8 Best AI Researcher Tools For Efficient Research

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The blank page stares back at you as you write your paper or article. You know what you want to say; you have your research in order but need help getting started. If you've ever experienced this frustrating challenge, you're not alone. Writing takes practice, and academic writing can be incredibly challenging. As you boost your research skills, an AI researcher can help you enhance your writing and complete your academic tasks more efficiently.

In this guide, we'll explore how AI can help you publish your work faster so that you can move on to your next project. Unriddle's AI research assistant is valuable for students or professionals looking to improve their writing. This tool can help you complete writing tasks by providing structure and suggestions based on your unique input.

What is an AI Researcher Tool?

AI tools for research can help you discover new sources for your literature review or research assignment. These tools synthesize information from large databases of scholarly output to find the most relevant articles and save researchers time. They often leverage AI technologies to streamline research, offering features like data analysis, natural language processing, simulation environments, and more.

AI for Academic Research

Collaborative Research

Academic Research

Research Team

Research Process

Industry Research

Research Skills

Research Collaboration

Research Topics

Researching

How Do AI Research Tools Work

1. Data Collection and Preprocessing

AI research tools help users gather and clean data to get to the fun part, building models quickly. Here’s how it works. First, research tools often include capabilities to collect or import large datasets from various sources, such as databases, APIs, or web scraping. Then, they help clean and preprocess data, handling tasks like missing data imputation, normalization, and feature extraction to make the data suitable for training AI models.

2. Model Development

Next, AI research tools help users build models, often integrating popular AI and machine learning frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, or scikit-learn. These tools provide pre-built functions for developing models. Users can also design and customize AI models by defining neural network architectures, selecting algorithms, and setting parameters. Additionally, tools often include features for hyperparameter tuning, which involves adjusting model parameters to optimize performance.

3. Training and Optimization

Once a model is built, it’s time to train and optimize it. AI research tools allow users to train models on datasets, leveraging computational resources such as CPUs, GPUs, or TPUs. They also provide optimization algorithms (e.g., stochastic gradient descent, Adam) to minimize the loss function and improve model accuracy. Some tools support distributed training across multiple machines or clusters to handle large-scale models and datasets.

4. Evaluation and Validation

After building a model, AI research tools provide methods to evaluate its performance. For example, metrics like accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, and confusion matrices offer insights into how well the model will perform in the real world. Techniques like k-fold cross-validation help ensure the model generalizes well to unseen data. Many tools also include visualization capabilities for understanding model performance, such as plotting learning curves or confusion matrices.

5. Deployment and Inference

AI research tools often allow exporting models for deployment in various formats (e.g., ONNX, TensorFlow SavedModel) once they’re trained and validated. Inference tools help deploy models to production environments, enabling real-time inference on new data. Some tools provide monitoring features to track the performance of deployed models, including drift detection and feedback loops for continuous learning.

6. Collaboration and Version Control

AI research tools may include features for collaborative work, such as sharing models, datasets, or notebooks among team members. Integration with version control systems like Git allows researchers to track changes in their models and experiments, ensuring reproducibility.

7. Automation and Experimentation

Some AI research tools offer AutoML features, automating the process of model selection, training, and tuning to find the best-performing model with minimal human intervention. Tools may also provide experiment tracking capabilities, logging different model runs, configurations, and results to help researchers compare and analyze outcomes.

Unriddle helps researchers accelerate their AI projects. Use Unriddle to read faster and write better to finish your research projects and return to what you enjoy.

8 Best AI Researcher Tools For Efficient Research

1. Unriddle AI: The Ultimate Research Companion

Unriddle AI helps you read faster and write better. The tool allows you to quickly find information in documents, simplify complex topics, take notes, and write with the power of AI. Thousands of researchers and students trust Unriddle. Unriddle generates an AI assistant on top of any document so you can quickly find, summarize, and understand information.

Unriddle understands the meaning behind your writing and automatically links you to relevant things you’ve read and written about. Highlight text, and Unriddle AI will show you the most appropriate sources from your library using AI. Generate text with AI autocomplete to improve and expand your writing, with suggestions based on the context of your work. Step into a collaborative workspace where everyone can contribute and chat with the same documents in real-time and much more!

