Best AI Research &amp; Knowledge Tools

Paper summarizationKey findings extractionReference extraction

Scholarcy

Research & Knowledge

AI-powered research paper summarizer

4.1Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

200M+ paper indexAI paper summaries (TLDR)Key figure extraction

Semantic Scholar

Research & Knowledge

AI-powered academic search engine by Allen Institute

4.4Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Free$0

Smart Citations (support/contradict/mention)AI research assistantCitation analysis

Scite.ai

Research & Knowledge

AI citation analysis — see how papers are cited

4.2Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Paper explanationsAI copilot Q&ALiterature review builder

SciSpace

Research & Knowledge

AI research assistant for understanding scientific papers

4.2Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Visual paper graphsCo-citation analysisPrior & derivative works

Connected Papers

Research & Knowledge

Visual tool to explore academic papers and their connections

4.1Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

AI content filteringRSS aggregationCompetitor tracking

Feedly AI

Research & Knowledge

AI-powered news aggregator for market intelligence

4.2Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Freemium$6/mo

Bidirectional linksGraph visualizationAI connections

Roam Research

Research & Knowledge

AI-enhanced networked note-taking for deep thinkers

4.1Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Paid$15/mo

Chat with PDFsPage-level citationsMulti-document comparison

Humata AI

Research & Knowledge

Chat with any PDF or document using AI — get instant answers, summaries, and insights.

4.2Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Freemium$14.99/mo

Updated Feb 16, 2026

Explainpaper

Research & Knowledge

Upload a research paper and get AI explanations of confusing passages.

Highlight-to-explainMath notation supportContext-aware explanations

4Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

FreeFree

Updated Feb 16, 2026

ResearchRabbit

Research & Knowledge

Discover related research papers with AI — the 'Spotify for papers' with visual citation mapping.

Visual citation mappingAI paper recommendationsCollection management

4.4Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

FreeFree

Updated Feb 16, 2026

Iris.ai

Research & Knowledge

AI research workspace — automated literature review, data extraction, and research synthesis.

Automated literature reviewAI data extractionResearch landscape mapping

4.1Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Paid$90/mo

Updated Feb 17, 2026

Afforai

Research & Knowledge

AI document chat — upload any document and ask questions, get answers with citations.

Multi-document Q&ACitation with page numbers100+ format support

4.2Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Citation mapsSeed discoveryTimeline view

Updated Feb 17, 2026

Litmaps

Research & Knowledge

Visual literature maps and discovery for research.

4.5Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Freemium$10/mo

Updated Feb 18, 2026

System Pro

Research & Knowledge

AI-powered research and knowledge synthesis for teams.

Research ingestionAI synthesisTeam workspaces

4.2Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

PaidCustom

Updated Feb 18, 2026

Inciteful

Research & Knowledge

Academic paper discovery via citation networks.

Citation graphsPaper discoveryAuthor mapping

4.2Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Free$0

Updated Feb 18, 2026

You.com

Research & Knowledge

AI search engine with research agents — get answers with cited sources.

AI-powered search with citationsResearch agent modeMultiple AI modes (Smart, Genius, Create)

4.3Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Millions of tokens context windowFile & document uploadWeb browsing

Kimi

Research & Knowledge

AI assistant with a massive context window — read entire books and codebases at once.

4.3Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Agentic multi-step researchFull source citationsStructured research reports

Perplexity Deep Research

Research & Knowledge

AI research agent that conducts hours of research in minutes — with full citations.

4.6Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Paid$20/mo

AI-generated audio overviewsDocument Q&A with citationsStudy guide generation

Notebook LM Plus

Research & Knowledge

Google's AI research notebook — generate podcasts, summaries, and Q&A from your documents.

4.6Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Paid$7.99/mo

In-document AI explanationsHighlight-to-explainAuto-generated summaries

Unriddle

Research & Knowledge

AI reading assistant — understand complex documents faster with instant explanations.

4.4Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

LLM-optimized search returning clean extracted contentDeep research mode synthesizing multiple sourcesReal-time news and web search with domain filtering

Tavily

Research & Knowledge

AI search API built for agents — real-time web search optimized for LLM consumption.

4.3Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Autonomous multi-perspective research on any topicWikipedia-quality article generation with proper structureInline citations with verifiable source references

STORM

Research & Knowledge

AI research agent by Stanford — generate Wikipedia-quality articles from any topic.

4.2Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Free$0/mo

AI sidebar accessible on every webpageMulti-model support (GPT-4, Claude, Gemini)One-click article and page summarization

Sider AI

Research & Knowledge

AI browser sidebar — chat with any webpage, summarize content, and translate in one click.

4.3Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Deep iterative search following citation chains and referencesAI-generated relevance explanations for each found paperMulti-step research mimicking expert literature review process

Undermind

Research & Knowledge

AI deep research for science — find every relevant paper on any scientific question.

4.3Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

AI summarization of PDFs and web articles at multiple detail levelsKey argument and finding extraction from academic papersIntelligent highlighting based on research questions

Genei

Research & Knowledge

AI research summarizer — extract key insights from PDFs and academic papers instantly.

4.1Editor's ScoreScored by our editorial team based on user sentiment across Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 & product quality vs. competitors.

Paid$11.99/mo