Our story
It started with a literature review that stalled.
Litrevu is what got it moving.
Weeks of reading, and of keeping track of which source said what. The write-up was taking longer than the research itself, and that seemed a problem worth solving.
How Litrevu started
Litrevu began during Sam de Bruyn's master's in AI at the University of York. Halfway through the dissertation, the literature review stalled: dozens of reference papers open at once, a spreadsheet tracking which source said what, and a growing feeling that this couldn't be the best use of a researcher's time.
The research itself was exciting. Keeping track of what the literature said was not. And every researcher we talked to said the same thing: the literature review is where projects go to die. Students abandon theses. Deadlines slip. Papers never get submitted. Not because the research is bad, but because making sense of a pile of papers is slow, scattered work.
So Sam built the first version of Litrevu to work through that review, and it grew from there. Not another ChatGPT wrapper that hallucinates citations. Not a paraphrasing tool. Something actually different: a RAG-based system that reads your uploaded papers, finds the connections between them, and answers your questions with the exact passage behind every claim, so you can check it for yourself.
What makes Litrevu different
There are plenty of AI tools for students. Here's why we built a different one.
Your sources only
Every citation points to a passage in a paper you added, and opens to it so you can check the claim. Anything Litrevu adds from general knowledge carries no citation.
You do the thinking
You choose the papers and ask the questions. Litrevu finds what your sources say and shows you where. The analysis, the argument and the writing are yours.
A study aid, not a ghostwriter
Litrevu is built for reading, comparing and checking, the study-aid uses many university AI policies allow. It can draft cited text, but many universities do not allow AI-written text in submitted work, even edited, so check your policy and write your own.
Three steps from a pile of PDFs to knowing what they say
- 1
Add your papers
Upload PDFs, paste a link or DOI, or pick open-access papers on your topic. Litrevu cites only papers in your library.
- 2
Ask what they say
Ask your papers what they found, where they agree and where they disagree. Every answer cites the passage it came from.
- 3
Compare, check and plan
Compare papers side by side, check a paragraph you wrote against your sources, and plan an outline. References format in APA, IEEE, Harvard or your preferred style, and export to BibTeX or RIS.
The team behind Litrevu
A small, focused team of researchers and engineers. We use Litrevu on our own work. We built what we needed, and now we're sharing it.
Sam de Bruyn
Founder & Lead Engineer
Jess de Bruyn
Co-founder & Design
“AI should save researchers time, not replace their thinking. Every feature we ship gets measured by one question: does this get someone back to their actual research faster?”
Sam de Bruyn, Founder
Start free
No credit card. Not a subscription. Add your papers, ask them anything, and see for yourself.