15 Best AI Tools For Research Efficiency

You have a research paper looming over your head and need help figuring out where to start. There's a mountain of sources to go through, and you need to figure out how to dig them up, much less organize them. Sound familiar? 

Regarding academic writing, a literature search can be the most tedious and daunting part. But it doesn't have to be. In this article, we'll highlight the best AI tools for research to help you with your literature search so you can write efficient research papers and get unique study material with AI.

One such tool is Otio's AI research and writing partner. This innovative solution can help you organize and quickly produce top-notch research papers.

Table Of Contents

• Can AI Be Used For Research?

• Is ChatGPT Good For Research?

• Benefits of Using AI Tools For Research

• 15 Best AI Tools For Research Efficiency

• How To Choose The Best AI Tools For Research

• Supercharge Your Researching Ability With Otio — Try Otio for Free Today

Can AI Be Used For Research?

Yes, you can use AI tools for research. Researching literature yields tons of information, even for smaller topics. AI can help you navigate this data's complexities to find accurate and relevant information. One AI tool for literature research is Otio. Knowledge workers, researchers, and students today need help with content overload and are left to deal with it using fragmented, complex, and manual tooling. 

Too many settle for stitching together complicated bookmarking, read-it-later, and note-taking apps to get through their workflows. Now that anyone can create content with a button, this problem will only worsen. Otio solves this problem by providing researchers with one AI-native workspace. It helps them: 

1. Collect a wide range of data sources, from bookmarks, tweets, and extensive books to YouTube videos. 

2. Extract key takeaways with detailed AI-generated notes and source-grounded Q&A chat. 

3. Create draft outputs using your collected sources. 

Otio helps you to go from the reading list to the first draft faster. Along with this, Otio also helps you write research papers/essays faster. Here are our top features that researchers love: AI-generated notes on all bookmarks (Youtube videos, PDFs, articles, etc.), Otio enables you to chat with individual links or entire knowledge bases, just like you chat with ChatGPT, as well as AI-assisted writing. 

Let Otio be your AI research and writing partner — try Otio for free today!

Related Reading

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• Impact Evaluation
• How To Critique A Research Article
• How To Synthesize Sources
• Annotation Techniques
• Skimming And Scanning
• Types Of Literature Reviews
• Literature Review Table
• Literature Review Matrix
• How To Increase Reading Speed And Comprehension
• How To Read Research Papers
• How To Summarize A Research Paper
• Literature Gap

Is ChatGPT Good For Research?

ChatGPT can help formulate research questions, brainstorm potential thesis statements, or narrow a broad subject area to a specific topic that interests you.

However, ensure the outputs make sense and meet your assignment's requirements. You can adapt these outputs manually or use further prompts to ensure they meet your needs. ChatGPT and other AI chatbots can help by curtailing the time spent finding sources, allowing you to jump to your work's actual reading and research portion more quickly.

Here’s how you can use it:

Get Creative With Brainstorming

Research papers usually have a general topic assigned. To focus your paper, you will identify a specific topic of interest. ChatGPT can help you brainstorm ideas for your research paper, suggest topics, and tweak those you develop.

Outline Your Work With ChatGPT

Once you have selected a topic, you can ask ChatGPT to generate a detailed outline for your research paper. The more information you can provide about your assignment, the better the result will be.

Get Sources Based On Your ChatGPT Outline

Now that you have a topic and outline established, you can ask ChatGPT about your project topic and request sources to help you start your research. 

Narrow Your Focus And Get Sources

Instead of describing the whole topic, you can also use a chatbot to find sources for a specific aspect of your paper.

Find Specific Example

I often use this prompt in my workflow because I can sometimes remember something specific but can't pinpoint what it was or when it happened.  This tool can also be used when finding a specific example to support your topic. In both cases, you can ask ChatGPT to help you identify a specific event or period and incorporate those details into your article. 

Generate Citations With ChatGPT

Although valuable and necessary for integrity, creating a page of the works you cited is a pain. Now, you can ask ChatGPT to generate citations for you by dropping the link or the title of the work and asking it to create a citation in the style of your paper.

