AI for Researchers: Research That Compounds

Get every source into one place, along with your own notes, so your research lives together instead of scattered across downloads and tabs.

• Research on the web with the extension: as you read, use the browser extension to decide what’s worth keeping and save it to your knowledge base in one click, without breaking your flow. It’s the fastest way to research and capture at the same time, so only the sources you trust make it in.
• Upload papers: add text-based PDFs up to 100MB each through Add Content. See PDFs.
• Add your own notes: click the pen icon (✎) next to Add Content to create a blank note, or add notes in a saved card’s notebook. Type / anywhere in the notebook to open the block editor (headings, lists, to-dos, callouts, and more) so you can capture ideas, hypotheses, and takeaways alongside the sources they relate to. See Note-taking in Recall.
• Bulk import: bring in a backlog of articles and videos at once with bookmark imports.
• Tag by topic: file each source under a topic tag like Literature Review / Attention so it’s interpreted against everything related.

Example: While researching online you save eight papers and three talks with the extension as you go, add your own notes on each, and tag them all Active Recall, so your sources and your thinking sit together in one knowledge base.

Saving a paper isn’t the same as understanding it. Distill each source before you synthesize.

• Summarize: generate a concise or detailed summary of any paper, talk, or article.
• Read the full text: the reader gives you the complete document or transcript, so you can search for an exact quote or jump to a section.
• Check your understanding: click Generate Questions to test whether a source actually stuck.

Example: For a dense methods paper, you read the summary first, then jump to the exact section in the reader to check how they ran the experiment.

This is where a pile of papers becomes a literature review. Open global chat in the left panel by clicking the AI icon and ask questions across the whole topic at once.

• Chat with your knowledge base: open global chat in the left panel by clicking the AI icon, @ mention your topic tag, and ask across every source you’ve saved. See global chat.
• Ground it in your sources: switch to Recall only when you want answers from your knowledge base alone, or Recall + Web to go wider.
• Trace every claim: answers come with citations and source chips that jump to the exact passage, so you can verify against the original.
• Map the field: use connections and the Knowledge Graph to see how concepts relate across sources.

Example: You ask, “Where do these studies agree and disagree on spaced repetition intervals?” and Recall answers from your twelve papers, with citations you can open to confirm.

When it’s time to turn research into output, your knowledge base becomes the raw material for a draft that sounds like you.

• Generate from your sources: combine your topic research, a best-practice checklist, and your own thinking into a draft grounded in your work, not the generic web.
• Follow the full method: see AI for Writing and Research for the six-part walkthrough on researching, capturing your own thinking, drafting, and fact-checking.

Example: You draft a related-work section by referencing your Active Recall tag and your own notes, then cross-check the draft against the original papers before submitting.

Research is only useful if it stays with you. Keep your sources active instead of letting them fade.

• Quiz key findings: turn the results that matter into quizzes and review them with spaced repetition.
• Resurface as you work: related sources reappear as you browse the web with Augmented Browsing.
• Search months later: find any paper or finding with natural language long after you read it.

Example: Six months after a review, a reviewer asks about a specific finding. You search a phrase you remember and land on the exact paper and your notes on it.