For a detailed look at how to find and evaluate resources using AI tools, as well as how to cite AI tools see the Researching with AI Guide.
For scholarly research-oriented tasks like:
Start by searching library databases and Google Scholar. Their coverage is more comprehensive than the tools below.
A free online citation-based literature mapping tool that helps you visualize connections between research works, discover similar papers, and identify other researchers in your field, optimizing your time searching for references.
An AI research assistant that automates parts of the literature review workflow by finding relevant papers, summarizing key takeaways, and extracting specific information into easy-to-use tables.
An AI-powered academic search engine that synthesizes findings from scholarly literature to answer research questions, providing a "Consensus Meter" to illustrate the collective agreement among studies.
A smart citation index that provides "citations in context," showing whether an article offers supporting or contrasting evidence for a claim, helping you validate research claims.
This tool visually maps relationships between academic papers by analyzing co-citations and shared references, generating an interactive graph to help you discover influential works and uncover new research paths.
A free, AI-powered scientific literature search engine that provides brief summaries ('TLDR's) of the main objectives and results of papers, and serves as an underlying data source for many other AI tools.
You can use these tools to find additional sources that may not have appeared through keyword searching. They use semantic search, which aims to give you relevant results by interpreting the meaning of your search (instead of just showing results that match the words you enter). They also include generative AI features, like responding to natural language prompts, summarizing, outlining, etc.
Note: While these tools may have free versions, most have usage limits without a subscription.
This page was adapted from Which AI Tool for Your Task? by University of Arizona Libraries, which is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Deep Research tools are AI research assistants that plan and perform research and create a cited report for you based on your query and directions. They are available through ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity and others.
Complex questions, policy scans, product comparisons, or anything that needs more than a quick fact.
Heads-up: Treat the report as a draft with citations. Verify all facts and data as if you are staking your reputation on it.
While Deep Research tools are powerful and can give good results, there are some things to think about when using them. Remember that all AI tools can make stuff up; also remember to find the appropriate balance of “weightlifting” and “forklifting” for your work.
Verification Gap: Even good tools can be confidently wrong. Fix: Verify facts, check dates, check quotes, and confirm statistics.
Competence Gap: If it does everything for you, you aren't really learning much. Fix: Only use when you need to get a fast result and don't need to practice the research process.
Confidence Gap: Outsourcing all the thinking can chip away at your confidence. Fix: Make sure you get in your manual reps too. Read the most relevant sources, not just the final report.
Choose one of the following complex questions (or one of your own):
Run your chosen question through a deep research tool (like Perplexity, or the free modes in Gemini/ChatGPT). Then, use the six-step workflow from this guide to verify the claims and create a one-paragraph summary. How did the raw output differ from your final, verified summary?
Deep Research tools are powerful starting points, not finishing lines. They generate a comprehensive first draft, complete with sources. Your role is to be the critical thinker: to verify, question, synthesize, and ultimately, own the final result.
OpenAI — Introducing Deep research; Deep research FAQ; Release notes.
Google — Gemini Deep Research overview; NotebookLM: discover sources.
Perplexity — Introducing Perplexity Deep Research.
Microsoft — Think Deeper; Copilot Search GA.
Anthropic — Web Search; Citations API.
xAI — Grok 4 announcement; Grok: real‑time X + web search & citations.
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