We are committed to using AI ethically, transparently, and purposefully. Our goal is to help researchers, students, and educators save time without sacrificing trust or accuracy.
How Consensus uses AI
Consensus is a search engine first. Before generating an AI response, Consensus searches real scientific literature and identifies research relevant to your question.
We search the scientific literature before using AI
Once relevant papers are retrieved, AI helps read, analyze, and synthesize the research. Every response is grounded in real, citable research papers, not speculative content generated by a model.
Consensus can use AI to:
Analyze individual papers, including study methods, results, populations, and limitations
Synthesize findings across multiple papers, including comparisons, tables, the Consensus Meter, and more comprehensive research reviews
AI is used to help you understand the research we retrieve.
Generative AI is a powerful tool for making research faster and more accessible, which is why we've built safeguards into Consensus to help keep its use grounded, transparent, and verifiable.
Guardrails
Search before synthesis: AI-generated responses begin by retrieving real research papers. This prevents fabricated or invented citations.
Research-grounded answers: Consensus uses the retrieved research to generate its analysis rather than filling gaps with unrelated outside knowledge.
Transparent sourcing and attribution: Every claim is cited, and every citation is clickable. We make it incredibly easy in our interface to inspect, verify, and reference the original source content with one click.
Supporting evidence: Every citation shows the supporting quote from the paper’s full text or abstract, making it easy to see and verify the evidence used to support each claim.
AI "checkers" for relevance: Before papers are included in an analysis, separate models check whether they contain information relevant to your question. Papers that don't meet the relevance threshold are excluded.
Retracted research: Papers identified as retracted are flagged and excluded from AI-generated analyses.
Feedback and reporting: If something looks incorrect, you can report an AI-generated analysis directly to our team using the flag button beneath the response or contact our support team.
Consensus is built to enhance, not replace, the research process. Our goal is to provide a faster path to high-quality evidence while keeping the underlying research visible and accessible.
Limitations
AI and academic search both have limitations. Consensus can make finding and reviewing research significantly faster, but it should not replace careful evaluation of important sources.
We do not have access to ALL research
The Consensus database includes over 220 million peer-reviewed papers. While this represents significant coverage, there is plenty of amazing research that we do have access to. The summary is just a snapshot of some of the relevant research that we have access to, not a fully-comprehensive look into all of the research regarding your question.
AI can misinterpret research
Hallucinations are a common issue in AI systems where the model generates something that is not true. These usually fall into three categories:
Fake sources – the AI cites a paper or article that doesn’t exist.
Wrong facts – the AI generates a confident answer from internal memory that’s simply incorrect with no source.
Misread sources – the AI summarizes a real paper or source, but gets it wrong.
Thanks to how we’ve built Consensus, only the third type is possible, and we work hard to minimize it.
Consensus is not a chatbot. It’s a search engine that uses AI to summarize real scientific papers. Every time you ask a question, we search a database of peer-reviewed research. That means:
Every paper we cite is guaranteed to be real
Every summary is based on actual research, not a model’s guess or internal memory
Still, no AI is perfect. Sometimes a model can misinterpret a paper and summarize it incorrectly. To reduce this risk, we’ve added safeguards like “checker models” that verify a paper’s relevance before summarizing it.
Most importantly, we’ve designed the product to make it easy for you to dive into the source material yourself. The best use of Consensus isn’t just getting a quick summary, it’s using our tools to explore the research in depth. That’s when real understanding happens.
Final Thoughts
Our mission is to make the best science accessible to everyone through AI, but responsible use is essential. While we continuously improve Consensus with more guardrails, we recognize the technology's limitations and are committed to give you transparency every step of the way.
We encourage you to stay engaged with our platform by exploring the source materials, sharing any feedback, and reporting inaccuracies through our support portal. Your feedback helps us improve and make AI-powered research tools more accurate for everyone.
Thank you for being a part of our journey!
If you have questions or need assistance, reach out to our support team at [email protected] or via the Support Chat in the interface. We’re here to help!