8 Best AI Tools for Researchers in 2023

AI language models seem to be transforming academia, and scientists now way more time on their hands to focus on the most interesting tasks—until we are all eventually replaced by robots. But if you are still wondering how exactly AI can make your research life easier or if you are overwhelmed by the endless output of new apps and bots and simply don't know where to start, we have got you covered. The following is a list of some of the best AI tools for researchers.

1. Wordvice AI - More than Just a Grammar Checker

The Wordvice AI Writing Assistant, powered by the most up-to-date AI technology, is a real-time, all-in-one text editor. It features the AI Proofreading Tool, which fixes spelling, punctuation, and style errors and improves the clarity and flow of your text; the AI Paraphrasing Tool and AI Summarizing Tool to ensure originality and natural expressions; and the AI Translation Tool, which extracts relevant information from non-English sources.

Wordvice AI provides you with explanations as well as tips to enhance your writing skills, lets you choose the revision mode that best suits your needs, and works on all kinds of academic texts. You can try it out for free or sign up for Wordvice AI Premium to unlock its more sophisticated features.

Key features

• Grammar and spelling check, style enhancements,and feedback on overall fluency
• Thesaurus-like feature that suggests alternatives to diversify your vocabulary
• Assists with citation format, academic tone, adherence to scholarly writing conventions
• Plagiarism check that scans millions of academic articles to ensure origanility in your work

2. ChatGPT - The Original Popular Chatbot

ChatGPT, the OpenAI chatbot released in November 2022, is an AI tool that can assist academic researchers in a variety of ways—but it might require some playing around with prompts and fact-checking since the bot has a tendency to confidently provide any (even sometimes inaccurate) information.

ChatGPT can answer specific questions related to your research topic. It can also assist in the initial stages of a literature review by suggesting key papers, authors, or trends (but remember that a comprehensive literature review using trusted scholarly sources needs to follow). The AI chatbot can then help you generate ideas on research questions, hypotheses, or experimental designs, offer simplified explanations for complex concepts, and correct the grammar and word choice of your manuscript.

Key features

• Quick information retrieval
• Literature review support
• Easy-to-use interface to assign many kinds of tasks
• Idea generation and writing assistance

3. Typeset.io - Streamline the Writing and Publishing Process

Typeset.io is a comprehensive platform that provides predefined manuscript templates and automated formatting tools to help you meet the specific guidelines of target journals and publishers quickly and efficiently. It also includes a citation management system and support for various styles and can automatically generate in-text citations and bibliographies.

Typeset.io is especially useful for research collaborations because it lets a group of people work on the same document simultaneously. An inbuilt database lists journals and their requirements to help you identify suitable publishing venues. Typeset.io also features a plagiarism detection feature and writing AI tool to improve the quality of your manuscript.

Key features

• Predefined formatting templates
• Citation and reference management
• Simultaneous collaboration and version control
• Journal selection and recommendations
• Writing assistance and plagiarism check

4. Scite.ai - Never Waste Time Searching for Literature Again

If you have used ChatGPT to find citations, you have probably seen it “hallucinate” and make up sources or generate text that is not based on factual information (a problem that even the best AI tools fight with). There are more trustworthy AI tools these days, such as Scite.ai, which gives you real citations to actually published papers. Even cooler, this online research tool can provide you with exact numbers of publications that refute or corroborate a specific claim.

Key features

• Search citation statements
• Create dashboard
• Journal and institution metrics
• Interactive visualizations

5. Quillbot - Writing Has Never Been Easier

Quillbot is another AI tool similar to Wordvice AI with writing and language enhancement features that are especially useful for academic researchers. It is based on advanced algorithms that paraphrase to avoid plagiarism, provide vocabulary suggestions, and offer alternative word choices. Its "Expand" feature helps with brainstorming during the writing process by generating content from a few keywords or phrases.

Quillbot also offers explanations for its suggestions, which can be particularly helpful for non-native English speakers or researchers looking to improve their language skills. For those working with foreign language sources, Quillbot can translate text into a number of different languages to ensure accurate referencing.

Key features

• Paraphrasing, summarizing, language enhancement
• Learning and language support
• Research idea generation
• Ensures accuracy in academic terminology and citation styles
• Translation assistance

6. Scholarcy - The AI-powered Article Summarizer

Scholarcy is your digital assistant, an online research tool that reads and summarizes articles, reports, and book chapters for you to help you keep up with the latest research and quickly assess how relevant any document is to your work. It identifies key information and breaks data down into relevant categories.

Scholarcy creates a summary flashcard of any Word or PDF document and includes links to open-access versions of cited sources. It can also be configured to extract figures, tables and images from articles to display information in an easier-to-understand way.

Key features

• Automatic extraction of references
• Chrome and Edge extensions that connect to open-access repositories
• Figure, table, and image extraction
• Searchable database of summary cards

7. ResearchRabbit - Never Miss Another Paper!

ResearchRabbit is another web application that allows you to explore scientific papers quickly and efficiently. The "Spotify for Papers" lets you create collections of papers and regularly recommends new literature to you, based on your personal interests. ResearchRabbit also visualizes networks of papers and co-authorships and lets you share your collections with colleagues to improve collaboration.

Key features

• Create collections of relevant literature
• Receive recommendations based on your interests
• Visually explore connections between fields, authors, and camps
• Share collections with collaborators

8. ProofHub - All-in-One Project and Team Management

ProofHub is a project management and collaboration tool for researchers that offers task management, file sharing, communication, time tracking, and document management features. It helps teams manage projects and collaborate efficiently. A central platform allows a team to create and share tasks, set priorities, assign responsibilities, and monitor progress. Feedback can be provided in real-time, and reminders can be set to ensure no deadline is missed.

Key features

• Task and project management (Kanban tools, Gantt charts)
• Centralized platform facilitates collaboration and communication
• Time tracking and scheduling
• Workflow automation
• Security and access control

AI Research Tools: Honorable Mentions

ChatPDF - Have a Chat with an Article!

Using ChatPDF is like having a conversation with a PDF file. You upload an article in PDF format into the research software, and ChatPDF gives you a summary and suggests questions it could answer based on the full article. The AI also creates a semantic index for each paragraph.

Consensus - What the Research Really Says

The AI-powered search engine Consensus answers your questions based on peer-reviewed literature that it scans and summarizes for you. If you ask it a simple yes/no question, it summarizes the available evidence and provides you with a “consensus meter” that reflects the state of the current research.

Other Resources For Researchers

To improve your own writing skills (something even the best AI tool cannot do for you) have a look at our 5 Free Apps to Improve Your Academic Vocabulary or our Guide to Verb Tenses in Academic Writing. Or learn How to Outline an Essay to make sure you use the information you gathered with the research tools we introduced above in an optimal way.

You can also make use of Wordvice's Paper Editing Services after using the AI Proofreader to apply nuanced revisions only a human editor can achieve.