Benefits of Using AI Tools For Research

Boost Your Efficiency With AI Tools  

AI tools expedite data analysis, literature review, and writing processes. They can help you tackle research tasks considerably faster than traditional methods. For instance, instead of manually searching for literature, reading all the papers, and writing your literature review, you can use AI tools to help you with all these steps. AI tools can search for relevant literature, summarize findings, and even help you write your review. Using these tools can help you get through your research more efficiently and allow you to spend more time on other aspects of your study.

Organize Literature with AI Tools  

AI tools can help researchers manage literature efficiently. Using these tools can save you time and keep you organized. For instance, AI tools can quickly summarize large volumes of literature, highlighting essential findings so you can understand the existing research better. They can also keep track of references and help you organize your notes. This can ease the burden of academic research, so you can focus on your experiments instead of getting lost in someone else’s.

AI Tools Assist in Experimental Design  

AI tools can help researchers design experiments by providing relevant insights. The more advanced tools can analyze existing research and suggest ways to improve your experimental design. This can help you develop better hypotheses and create more effective studies to test them. Using AI tools can also reduce the likelihood of errors in your experimental design so you can produce reliable results.

Boost Your Productivity with AI Tools  

AI tools can boost your productivity and help you finish more quickly. They save researchers time by accelerating routine tasks like literature searches, data analysis, and writing. This allows you to focus on other aspects of your research that require more critical thought and creativity. Additionally, AI tools can help reduce the likelihood of human error, further increasing the reliability of your research.

15 Best AI Tools For Research Efficiency

1. Otio: Your AI Research Assistant

Otio helps researchers tackle content overload, which is the excessive amount of information available on a topic that makes it hard to find the details needed to complete a project. Knowledge workers, researchers, and students often deal with this issue using fragmented, manual tools to get through their workflows. 

The approach is tedious, and many settle for stitching together bookmarking read-it-later and note-taking apps. However, Otio offers a better way. It provides one AI-native workspace for researchers, helping them collect a wide range of data sources, extract critical takeaways with detailed AI-generated notes and source-grounded Q&A chat, and create draft outputs using your collected sources. 

Overall, it helps you to go from the reading list to the first draft faster. Along with this, Otio also helps you write research papers/essays faster. Here are our top features that researchers love: AI-generated notes on all bookmarks (Youtube videos, PDFs, articles, etc.), Otio enables you to chat with individual links or entire knowledge bases, just like you chat with ChatGPT, as well as AI-assisted writing. Let Otio be your AI research and writing partner; try Otio for free today!

2. Bit AI: Document Collaboration With AI

Bit AI is an AI program designed to help teams collaborate on documents, wikis, and knowledge bases. It goes beyond just text and images, allowing users to create interactive documents containing videos, cloud files, and audio. It works much like Google Drive, allowing for real-time collaboration on documents. Multiple people can work on documents simultaneously and chat with one another within the interface. 

Pros

• Built-In AI Writing Assistant: AI Genius is the perfect tool for generating documents, wikis, and other information based on a text prompt

• Multiple Use Cases: Bit AI is great for researchers and marketers, but also for product management, startups, and Human Resources due to its document development features

• Collaboration Tools: Bit.ai allows multiple users to simultaneously collaborate on documents, notes, wikis, and other content in real-time

• Wide Range of Integrations: Bit AI integrates with a large number of third-party tools, including YouTube, Google Sheets, Figma, GitHub, and more 

Cons

• Limited Customizations: Bit AI would be better if it had text formatting or options to customize the appearance of documents, such as matching company branding.

3. Semantic Scholar: Find Your Next Research Paper

Semantic Scholar is one of the top AI research tools widely used by computer science, biomedical science, and neuroscience students. It uses natural language processing to analyze academic papers and find relevant literature. 

Pros

• Refine search results for greater efficiency and relevance.

• Continuously improves the tool based on user feedback and provides a personalized user experience.

Cons

• The summary has accuracy issues and AI-generated citations.

• It only gives you access to the full text of some papers. 

4.  Scite: Smart Citation Analysis for Academic Research 

Scite is one of the most popular AI-powered academic research tools that improve academic research in one go. Its own natural language processing and machine learning help users do better research on scholarly articles and analyze citations.  

