ScholarAI, founded in 2023, began as one of the first academic-literature-search plugins built for ChatGPT during OpenAI's original plugin store era, letting a user search and cite scholarly articles directly inside a ChatGPT conversation rather than switching to a separate search tool mid-conversation.
That conversational-search origin still shapes the product: ScholarAI is built to slot into an existing AI chat workflow a researcher may already be using for other tasks, rather than requiring a dedicated standalone research app from the start, and it has since expanded beyond the original plugin format as OpenAI's plugin ecosystem itself evolved.
A free tier covers standard use, and paid plans start around $12 a month for more searches and features. For a researcher who wants scholarly search available directly inside an existing AI chat conversation rather than as a separate destination app, ScholarAI's conversational-search origin addresses that integration directly.