2. Zotero: Your Research Assistant

Zotero is a tool that brings efficiency to the research process. Zotero helps researchers collect, organize, annotate, and share research easily. Zotero integrates with internet browsers, so researchers can easily save an article, publication, or research study on the platform for later. The tool also has an advanced organizing system to allow users to label, tag, and categorize information for faster insights and a seamless analysis process.

Pros

Fairly easy to learn

All features come with free version, and all software upgrades are free

Collaborative group libraries

Add citations with one click with Zotero Connector

Cons

Requires desktop/laptop application to use all features

Only 300 MB of free cloud storage

No first-party mobile app for Android

No professional customer support services

3. Paperpile: Ditch the Messy Paper Stacks

Messy paper stacks, digital or physical, are a thing of the past with Paperpile. This reference management tool integrates with Google Docs, saving users time with citations and paper management. Referencing, researching, and gaining insights is much cleaner and more productive, as all papers are in the same place. Plus, it’s easier to find a paper when you need it.

Pros

Smooth Google Drive integration with effortless citations

Easy management system for articles and PDFs

It lets you share articles and reference lists with others

Cons

Requires a Google account

Supports only Chrome browser

4. Dovetail: Centralized Research Management

Acting as a single source of truth (SSOT), Dovetail houses research from the entire organization in a simple-to-use place. Researchers can use the all-in-one platform to collate and store data from interviews, forms, surveys, focus groups, and more.

Dovetail helps users quickly categorize and analyze data to uncover genuinely actionable insights. This allows organizations to bring customer insights into every decision for better forecasting, planning, and decision-making. Dovetail integrates with helpful tools like Slack, Atlassian, Notion, and Zapier for a genuinely efficient workflow.

Pros

Centralized Research Management

Dovetail helps organize and manage various types of research data (e.g., interviews and surveys) in one place.

Collaboration Features

It allows team members to collaborate efficiently by sharing insights, tagging relevant information, and commenting on data.

Flexible Data Collection

Supports multiple data collection methods, including video, audio, and text.

Advanced Analysis Tools

Provides tools for tagging, coding, and analyzing qualitative data to identify patterns and insights.

User-Friendly Interface

It is known for its intuitive and user-friendly interface, which makes it easier for teams to navigate and utilize.

Cons

Cost

Dovetail can be expensive, especially for smaller teams or startups with limited budgets.

Learning Curve

While the interface is user-friendly, some users may still need help with a learning curve, particularly its more advanced features.

Limited Quantitative Analysis

It’s primarily focused on qualitative research; if you need extensive quantitative analysis, it might not fully meet your needs.

Customization Limitations

While it offers many features, some users might need more customization options for specific research.

5. EndNote: The Citation Formatting Tool

EndNote helps researchers quickly put together papers and reference sources. The tool claims that researchers waste 200,000 hours per year formatting citations. EndNote formats citations automatically to address this issue, creating a bibliography while the user writes. EndNote is also a cloud-based system that allows remote working, multiple-user interaction and collaboration, and seamless working on different devices.

Pros

Use your citations from any computer, even if it still needs to be installed on the EndNote desktop.

Share references with other EndNote Online users anywhere in the world.

Organize and annotate your research, create bibliographies

Insert citations as you write into Microsoft Word, Pages, and Wolfram Mathematica 8

Cons

You can't use term lists for journal abbreviations.

You can't edit styles and filters.

Storage limit of 50,000 records.

Clunky user interface

6. SurveyMonkey: An Online Survey Leader

With millions of customers worldwide, SurveyMonkey is another leader in online surveys. SurveyMonkey offers hundreds of templates researchers can use to set up and deploy surveys quickly. Whether your survey concerns team performance, hotel feedback, post-event feedback, or an employee exit, SurveyMonkey has a ready-to-use template.

Pros

The features of viewing results with analytics. Likes charts and bars which can be printed.

Data collected and views

Pre-built survey templates are one of the best features of it.

Cons

Automation can be brought

In terms of result data analytics, it needs improvement.

