Consensus

Consensus is an AI-powered academic search engine that searches and synthesizes findings from 250M+ peer-reviewed papers sourced from Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, and PubMed, with licensed full-text content from major publishers including Wiley, Taylor and Francis, Sage, ACS Publications, and the American Psychological Association. Founded in 2021 in Boston by Christian Salem and Eric Olson, the platform serves 10M+ researchers, students, and clinicians globally. The signature Consensus Meter synthesizes agreement levels across multiple studies into a plain-language verdict with percentage agreement across papers, while Deep Search automates comprehensive literature reviews across up to 1,000 papers. Medical Mode (launched October 2025) filters to approximately 50,000 clinical guidelines and 8 million articles from the top 1,000 medical journals for evidence-based clinical work. Over 170 university libraries partner with Consensus for institutional access, including University of Michigan, Rice University, Carnegie Mellon, Vanderbilt University, McGill University, Texas A&M, University of Virginia, and Virginia Tech. Consensus publishes an official MCP server (The Consensus MCP and Claude Connector, 4.6M+ uses as of June 2026), enabling Claude, ChatGPT, and any MCP-compatible AI client to search 250M+ papers directly. Native integrations include ChatGPT and Claude (confirmed on homepage), the OpenAI Responses API (GPT-5 integration as of 2026), LibKey for surfacing paywalled articles accessible through university library subscriptions, and a Chrome Extension for browser-based research. API access is documented for developers building custom research workflows. Publisher full-text partnerships (Wiley, Taylor and Francis, Sage, ACS, APA) provide licensed content beyond abstract-only search. Notable gap: no native integration with reference managers such as Zotero or Mendeley for bidirectional citation sync. Pricing follows a tiered model with monthly and annual options. Free at $0 provides 15 Pro messages per month and 3 Deep reviews per month. Pro at $10/month ($120/year, saving $60) provides unlimited Pro messages, 15 Deep reviews per month, and unlimited access to every research tool including search, analysis, and citation graph. Deep at $45/month provides unlimited Deep reviews for researchers and clinicians conducting frequent comprehensive literature reviews. A 40% student discount and 25% clinician discount are available. Teams and Enterprise plans are available at custom pricing. Consensus searches only peer-reviewed academic literature and cannot search the open web, company reports, news, or non-academic sources. Perplexity AI ($20/month) provides both web and academic search for users needing broader source coverage. ChatGPT Deep Research ($20/month) and Gemini Deep Research ($19.99/month) handle cross-domain research without the academic-only constraint. SciSpace (from $12/month) offers PRISMA systematic review methodology with multiple specialized agents for structured academic workflows. Elicit ($12/month) provides focused systematic review with structured evidence tables and data extraction. The Deep tier at $45/month for unlimited comprehensive reviews represents a significant jump from the Pro tier at $10/month for researchers who need frequent Deep Search access. As of Q2 2026, Consensus raised a $30M Series A in May 2026, bringing total confirmed funding to approximately $49M. The Consensus MCP and Claude Connector has reached 4.6M+ uses, positioning Consensus as one of the most-used MCP servers in the research AI ecosystem. GPT-5 integration via the OpenAI Responses API launched in 2026. Medical Mode (October 2025) and Deep Search represent the two defining product extensions beyond basic paper search. The platform partners with 170+ university libraries for institutional access and serves 10M+ users. No third-party security certifications (SOC 2, GDPR) are published, though the security page confirms data is never used for AI model training and all user data is anonymized.