Published AI tools and independent ToolFlock coverage for this use case.
Elicit automates literature review: search across a research corpus, extract structured data from papers into tables, and summarize findings across sources. Search and summaries are effectively unlimited on the free plan; the extraction feature is metered, which is the detail that decides whether the free plan works for you.
NotebookLM is Google's source-grounded research tool: you upload documents, and it answers only from those sources, with citations. The free tier limits sources per notebook, notebooks, and daily interactions; deeper limits and extra features come with paid Google AI plans.
Perplexity sits between a search engine and a research assistant. Instead of returning a page of links, it builds an answer, attaches sources to its claims, and keeps the topic open for follow-up questions. The core workflow is simple: ask, inspect, narrow, and decide what still needs checking.