7. Typeform: A Survey Tool That Puts People First

Typeform offers free templates you can quickly embed, which comes with a point of difference: It designs forms and surveys with people in mind, focusing on customer enjoyment. Typeform employs the ‘one question at a time’ method to keep engagement rates and completions high. It focuses on surveys that feel more like conversations than a list of questions.

Pros

Supportive to Researchers

Typeform has been incredibly supportive to researchers, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, offering pro accounts to those working on related projects.

Stylish and Customizable

Typeform allows users to create stylish and customized forms or surveys, impressing respondents and enhancing their user experience.

User-friendly Interface

The user-friendly software makes it easy to set up and distribute new surveys. It is also compatible with nearly any device that can access the internet.

Excellent Analysis Tools

Despite some limitations, Typeform offers visually pleasing surveys and excellent analysis tools, making it easier to understand and interpret the data collected.

Cons

High cost

Despite its user-friendly interface and adaptability, Typeform can be costly, especially for small businesses or individual users.

Lack of Partial Response Storage

Typeform only stores partial or complete responses, which can result in the loss of valuable data if a respondent fails to complete the survey.

Poor Customer Service

Numerous users have reported issues with Typeform's customer service, including difficulty in contacting them and lack of assistance with billing issues.

Multiple Submissions by a Single Respondent

Typeform allows a single respondent to submit various responses, which can skew the data and potentially harm the credibility of the survey results.

Limited Customization

While Typeform offers a visually appealing platform, it could provide more sophistication in terms of customization, limiting the user's ability to tailor the survey to their needs fully

8. Google Scholar: Your First Stop for Academic Research

Are you looking for an academic article, thesis, or abstract? Google Scholar should be your first stop. Google Scholar helps you find related works, locate full documents in your school library, and access scholarly research. Google created Google Scholar, which differs significantly from a general online search. Google Scholar combines academic articles and ranks them based on the authors, publication location, and citation record. That means the top results generally represent the most reliable scholarship on your topic.

Pros

Indexes a wide range of scholarly literature

Searching is free

Easy to use if you're familiar with Google

Google algorithm ranks relevance for you

Can set up library access links in settings

Cons

Can't search by subject area or material type

No full-text access to most articles

Minimal filters

Content not organized by experts

There is no easy way to identify 'peer-reviewed' sources

Complete Step-by-Step Guide On How To Use Unriddle's AI Research Tool

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to use Unriddle. I’ve also copied it below :)

From here, it's pretty simple.

Unriddle helps you read, write and learn faster.

Interact with documents via AI so you can quickly find and understand info.

Then start writing in a new Note and Unriddle will show you relevant content from your library as you type.

Get started by uploading a document.

Or read on for the full rundown.

Interact with documents

When you upload a document, Unriddle generates an AI assistant on top of this data.

Click 'New' in the right sidebar and then select 'Upload' to get started.

Use this assistant to answer specific questions about the text, summarize content and simplify jargon.

The trick is to be super clear about what you want.

If you're summarizing a research paper, for example, instead of saying “Summarize” or “Summarize this research paper”, say something like “Explain this research paper to me in simple terms. What method did the researchers use? What did they find? Why does it matter?”.

The second prompt will produce a much better overview of the paper because we're giving the AI more hints about what we want.

Automatic relations

Unriddle grasps the context behind each Note and Document in your library and automatically links them based on meaning.

Let's say you have a collection of nuclear physics papers in your library.

When you start writing a note about The Manhattan Project, simply mentioning "The Manhattan Project" will prompt Unriddle to find the connection between this note and the nuclear physics papers.

Even if you didn't explicitly mention the research papers, Unriddle's knowledge of Oppenheimer, his work, and the significant relevance of these papers means it understands the connection and automatically links them together.

In short, Unriddle shows you relevant content from your library at the exact moment you need it, even if you haven't explicitly mentioned it.

Citing your sources

Writing is hard when you have a ton of sources to track.

So we made it easy.

Highlight some text, click ‘Cite’ and you’ll see items from your library that contain information related to the selection of text you just highlighted as determined by our AI.

When you select an item Unriddle inserts a link into highlighted text that, when clicked, takes you to the referenced item.

