v2026.1CASRAI Dictionary 714 entries across 20 domains · CC-BY 4.0714 entries · CC-BY 4.0

Dictionary termTrack AStablev2026.2

AI in literature search

The use of AI-powered tools (Elicit, Consensus, Scite, Undermind, Semantic Scholar's AI features) to discover, screen, summarise, or synthesise scholarly literature, distinguished from traditional keyword search by the use of embeddings, LLM summarisation, or generative answering over a literature corpus.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 21 May 2026

Examples

Worked examples

Is an instance
Using Elicit to identify candidate papers, then verifying each in PubMed before inclusion

Counter-examples

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance
A traditional PubMed boolean search with no AI ranking is not AI in literature search

Editorial commentary

Disclosure should specify the tool, version, search date, query strategy, and how AI suggestions were verified against original sources. AI literature tools may miss papers their training/index does not include, and may hallucinate citations — both verifiable against PubMed, Crossref, or similar canonical sources.

References

Khraisha et al. 2023 ‘Can LLMs Replace Humans in Systematic Reviews?’ Research Synthesis Methods
Cochrane Position on Generative AI in Evidence Synthesis (2024)

Also known as

AI-powered literature search · LLM literature review

Machine-readable encodings

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="AI in literature search"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/ai-in-literature-search" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "name": "AI in literature search",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/ai-in-literature-search",
  "description": "The use of AI-powered tools (Elicit, Consensus, Scite, Undermind, Semantic Scholar's AI features) to discover, screen, summarise, or synthesise scholarly literature, distinguished from traditional keyword search by the use of embeddings, LLM summarisation, or generative answering over a literature corpus.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/generative-ai-use-and-disclosure/",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/ai-in-literature-search",
  "sameAs": [
    "AI-powered literature search",
    "LLM literature review"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}

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