Discover
Most AI tools summarize what is known. This one is for adding to it.
Creating new knowledge has three ways to die. The question was already answered, and you find out in year two. The foundation had a flaw nobody pressure tested, and it surfaces in front of the committee or editorial review. Or a citation that does not exist reaches the manuscript, and everything else in it is now suspect. The tools researchers reach for make the third one more likely, not less.
Why
Academic research needed a process. I engineered one.
I walked into a doctoral program after forty years of engineering processes. My first literature search came back with more than 1,500 articles. I asked what I was supposed to do now, and the answer, from people I respect, was: you read them. I did not read them. I started building.
That answer is what the absence of a process sounds like. A doctorate is years of the most expensive knowledge work a person can do, and it was running on folders, a reference manager, and read them all. The same thing I had found in content production. No process. Gifted people and heroics.
So I did to research what I had done to everything else: broke it into steps and put gates with them. 32 steps across 5 phases, from the Socratic dialogue that pressure tests the question to the manuscript that answers it. Where the AI works and where the researcher decides is specified at every point, because the argument has to stay yours. Nobody defends a dissertation the AI wrote.
The first researcher through the process was me. Two peer reviewed conference acceptances came out of it, and my dissertation is being written on it now. I did not build it and then go looking for someone who needed it. I needed it, so I built it.
What it does
This is what the process looks like when the product is new knowledge.
It questions you before it helps you. Socratic dialogue surfaces hidden assumptions and pressure tests the research question before you spend a year building on a flawed foundation.
32 steps across 5 phases, from idea to manuscript. Socratic dialogue, agentic literature search, human evaluation, research architecture, and manuscript development. Where the AI works and where the researcher decides is specified at every point.
Novelty is a step in the process, not a hope. 50 to 200 search terms return 1,000 to 4,000 articles or more. Automated screening for relevance and novelty threats brings that down to 20 to 40 for you to review, each with a DOI link.
Citations only from academic databases. Every citation traces to OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, or CrossRef. None are generated, so a reference that does not exist cannot reach your manuscript.
AI augments, humans decide. No AI output advances without your judgment. The argument stays yours, which is what makes it defensible in a committee room.
Every action is on the record. Timestamped and attributed in one provenance ledger, in the same place your advisor, your committee, and your co-authors work. No spreadsheets.
Proof
The first researcher through the process was its builder. Two peer reviewed conference acceptances came out of it, at the Western Economic Association International and the American Marketing Association Summer Conference, both 2026, and a doctoral dissertation is being written on it now. Nobody defends a dissertation the AI wrote.
The lifecycle: 32 steps across 5 phases
Every step is specified: what goes in, what comes out, and whether the AI or the researcher does it. These are the five phases the steps belong to.
Socratic dialogue
The question is pressure tested before anything is built on it. Hidden assumptions surface here, where finding them is cheap.
Agentic literature search
50 to 200 search terms return 1,000 to 4,000 articles or more, screened automatically for relevance and novelty threats.
Human evaluation
The screened set comes down to 20 to 40 articles, each with a DOI link, and the researcher reads and decides. Nothing advances on the AI’s word.
Research architecture
The study is designed on the foundation that survived: the question, the gap, and the literature that defines it.
Manuscript development
The manuscript that answers the question, with every citation traced to OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, or CrossRef.
The full platform is at orbisdiscovery.com (opens in a new tab).
Bring the question you think nobody has answered. Find out together.
Thirty minutes. Bring the research question, or the project you suspect is standing on a flaw nobody has named yet.