AI Research Assistant: Summarizes Academic Papers in Minutes

July 6, 2025

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by geek-tubash

This is a submission for the Runner H “AI Agent Prompting” Challenge(https://dev.to/challenges/runnerh)

AI Research Assistant: Summarizes Academic Papers in Minutes
What I Built
I built an AI Research Assistant using Runner H that automates the most time-consuming part of academic research.

With a single prompt, it:
Searches Google Scholar, PubMed, and ResearchGate for peer-reviewed papers on a given topic.
Summarizes the top 5 papers (including title, authors, year, key findings, and methodology).
Generates APA and MLA citations.
Compiles everything into a polished Google Doc saved to your Google Drive.

This workflow saves students, researchers, and professionals hours of manual work during literature reviews.

Demo
Here’s a live demo of a research summary generated by my AI agent:

View Research Summary Example

Screenshots:
Runner H Agent Setup

Generated Google Doc
https://docs.google.com/document/d/185sCCpyYpEGqR5YJunBKpSXUglGP7EC4U2DTwpFzW7M/edit?tab=t.0

How I Used Runner H
To build this agent, I:

Created a new Runner H agent and named it “Research Assistant”.

Added tools:

Google Drive (to save reports).

Built-in browsing capabilities (for academic paper search).

Used this prompt:

You are a Research Assistant. Your task is to:

Search for peer-reviewed academic papers about “{topic}” from reliable sources like Google Scholar, PubMed, or ResearchGate.
Retrieve the top 5 most relevant papers.
For each paper, summarize in 150-200 words:
- Title and authors
- Year of publication
- Abstract summary
- Key findings and methodology
Generate APA and MLA citations for each paper.
Compile all summaries and citations into a Google Doc titled “Research Summary on {topic}” and save it to Google Drive.
Share the Google Doc link with the user. Tested it with topics like “Impact of AI on Healthcare Delivery”.

Verified the Google Doc in my Drive and shared the link.

Instructions to Replicate

Sign up at Runner H.

Add Google Drive as a tool.

Create a new agent and paste the prompt above.

Run with your topic of choice.

Find your research summary in Google Drive.

Use Case & Impact
This AI agent is designed for:
Students & Researchers – Streamline literature reviews, save hours.
Journalists & Professionals – Quickly synthesize research for articles and reports.
Policy Makers & Educators – Stay up to date with field-specific studies.

It makes research faster, more accessible, and less overwhelming.

Social Love
“I built an AI Research Assistant with #RunnerH that finds, summarizes, and cites academic papers in minutes! Try it https://runner.hcompany.ai/chat/de2ca1c8-5f87-4508-b8ef-45e67177e201/share #AI #devchallenge #students”