Writing with AI

Click ‘New’ in the sidebar and hit ‘Note’ to open up a new note.

Here you’ll find all the text formatting options you’re used to and more.

Type ‘++’ to generate text based on the context of what’s already written.

Highlight text and click ‘Ask AI’ to open up the AI menu where you’ll find options to improve, expand, summarize and explain.

You can type custom prompts too!

Finally, you can open any note in a pane on the right side of the screen while interacting with documents. Just click the orange pencil icon at the top of the chat window.

Adjust the model, temperature and response length in the Setting sidebar.

Click the cog icon in the top right corner of the screen and look for "Chat Settings".

These apply across all documents but you can easily flip between them regardless of settings at the time of upload.

Model: the machine learning model used to generate responses.

Temperature: the amount of creative license you give to the AI.

Max length: the maximum number of words generated in a response.

Got feedback or questions? Send us an email and we'll get back to you within a day.

— Naveed

Benefits of Using AI for Research

1. Streamlining peer-reviewing

Traditionally a time-consuming process, peer review involves experts reviewing each other’s research manuscripts before publication. AI emerges as a natural collaborator in this task, automating the initial stages of peer review far more efficiently.

Accelerating the peer-review process ensures that groundbreaking research promptly enters public discourse and policy debate. This increases the chances that the study will inform decision-making, especially in the fast-paced policy context.

Dr. Jane Smith, a professor of computer science at MIT.

AI rapidly transforms research workflows by automating routine tasks, such as initial peer-review stages and literature synthesis. However, while AI can significantly accelerate these processes, the critical interpretation of findings and identification of research gaps still require human expertise.

2. Navigating the literature

Literature reviews are another fundamental component of research. They synthesize the existing knowledge in a field of study. AI is transforming this process, assisting in identifying, analyzing, and synthesizing relevant literature.

By automating the process, AI helps researchers access and quickly summarise the existing body of work, making it easier to efficiently identify gaps, trends, and emerging themes. Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms analyze content, helping researchers identify relevant studies more swiftly.

Identifying genuine research gaps and creating an original hypothesis also requires judgment and analysis on the user's part. Researchers should continue to consult primary sources and experts first to ensure they’re using these emerging technologies as responsibly as possible.

3. Deriving insights from complex databases

Data analysis is at the heart of rigorous research, and AI enhances this process. Machine learning (ML) algorithms can navigate vast databases, and one of their greatest strengths is identifying patterns and correlations. However, this isn’t just about speed; it’s about uncovering nuanced insights that humans may miss. Dr. John Doe, a data science professor at Stanford University,

AI-driven machine learning models revolutionize data analysis by uncovering patterns and insights humans might overlook. However, it's crucial to recognize the dependency on data quality. Poor input data can lead to misleading conclusions, and the 'black box' nature of some AI models poses challenges in understanding their decision-making processes.

4. Forming global partnerships to address the digital divide

AI holds enormous potential for countries in the global south to overcome many barriers to achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). However, accessibility and resource disparities still pose a significant challenge between the global north and south researchers' institutions and individuals.

The development and adoption of AI also pose unique challenges for these countries, especially regarding internet penetration, electricity connections, and concerns about AI's negative impacts. The price tag of AI technology can be steep and threaten to create a digital divide that exacerbates discrimination and human rights violations.

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Read Faster & Write Better With Unriddle for Free Today

Unriddle is a tool that helps researchers read faster and write better. This incredible software uses the power of artificial intelligence to help users quickly find information in documents, simplify complex topics, take notes, and write. Unriddle is trusted by thousands of researchers and students, from the classroom to the boardroom. Unriddle generates an AI assistant on top of any document so you can quickly find, summarize, and understand information.

Unriddle AI understands the meaning behind your writing and automatically links you to relevant things you’ve read and written about. Highlight text, and Unriddle AI will show you the most appropriate sources from your library using AI. Never lose a citation again. Generate text with AI autocomplete to improve and expand your writing, with suggestions based on the context of your work. Step into a collaborative workspace where everyone can contribute and chat with the same documents in real-time and much more!