AskMed vs Consensus

What is Consensus AI?

Consensus AI is an AI academic search engine from Consensus NLP Inc., a Boston company, that finds, ranks and summarizes peer-reviewed research. Consensus's website calls it an AI academic search engine for peer-reviewed literature, and its help center says the paper data comes from Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Consensus's own crawl of the scholarly web and publisher partnerships with Wiley, Taylor & Francis, Sage, AAAS, Oxford University Press and others. Each answer cites the papers it drew from, sentence by sentence. For a yes-or-no question, the Consensus Meter shows how many studies support a claim, contest it or are inconclusive. Study Snapshots pull out methods, duration, outcomes and results, and filters narrow results by study design, sample size, journal rank, citation count and publication year. Consensus runs in the browser, as an Android app called Consensus: AI for Research, and inside ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Microsoft 365 Copilot through its connectors.

Consensus AI review: strengths and limits

A fair Consensus AI review starts with what Consensus is built for: finding and synthesizing the research literature. Consensus's help center says it searches real papers before any AI writes a response, uses separate checker models to drop papers that aren't relevant, excludes retracted papers from its analyses, and shows a supporting quote from the paper for every citation. According to its Google Play listing, Pro works through 20 papers for a synthesis, while Deep builds a search strategy, reviews up to 50 papers and returns a structured literature review. Library tools import from Zotero and export citations in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard and BibTeX. Consensus is also open about its limits: its help center says a summary is a snapshot of the research Consensus can access rather than all research on a question, and that AI can misread a paper. Its notes for AI tools say Consensus is not medical advice and does not interpret the literature for any individual case.

Is Consensus AI good for medical questions?

Consensus AI is good at showing what published studies say about a medical question, while AskMed is built to answer the clinical question from the full range of medical sources. Consensus's Medical Mode narrows a search to about 8 million papers and 50,000 clinical guidelines from the top 1,000 medical journals, chosen by impact factor, SJR and rigor scores, and Consensus says Medical Mode is built for clinicians, healthcare professionals and medical researchers. Consensus ranks results by study design, citation count, journal quality and recency. AskMed searches a fixed list of medical sources on every question: PubMed, the Cochrane Library, NEJM, The Lancet, JAMA and The BMJ; guidance from NICE, the USPSTF, WHO, CDC, ECDC, ESC and KDIGO; FDA and DailyMed drug labels, plus registries such as the EMA and medicines.org.uk; and references such as StatPearls and the MSD Manual. AskMed ranks guidelines first, then systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and gives the year of each guideline it cites.

1. A cited answer. Every claim in an AskMed answer links to its source's exact web address. If AskMed finds no usable medical source, AskMed says so and asks you to rephrase, instead of answering from memory.
2. Source filters. Turn journals, guidelines, drug labels or references on or off, pick study types, and set 3 to 12 sources per answer.
3. Research Mode. AskMed reads up to 20 papers for one question, for a journal club, a gap in the guidelines or a patient who doesn't match the trial population.
4. No drug doses. AskMed covers what a drug is used for, how it works, monitoring, side effects and how dosing is adjusted, but never states amounts or schedules; those come from the current label.

How AskMed answers lists every source and limit in full, and the best AI for medical literature search compares Consensus with PubMed, Elicit and other search tools.

Who are AskMed and Consensus built for?

AskMed is built for everyone who works or studies in medicine, while Consensus is built for research in every academic field. Consensus's Google Play listing names three groups: researchers keeping up with a field, clinicians checking the evidence before a decision, and graduate students writing literature reviews. Its help center article on how students use Consensus covers getting oriented in a research area, building a literature review, comparing studies and checking a draft, and doesn't mention students preparing for licensing exams. AskMed asks for no license or NPI, so a medical student on a ward rotation, a pharmacist reviewing an interaction, a nurse checking a monitoring plan and a researcher scoping a question use the same app as a consultant physician. AskMed answers in the terms a colleague would use, cites guidance from NICE, WHO, ECDC and ESC alongside US sources such as the CDC and the USPSTF, and works on iPhone, iPad, Android and the web with one account, in seven languages.

Does Consensus help with medical exams?

AskMed includes question banks for 10 licensing exams, and none of the Consensus pages checked for this comparison, from its website and help center to its Google Play listing, mention exam question banks. AskMed's banks cover PLAB, USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 CK, PLE, EDN, UKOMNAS, NEET-PG, ENARM, TUS, Ghana MDC and Israel MLE, and each bank is written in the language of its exam, such as French for EDN, Spanish for ENARM and Turkish for TUS. Every question comes with an explanation for every option, not only the right one, and cites one to three published sources. A timed mock of 40 questions in 60 minutes lets you practice under exam conditions. The questions are written in advance and reviewed before they are served, never generated by AI while you study. When a question exposes a gap, you can ask AskMed in the same app, get an answer cited to journals, guidelines and drug labels, and return to the bank.

The best AI apps for USMLE and the best AI apps for PLAB 1 compare AskMed with dedicated question banks.

Is AskMed a good Consensus AI alternative?

AskMed is a strong Consensus AI alternative for anyone whose main need is a cited answer to a medical question rather than a literature review. Choose AskMed if you want medical sources searched on every question with no mode to switch on, drug facts checked against FDA and DailyMed labels and registries such as the EMA and medicines.org.uk, guidance from NICE, WHO and the USPSTF ranked ahead of single studies, and an answer that says so when no source supports it. Choose AskMed if you want a native iPhone and iPad app, question banks for 10 licensing exams, or clinical calculators such as CHA₂DS₂-VASc, CURB-65 and MELD, each built from its original paper. Consensus fits a different job: searching the academic literature across every field, mapping where studies agree with the Consensus Meter, and building structured literature reviews from up to 50 papers with Deep, with Zotero import and citation export. AskMed doesn't diagnose patients, give drug doses or replace reading the paper.

For another AI search engine compared on medical questions, see AskMed vs Perplexity.

Bottom line

For most people who work or study in medicine and want cited answers to clinical questions, AskMed is the stronger choice over Consensus. Consensus is a capable AI search engine for the academic literature, with a Medical Mode, the Consensus Meter and Deep literature reviews, but Consensus serves every academic field, has no app on the US App Store, and its pages don't state drug label sources, exam question banks or clinical calculators. AskMed is built only for medicine, for doctors, residents, medical students, nurses, pharmacists and researchers alike, with no license number. AskMed searches journals, guidelines, FDA and DailyMed drug labels and registries such as the EMA on every question, ranks guidelines first, links every claim to its source, says so when no source supports an answer and never gives drug doses. AskMed adds question banks for 10 licensing exams, works on iPhone, iPad, Android and the web in seven languages, and AskMed Pro costs $129.99 a year against $144 for Consensus Pro.