Learn to use AI research tools that cite their sources — Perplexity for real-time web research, NotebookLM for your own documents, and Elicit for academic papers. Build a three-tool research stack that is faster and more reliable than Google alone.
Traditional search engines give you links. AI chatbots give you answers without sources. Perplexity gives you answers with citations — and that changes everything. This module teaches you to use the new generation of AI research tools that combine the speed of AI with the rigor of cited sources. You will learn Perplexity for real-time research, build a three-tool research stack, and discover academic-specific tools like Elicit and Consensus.
Perplexity AI — Why It's Fundamentally Different
Explain why Perplexity is a search engine, not a chatbot, and why that distinction matters
Perplexity for Professional Research — 40 Queries
Write Perplexity queries optimized for competitive intelligence gathering
The Three-Tool Research Stack
Understand why no single AI tool handles all research needs
Elicit & Consensus — AI for Academic Research
Use Elicit.org to find, filter, and extract data from academic papers