Driven by the recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, a remarkable number of specialized software tools for automating academic literature reviews with the help of AI have emerged. The functional characteristics of these tools differ widely, ranging from rather simple search tools to interactive literature maps to complex solutions for whole systematic literature reviews. This paper presents a systematic overview of the current landscape of ready-to-use AI-based tools for literature review based on functional characteristics and implemented AI methods. Based on 56 tools collected through a multivocal review complemented by a web search, we developed a conceptual framework and a functional classification with six categories. Our results reveal both competing and complementary tools along the review process and show the potential usefulness of a structured tool selection approach.
Auth et al. (2025) studied this question.