Consensus is an AI-powered search engine for scholarly research for faculty, students, and clinicians. It searches more than 400 million scholarly sources, ranks studies first, then writes a cited summary of what they found. Navigation offers Search for free beside Individual and Team and Enterprise tiers. Use it for literature reviews and evidence checks—not as a general chatbot.
Official website · consensus.app
Choose Consensus when you need scholarly papers and a cited summary grounded in those papers. It searches only scholarly literature, never the open web, and Every claim links to a real paper with a supporting quote. That fits literature reviews, grant prep, and classroom evidence checks better than open-web chat. The public homepage was unavailable, so this page uses the faculty guide, literature-review guide, support page, and pricing page. Pricing listed Individual and Team and Enterprise with Monthly or Annual toggles but no dollar amounts—confirm prices on the official page. Prefer ChatPDF for uploaded PDFs or Andi for broader web search.
Consensus is an AI-powered search engine for scholarly research. You ask a research question; it finds relevant papers, then writes a cited summary of what they found. Coverage states it searches more than 400 million scholarly sources from datasets such as Semantic Scholar and OpenAlex and publisher partnerships across disciplines and top journals. Search comes before interpretation: papers are ranked first, then summarized. Verifiable sources mean Every claim links to a real paper with a supporting quote you can open in one click. The workflow targets evidence checks and literature intake, not unsourced open-ended chat.
Official documentationClosed system language says Consensus searches only scholarly literature, never the open web, and cannot invent a study. That boundary is why to pick it over a general assistant when peer-reviewed sources are required for coursework, grants, or clinical questions. Faculty materials highlight Filters, Threads, My Library and Collections, Citations and export, and the Consensus Meter on yes/no questions. Connect an institution for full-text links, import Zotero into My Library, and keep course papers in a Collection. Private by default language says search queries are not used to train large language models.
Official documentationThe literature-review guide recommends a narrow start: save five to ten foundational papers as a Collection in My Library, then keep one paper in each Thread so explanations stay attached to a single study. From a Collection, Ask starts a Thread using only that paper, or you can upload a paper into your Library from the search bar. Summaries are orientation before section-by-section reading, not a substitute for the article. Reuse the same Thread when new questions surface, then stop expanding once themes converge. The pattern helps PhD students move from a small starting set into deeper comparison without mixing methods across papers.
Official documentationGather a concentrated set of foundational papers, save them as a Collection, and keep the first list small enough to finish. Create one Thread per paper and ask for a summary before close reading. Linked quotes suggest which sections to prioritize, while institutional full-text links move you from abstracts into the PDF when your library provides access.
Faculty guidance covers evidence checks, live student questions, and grant writing. A yes/no question can return a summary plus the Consensus Meter showing how studies split. Because Every claim links to a real paper, you can open the quote instead of trusting unsourced text. Results still suggest date or quality filters before you stop. Stay on scholarly questions; this is not a general-purpose chatbot.
Sign up, then in Account Settings search for your university so library subscriptions can unlock full-text papers where available.
Type a clear scholarly question in the search bar. Boolean operators are optional when you can already judge the hit list.
Review ranked studies and the cited summary, follow claims to supporting quotes, and use filters or the Consensus Meter when needed.
Bookmark strong papers into a Collection, start one Thread per paper for closer reading, and export citations when the shortlist is stable.
Pricing shows Monthly and Annual toggles with Individual and Team and Enterprise sections. Navigation also offers Search for free. No currency amounts appeared in the pricing page content used here.
Visitors trying Consensus search before paying.
Search for free.
Not stated.
Solo researchers, students, and clinicians.
Not verified.
Monthly or Annual.
Labs and organizations that need shared access.
Not verified.
Monthly or Annual.
Faculty-guide language about A Teams plan covers 2 to 200 users is an access note, not a dollar list price from the pricing page. Confirm current amounts on https://consensus.app/pricing/ before buying.
You already have PDFs and need chat against those files.
ChatPDF is built for conversing with uploaded PDFs. Pick it when the bottleneck is reading files you hold, not discovering papers in a large scholarly index like Consensus describes.
You need broader web search outside scholarly-only retrieval.
Andi sits outside Consensus scholarly-only framing. Prefer Andi when the question is not limited to academic literature and you do not need cited summaries drawn only from scholarly sources.
Consensus is an AI-powered search engine for scholarly research. It finds papers for your question and writes a cited summary of what they found.
SourceCoverage language states that Consensus searches more than 400 million scholarly sources from Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, and publisher partnerships.
SourceIt searches only scholarly literature, never the open web, and is described as unable to invent a study.
SourceSite navigation presents Search for free. Paid Individual and Team and Enterprise options appear on the pricing page with Monthly and Annual toggles.
SourceSave a small foundational set as a Collection in My Library, keep one paper per Thread, and treat summaries as orientation before close reading.
SourceThe Contact Support page provides a ticket form with full name, email, and message fields.
SourceOct 6, 2026 · NavHunt editorial
NavHunt did not run Consensus. Limits and plan names come from the public support page, faculty guide, literature-review guide, and pricing page reviewed on 6 October 2026. The public homepage was unavailable, so homepage-only behavior is left out. The pricing page did not publish currency amounts, so Individual, Team, and Enterprise stay without invented list prices. This description is based on Consensus's official materials reviewed on 2026-10-06, including Contact Support - Consensus: AI Search Engine for Research, Consensus for Faculty: A Complete Guide from First Search to Classroom, How to Start a Literature Review in a New Field: A PhD Student’s Guide, Pricing.
Ask a research question on Consensus when you need scholarly papers and cited summaries, then confirm full-text access through your library.