STORM

About

STORM (Synthesis of Topic Outlines through Retrieval and Multi-perspective Question Asking) is an open-source AI research system developed by Stanford's OVAL lab that generates comprehensive, Wikipedia-quality articles on any topic. Unlike simple AI summarizers, STORM conducts multi-perspective research by simulating conversations between different expert viewpoints, then synthesizes findings into a structured, well-cited report. It searches the web for sources, generates an outline through iterative question-asking, and produces a full-length article complete with inline citations and references. Independent comparisons have shown STORM outperforming Perplexity and Google Deep Research for in-depth topic coverage. The tool is free and open-source on GitHub, with a hosted web interface at storm.genie.stanford.edu.

Features

• •Multi-perspective research simulating expert conversations
• •Automatic web search and source gathering
• •Structured outline generation through iterative questioning
• •Full-length article generation with inline citations
• •Wikipedia-quality output with references section
• •Open-source codebase on GitHub
• •Supports custom LLM backends (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.)
• •Topic decomposition into sub-questions for thorough coverage
• •Collaborative knowledge curation workflow
• •Free hosted web interface — no setup required

Use Cases

• •Researchers generating comprehensive literature reviews on new topics
• •Students creating well-sourced reports and essays
• •Journalists building background research documents with citations
• •Analysts producing in-depth market or technology reports
• •Anyone needing a thorough, cited overview of an unfamiliar subject