Consensus responsibly uses AI to help conduct effective research. It is not a chatbot but a search engine that is designed to take in research questions, find relevant insights within research papers, and synthesize the results using the power of large language models. It has subject matter coverage that ranges from medical research and physics to social sciences and economics.
The current version is just the first iteration. Not all searches work perfectly, and bugs will exist tells the current disclaimer.
Consensus only searches through peer-reviewed scientific research articles to find the most credible insights to your queries. They recommend asking only questions related to topics that have likely been studied by scientists.
Examples from their website of queries that perform well and have loads of relevant research include:
- What are the benefits of mindfulness meditation?
- Does spanking impact childhood development?
- “Does NO3 improve exercise performance?”
- “What predicts success for a start-up founder?”
- “What is the impact of climate change on GDP?”
- “Is creatine safe?”
- “Is social media bad for sleep?”
- “What is the best treatment for restless leg syndrome?”
- “Do direct cash transfers reduce poverty?”
Although there is no “correct” way to structure a query, Consensus suggests the following formats:
- Yes/no questions
- Ask about the relationship between concepts
- Ask about the effects, impact, or benefits of a concept
- Input an “open-ended phrase” about your subject of interest
Consensus can be used as a perfect tool for product managers searching for specific product management research findings. I tried this query:
It shows many relevant results and with the synthesize function Consensus will read the top 10 papers and create an answer to your question based on those papers. Give it a try: Consensus.app