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The fastest way to learn Consensus is to search something you care about. This lesson uses endometriosis as the example topic. Swap in your own. Go to consensus.app and type in the search bar. You can search two ways: Both work. Consensus matches the meaning of your search as well as the exact words, fixes typos, and understands medical synonyms. A clear question usually gets a more focused answer, so start with keywords if you’re exploring and switch to a question once you know what you’re asking.
Write the way you’d ask an expert colleague. “Does exercise help with depression in teenagers?” is better than “exercise depression”.

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Step 2: Choose what to search (optional)

The search bar has a few controls. You can leave them all alone for your first search.
The Consensus search bar with the +, Skills, Deep, and Filter controls highlighted
  • + adds sources. Attach papers or Collections from your Library, upload a PDF, connect Zotero, or open Search corpus to choose which papers are searched: All (400M+ papers), Medical (top medical journals and clinical guidelines), or My Library (papers you’ve saved).
  • Skills runs a ready-made research workflow, such as a structured literature review. See Skills.
  • Deep switches on a much longer review. With it off, your search runs as a normal Pro search that reads up to 20 papers. See Go deeper with Deep Review.
  • Filter narrows results by year, study type, journal quality, and more. You can also just write filters into your search: “…published since 2020, RCTs only”.

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Step 3: Read what comes back

A Consensus search about endometriosis pain treatments, with the written answer and a Yes/Possibly/Mixed/No meter on the left and a list of reference papers on the right

The answer is on the left. The papers it used are on the right.

  • At the top of the answer you’ll see the steps Consensus took, like Pro · 3 steps: what it searched for, how many papers matched, and how many it read. Click it to see the details.
  • The answer summarizes what the research says. For a yes/no question you’ll also see a meter showing how many papers lean yes, possibly, mixed, or no. The grey tags in the text (like Sun 2026) are citations.
  • The References panel lists the papers behind the answer, each with a one-line key takeaway, its supporting quotes, a study-type badge, the year, and how often it’s been cited.
The next group, Understand your results, walks through all of this in detail.

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Step 4: Ask a follow-up

Type in the Ask a follow up box under the answer. Consensus remembers the conversation, so you can narrow it down without starting over:

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Try it on your topic

1

Search with keywords

Type 2–4 keywords about your topic and look at what comes back.
2

Rewrite it as a question

Turn it into a question you actually want answered and search again. Compare the two answers.
3

Ask one follow-up

Narrow it by year, study type, or population.
You should now have: one search on your own topic, phrased as a question, with at least one follow-up.
  • Search for a specific paper with its DOI or title, or for a researcher by name.
  • Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) work if you’re used to them.
  • See every filter in Filter for strong, recent studies.
  • See what happens behind the scenes in Paper search.