Overview
This workflow replaces hours of manual research with AI-powered synthesis. Using Perplexity for web search, Elicit for academic papers, and Notion AI for synthesis, you can produce a comprehensive research brief in under 10 minutes.
What You’ll Need
- Perplexity AI Pro — Web research with citations ($20/mo)
- Elicit — Academic paper analysis ($10/mo)
- Consensus — Scientific evidence search
- Notion AI — Synthesis & note-taking ($10/mo)
Step 1: Define Research Questions
- Break your research topic into 5-7 specific questions
- Tag each question by source type: web, academic, technical
- Prioritize by: most important question first
Step 2: Multi-Source Research
Run parallel searches:
- Perplexity: General web research with cited sources
- Elicit: Academic papers with methodology summaries
- Consensus: Scientific consensus on specific claims
- ChatGPT: Brainstorming and conceptual exploration
Step 3: Synthesis & Analysis
- Import all findings into a Notion AI-powered document
- Use Notion AI to summarize: “Summarize the key findings from these sources”
- Identify contradictions across sources
- Generate a structured research brief with: key findings, source table, methodology notes
Step 4: Citation-Ready Output
Produce a final deliverable with:
- Executive summary (AI-generated, human-reviewed)
- Key findings with inline citations
- Source quality assessment (peer-reviewed vs. blog vs. official docs)
- Gaps in research (questions with insufficient data)
- Recommendations for next steps
Use Cases
- Market research: Analyze competitors, market size, trends
- Academic literature review: Synthesize 50+ papers in an hour
- Technical feasibility: Research APIs, tools, and implementation approaches
- Due diligence: Company background, financials, team analysis
Results
- Research time: 5-10 minutes per question (vs. 1-2 hours manually)
- Sources reviewed: 20-30 per query (vs. 5-10 manually)
- Comprehensive citations: Every claim has a source link
- Quality: Comparable to junior analyst output in 10% of the time