Moreover, Scite allows researchers like you to assess the dependability of references in any particular context. It helps in evaluating the quality and impact of the research. It also provides better visualizations and metrics to understand the citation landscape of a particular paper or a topic. If you have missed out on using this tool, try it today. 

Pros

• Innovative Citations: Scite analyzes how an article is referenced in other research. It can tell if the citing article supports, contradicts, or mentions the original article.

• Citation Context: Scite shows you how different sections of an article are being cited in other research, which helps you to understand how the original research is being used and interpreted by other researchers

• Citation Reports: Generates reports that show you citation patterns and trends, which helps users to identify articles and authors in a related field

• Large Dataset: Scite was training on more than 187 million articles, books, preprints, and other datasets, making it a solid choice for researchers 

Cons

• Not All Articles Cited Are Accessible: Although Scite offers full-text access for most articles cited, some publishers have not.

5. Google Scholar: The Researcher's Best Friend

Google Scholar is a beacon for academic research, offering a straightforward platform akin to its browser counterpart. It’s a treasure trove of recent articles, research papers, and scholarly literature, simplifying the quest for up-to-date information with easy-to-identify tags for quick access.

Pros

• Use natural language searching to find academic and literature topics.

• Allow your search for gray literature for systematic reviews.

Cons

• The content you find will not be reviewed thoroughly, and there are concerns about source credibility.

• Missed to show significant literature topics.

6. PDFGear Copilot: Interact With PDFs 

PDFgear Copilot is an AI-powered assistant that extracts and summarizes information in PDF documents. It utilizes OpenAI’s ChatGPT language model to help users locate important information in documents while conducting research. It lets you chat with a document, ask questions about its contents, and quickly summarize entire PDFs. 

Pros

• Interact With PDFs: Summarize, analyze, and interact with PDF content through natural language processing.

• ChatGPT Integration: Find key information and get answers by using built-in ChatGPT functionality.

• Streamline PDF Workflows: Complete tasks, such as converting, printing, and saving PDFs with natural language processing.

• Support for Multiple Languages: PDFgear Copilot supports over 100 languages, making it accessible to many users.

Cons

• No Dark Mode: PDFgear cannot switch to dark mode, potentially alienating those who prefer it.

7. Consensus: Get Quick Answers to Research Questions

Consensus is a research tool that gathers information from published material and peer-reviewed articles. It is helpful for those who want to understand scientific subjects thoroughly by scanning for trustworthy and accurate research articles. This tool is handy for students and researchers in STEM and business fields. 

Pros

• Natural language processing is used to analyze data and verify the source.

• Generate a summary of research queries and help get information for the early research stage.

Cons

• It is favored only for STEM and business, not the humanities and fine arts.

• Not suitable for rigorous and reproducible research works.

8. Trinka: Grammar and Language Checker for Academic Writing

It is one of the most commonly used AI tools for scholars and students, as it helps with grammar and language correction for academic and technical writing. 

It has 3000+ grammar checks and tone and style enhancements, which help scholars write better theses and projects without errors. Trinka helps you document scientific findings and allows you to have a more technical tone and style without any difficulty. Therefore, Trinka is the most promising tool for academic research, as it helps better document research papers and white papers. 

Pros

• Save time in checking grammar while doing academic writing.

• Let you check grammar and correct spelling and offer context suggestions based on your writing style.

Cons

• The response time of the tool could be faster, which would cause a hindrance to quick feedback needs.

• It may be challenging to understand the technical jargon.

10. Connected Papers: Visualize Connections Between Research Papers 

Connected Papers is an innovative research tool that helps scientists and scholars efficiently explore relevant literature by providing a visual, similarity-based mapping of related academic papers. It uses circles to represent different papers. 

The size of the circle corresponds to the frequency of citations by other researchers. Papers that closely resemble the original paper you provided are positioned closer together and connected by lines. The thickness of the line indicates the strength of the relationship between the documents. By following the connections between papers, you can use Connected Papers to explore new research areas within your field.

