you're weighing evidence.
Ask Paper and Study Snapshots
Ask Paper lets you open a single study and question it directly, in your own language. Study Snapshots pull out the design, sample size, and main findings from a paper, so you can judge whether it's worth a full read before you commit the time.
Citation Export and Collections
Answers come with citations you can export in RIS, BibTeX, or CSV and drop into Zotero, EndNote, or any reference manager. Collections let you save and organize the papers you keep coming back to, so your research library lives inside the tool.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Answers cite real, peer-reviewed papers, so you can verify a claim instead of trusting a generated one.
- The Consensus Meter quickly shows whether the literature agrees on a question, not just what one study found.
- Study design and quality filters make it easy to weight stronger evidence over weaker studies.
- Citation export and Collections fold cleanly into an existing research workflow.
Cons
- Results lean heavily toward English-language science, so non-English research can be under-represented.
- The strongest analysis tools, like Deep Search and Pro Analysis, sit behind the paid tiers, so the free version is more of a sampler.
- It summarizes studies and points to sources; it isn't a substitute for reading the papers that carry your argument.
- There's no public API, so teams can't build it into their own products or workflows.
Frequently asked questions
Consensus is an AI academic search engine for answering research questions from peer-reviewed papers. You ask in plain language, and it returns findings grouped by stance, with citations, instead of a plain list of links. It's used for literature reviews, checking claims, and quick field surveys.
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