AI answer engine with real-time web search and cited sources.

Consensus
AI Research & StudyConsensus is an AI search engine that answers questions using a database of peer-reviewed academic papers rather than the open web. It summarizes findings across studies, shows a Consensus Meter for yes/no questions and offers Quick, Pro and Deep search modes. Students, researchers, clinicians and science writers use it for fast literature scans.
Consensus pricing
Free plan; Pro ~$20/mo, ~33% off annual
Last checked September 2026 · Confirm on consensus.app
What Consensus does
- Answers drawn only from academic papers, each linked to its source
- Consensus Meter showing how studies lean on yes/no questions
- Deep Search that reviews dozens of papers in a multi-step report
- Study filters such as study type, sample size and journal quality
- My Library for uploading PDFs, importing Zotero and chatting with papers
- Bibliography export in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard and BibTeX, plus RIS/CSV
Pros
- Every claim ties back to a specific paper
- Consensus Meter gives a quick read on where research points
- Free plan includes unlimited basic paper searches
- Works with reference managers such as Zotero, EndNote and Mendeley
Cons
- Limited to academic literature, so not useful for news or general web questions
- Deep searches are capped on free and Pro plans
- Summaries can oversimplify study nuance and still need reading of the full papers
- No built-in editor for drafting papers
Who Consensus is for
Look elsewhere if: People who need general web answers or help drafting essays should use Perplexity or a writing assistant instead.
Enterprise readiness
Teams plan (2-200 seats, central billing) and sales-led Enterprise with SSO and API access; no published compliance certifications.
- Business / enterprise plan
- Yes
- SSO (SAML / OIDC)
- Enterprise plan
- SCIM user provisioning
- —
- SOC 2
- —
- ISO 27001
- —
- HIPAA (BAA available)
- —
- GDPR DPA
- —
- Data residency options
- —
- No training on your data
- —
- Audit logs
- —
- Admin controls
- Yes
- Deployment
- Cloud
From the vendor's own security documentation. "—" = not confirmed. Verify during your security review. Compare all tools.
| Research & Study feature checklist | |
|---|---|
| Answers with citations | Yes |
| Searches academic papers | Yes |
| Upload & chat with PDFs | Yes |
| AI content detection | No |
| Rewrites / humanizes text | No |
| Citation formatting | Yes |
| Browser extension | — |
| Writing editor | No |
Consensus compared
- Consensus vs Perplexity
- Consensus vs Monica
- Consensus vs Merlin AI
- Consensus vs Jenni AI
- Consensus vs Originality.ai
- Consensus vs StealthGPT
- Consensus vs Undetectable AI
- Consensus vs Elicit
- Consensus vs Scite
Buying guides
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