 Pros

• Similarity Graphs: Connected Papers produces a visual graph displaying related papers. However, unlike a traditional citation tree, it emphasizes semantic similarity, meaning papers with shared citations and references are more connected.

• Prior and Derivative Works: Connected Papers identifies influential prior works that have shaped the current research landscape. Additionally, it can reveal derivative works that build upon the original paper’s ideas.

• Multi-Origin Graphs: You can enter multiple papers as a starting point so that CP can create a combined graph highlighting their relationships.

• Save Papers and Graphs: Save papers and graphs to revisit and explore topics further.

 Cons

• Limited Citation View: Unlike citation trees, Connected Papers doesn’t directly show how papers cite each other. 

11. Mendeley: Organize, Share, and Cite Research Papers 

Mendeley is a user-friendly AI tool for organizing, sharing, and citing your research papers properly in one place. It helps you quickly organize your PDFs, create better bibliographies, and annotate documents. Moreover, this tool enables researchers to collaborate on projects and discover relevant articles based on their interests. Mendeley’s powerful features and integration into academic workflows make it a practical tool. It helps streamline your management and enhance collaboration within the scholarly community.

Pros

• Offer citation styles for journals and boost citation efficiency.

• Organize and share references for collaborative research.

Cons

• Do not make PDF annotations as expected.

• Users commonly face server downtime and syncing errors. 

12. Litmaps: Visualize Connections Between Research Papers 

Litmaps is a literature mapping tool that helps researchers discover new and relevant research papers, visualize the relationships between papers, and share their research. It works by using connectedness theory, which allows researchers to quickly scan Litmap’s network of academic papers around the documents they know, discovering vital related papers they may not know about. Litmaps can also generate reading lists and notify users when relevant new papers are published, making it easier to stay up-to-date on the latest research. 

Pros

• Search Academic Papers: Litmaps allows you to search a vast database of over 260 million academic papers to find relevant articles.

• Mind Mapping: Litmaps lets you visualize your research by creating a map of interconnected articles and annotating them for better understanding.

• Explore Research From Various Angles: Dynamic Exploration allows users to explore research from different angles by rearranging how papers are positioned on the map.

• Collaboration Features: The platform allows you to share your research maps with colleagues, students, or advisors to facilitate collaboration.

Cons

• Limited Free Plan: Some features, like unlimited searches, are only available on paid plans.

13. Scholarcy: Summarize and Extract Research Information 

Scholarly is an AI tool that improves academic research by automating the process of reading, summarizing, and extracting information. It can help you recognize figures, tables, and references from articles and grasp the main concepts. Additionally, this tool has citation extraction features that allow users to organize and cite the sources used in the research. It also provides the literature review process, which enables you to save valuable time and effort. 

Pros

• Summarize the topics of research papers to save time and effort.

• Offer links to the cited resources to access the research material.

Cons

• The essay summary may need to be more precise, which may result in plagiarism.

• The AI-generated summary will only cover some of the critical points of the research paper.

14. Jenni: An AI Writing Assistant for Academic Research 

The following AI tool for research on our list is Jenni. It’s an AI-powered writing assistant designed to help students and researchers with academic writing tasks. It uses machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) to provide content suggestions, writing feedback, and research assistance. It’s beneficial for writing essays, research papers, literature reviews, and more. Jenni can also help with citations and references and check for plagiarism. 

Pros

• AskJenni: Use an AI research assistant that can help answer research questions and provide document-related clarifications.

• Citation and Reference Assistance: Jenni can properly format citations and references in styles like APA, MLA, and Chicago.

• AI Commands: Jenni can perform tasks like paraphrasing, rewriting, and simplifying existing text.

• AI Autocompletion: Jenni can suggest and complete sentences to help you write faster.

Cons

• Limited Content Types: Compared to other AI writing tools like Copy.ai and Jasper, Jenni.ai offers a limited number of content types, such as blogs, essays, emails, and free-flow writing.

15. Knewton: Personalized Learning With AI 

Using artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, Knewton allows users to deliver personalized educational content. You can tailor the tool for the educational content according to individual needs and learning styles. 

