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OpenAIResearch & science

ChatGPT for research & science

OpenAI's versatile, agentic flagship with a very large context window and a broad ecosystem of integrations.

Recommended for research & science

ChatGPT is strong at versatile work across a wide range of tasks and at agentic coding and debugging, which suits literature search and exploration with semantic search and citation networks.

GDPR profileOur summary of what the provider itself publishes about your data: EU hosting possible, no training on your data for business use, and self-hosting available. Caution applies to a model with a documented problem, such as an investigation by a regulator. How we measure
GDPR: Strong
QualityQuality from blind duels on LMArena: users choose between two anonymous answers. A difference of about 20 points is noticeable, a few points is noise. How we measure
1485Elo, independent
Editorial scoreOur own assessment on 10 of suitability for professional work, price and privacy. This is a judgement, not a measurement; that is why it always sits alongside the Elo. How we measure
8,9
Entry price
$0
Full GDPR check

What ChatGPT does in research & science

Core tasks in research & science
  • Literature search and exploration with semantic search and citation networks
  • Screening titles, abstracts and full texts for systematic reviews
  • Extracting and summarising data and study characteristics from papers
  • Writing and editing manuscripts, abstracts and research proposals
Where ChatGPT excels
  • Versatile across a wide range of tasks
  • Strong at agentic coding and debugging
  • Multimodal: text, image and speech
  • Large ecosystem and integrations

ChatGPT has a well-documented GDPR profile and, with the right business settings, is genuinely useful in research & science.

Confidentiality and GDPR

GDPR: Strong

Never use AI as a source: every reference must be traceable to the original article, as fabricated or wrongly attributed citations are the most common error. Unpublished data, research proposals and peer-review manuscripts are confidential or commercially sensitive, so do not enter them into a consumer account without a data processing agreement, and check whether the provider stores your input or uses it for training (publishers usually prohibit this explicitly for peer review). If you work with personal data from research participants, the GDPR and your own ethics review apply: running models locally or using an EU-hosted tool with data minimisation is then the safe route. Finally, document your search strategy and your AI use: journals and funders increasingly ask for this, and a review must remain reproducible.

EU data residency available for Enterprise, Edu and the API. Business and API data are not used for training by default; consumer tiers (Free/Plus/Pro) are, unless you turn this off.

Rule of thumb Use the business variant with a data processing agreement, and keep a human in the loop for decisions that matter.

Prices

Free$0Limited use
Go$8 / monthEntry-level subscription (added 2026)
Plus$20 / monthWider usage, newest models
Profrom $100 / monthPro 100 ($100), Pro 200 ($200) or Pro 500 ($500); Pro models, Codex and deep research
Business / APIfrom $20 / seatAnnual ($25 monthly); API per token

Other models for research & science

Claude for research & scienceAnthropic · editorial 9.01506Gemini for research & scienceGoogle · editorial 8.61527Le Chat (Mistral) for research & scienceMistral AI · editorial 8.41426Perplexity for research & sciencePerplexity AI · editorial 8.0–
All options for research & science

Professional tools running on ChatGPT

Scopus AIinstitutional licence, price on…Writefullfree version with daily quotaConsensusfree plan (10 Pro messages per month)

Questions about ChatGPT for research & science

Is ChatGPT suitable for research & science?
Yes. ChatGPT is strong at versatile work across a wide range of tasks and at agentic coding and debugging, which fits research & science well. Always assess the specific task and keep a professional in the loop.
May I put confidential data into ChatGPT?
Never use AI as a source: every reference must be traceable to the original article, as fabricated or wrongly attributed citations are the most common error. Unpublished data, research proposals and peer-review manuscripts are confidential or commercially sensitive, so do not enter them into a consumer account without a data processing agreement, and check whether the provider stores your input or uses it for training (publishers usually prohibit this explicitly for peer review). If you work with personal data from research participants, the GDPR and your own ethics review apply: running models locally or using an EU-hosted tool with data minimisation is then the safe route. Finally, document your search strategy and your AI use: journals and funders increasingly ask for this, and a review must remain reproducible. EU data residency available for Enterprise, Edu and the API. Business and API data are not used for training by default; consumer tiers (Free/Plus/Pro) are, unless you turn this off.
How much does ChatGPT cost?
There's Free ($0), Go ($8 / month), Plus ($20 / month), Pro (from $100 / month), Business / API (from $20 / seat). Check current prices on the official site.
Next stepAll 30 options for research & scienceProfessional tools and general assistants side by side, on GDPR profile, price and quality.

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