This is a one-stop and easy-to-use tool for academic learning. Knewton also allows users to analyze student performance data, strengths, weaknesses, and progress. By leveraging AI's benefits, Knewton seeks to improve engagement, making it one of the best online learning platforms. 

Pros

• Provide you with a personalized learning experience with the help of adaptive learning.

• Offer student interaction to keep cheating at bay by offering different questions to each student.

Cons

• The problems in the tool are generic and need to align with the curriculum.

• Offer feedback and flexible assessment options that impact students’ learning.

How To Choose The Best AI Tools For Research

1. Define Your Research Objectives

Establishing your research objectives will help you narrow your focus and choose a tool tailored to your needs. Consider the scope of your research—are you honing in on machine learning, deep learning, reinforcement learning, natural language processing, computer vision, or another area? Next, determine your specific goals. Are you developing new algorithms, improving existing ones, or applying AI techniques to solve specific problems? 

2. Evaluate Tool Features

Once you’ve defined your research objectives, it’s time to evaluate the features of different tools. Start by assessing algorithm support. Does the tool support the algorithms and models you plan to use? Next, examine flexibility. Can it be customized or extended to meet your specific needs? Finally, look closely at data handling. How well does it manage and preprocess data? 

3. Assess Ease of Use and Learning Curve

A tool's ease of use and learning curve can significantly impact your productivity. Determine how user-friendly the interface is. Does it require significant expertise, or can you quickly learn the basics to begin your research? Next, evaluate documentation and tutorials. Are there comprehensive resources available to help you get started? 

4. Check for Integration and Compatibility

Most research projects involve using multiple tools and software. To streamline your workflow, check the integration and compatibility of any tool you’re considering with your existing setup. Start by evaluating software compatibility. Does it integrate well with other tools or libraries you use (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch, Scikit-learn)? Next, examine data formats. Does it support the data formats and sources you work with? 

5. Consider Performance and Scalability 

Performance and scalability are critical factors determining a tool’s effectiveness for your research. Start by assessing computational efficiency. How well does the tool handle large datasets and complex models? Next, evaluate scalability. Can it scale with your research needs? 

6. Review Support and Community 

An active user community can be valuable as you navigate your research project. Before selecting a tool, review the support and community options available. Start by assessing community engagement. Is there an active user community for support and collaboration? Next, evaluate technical support. What support is available (e.g., forums, helpdesks, direct support)? 

7. Evaluate Cost and Licensing 

Evaluating its costs is essential before settling on a tool for your research. Start by examining pricing. Is the tool-free, open-source, or paid? What are the costs associated with it? Next, review licensing. Are there any licensing restrictions or requirements? 

8. Test the Tool 

Test a trial version of the tool to evaluate its capabilities and fit for your needs. You can also run benchmarks to compare its performance against other tools you’re considering.

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Supercharge Your Researching Ability With Otio — Try Otio for Free Today

Otio is an AI-powered research tool designed to help you manage research materials efficiently. With Otio, you can collect notes and highlight key information from various research materials, including YouTube videos, PDFs, academic articles, and more. The AI-powered tool helps you write research papers faster by streamlining the entire process. 

Collect: Gather Research Like Never Before

When you use Otio, you can collect data from anywhere online. The tool supports many data sources, including PDFs, bookmarks, tweets, YouTube videos, academic articles, blogs, and more. You can gather research from multiple sources and collect them in one place rather than wasting time sifting through scattered files on your computer. 

Extract: Summarize Research Efficiently

Otio helps you extract critical takeaways from your research materials so you can familiarize yourself with the contents and organize your thoughts before writing. The tool automatically generates detailed notes on your collected sources, so you don’t have to read every page to find the necessary information. You can even chat with the AI to ask questions and get quick answers based on your collected research. 

Create: Start Writing Your Paper Faster

Otio helps you go from the reading list to the first draft in record time. Once you’ve collected and summarized your research, you can draft your paper directly within Otio. The tool helps you organize your notes and find relevant information to help you write quicker and more efficiently. You’ll spend less time worrying about research and more time writing your paper.

Let Otio be your AI research and writing partner; try Otio for free today!

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