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Review a paper with your own AI agent

A read-only PDF covered in referee-style comments, your replies on the ones you disagree with, and one short note recording what you actually concluded.

You start with
One paper in the folder MindMax has open, and an AI app you already use connected to it.
Time
About an hour, most of it spent reading the comments rather than writing them.
Your part
The twenty minutes where you answer the objections you disagree with and write the verdict yourself.
DownloadSee the steps ↓

What you'll end up with

  • Comments on the exact passages — method, sample size, the leap from result to claim — each signed with the app that wrote it.
  • Your replies on the same threads, so the app can check a point again instead of starting a new conversation.
  • Page images for the figures and tables it could not read as text, with the trend read from the picture rather than guessed.
  • A new note in your folder holding the verdict: what holds, what does not, and which two quotes you opened to check.

The paper itself is never edited. A review is an argument with the text, not a rewrite of it.

How to get a referee read from your own AI app, step by step

  1. Open the paper in MindMax

    You

    A PDF, a preprint or a chapter in the workspace is enough. Read-only material is fine: this workflow adds notes, not edits.

  2. Connect the app you already read with

    You

    Settings → External AI → Connect. The app reads the folder on this machine; nothing is uploaded and no MindMax credits are spent.

  3. Ask for a referee read, not a summary

    You ask · MindMax answers

    AskRead the paper I have open in MindMax the way a referee would. Put each problem as a comment on the passage it is about. Don’t change anything yet.

    Saying where the answer should land is what turns a chat opinion into notes you can act on.

  4. It reads the map, then the sections

    Your AI app

    A long paper comes back as a map with section ids; the app reads the method and results sections whole, and checks claims against the rest of your library.

  5. It looks at the figures as images

    Your AI app

    Charts and formulas are not in a PDF text layer. Ask for those pages as images, up to four pages per call, with a region zoomed when the print is small.

  6. Answer the points you disagree with

    You

    AskOn the comment about the sample size, check table 2 on page 9 again and reply with what you find.

    A reply hands that thread back to the app. The ones you ignore stay in the panel without being closed for you.

  7. Write the verdict as a new note

    You ask · MindMax answers

    AskSave what we settled as a short verdict note in MindMax, with the two quotes I should open to check it.

    The app creates a new document; if you keep an editable response draft beside the PDF, it can propose changes to that instead — never to the PDF.

Why it works here

The comment sits on the passage, not in a chat log

A referee opinion is only useful if you can see what it is about. The anchor, the quoted words and the app’s name stay with the passage, so your reply and the next pass start from the same place.

AI annotation →

A thread has a turn, so rounds do not blur together

Whoever replied last hands the turn to the other side. You can disagree, ask for a check, or leave a point alone; nothing is resolved on your behalf.

Working in the margin →

The model is yours, but the review gate is MindMax’s

The app brings its own model and its own bill. MindMax supplies the reading map, the page images and the rule that a read-only PDF stays read-only.

MindMax MCP →

Also used here: Guide: reading and reviewing with an agent · Guide: connect an AI app · Every tool the app can call · Review a colleague’s draft inside MindMax

Where it gets hard

  • A PDF is never edited

    Comments and replies land on the read-only original; a changed text would go into a new note or a proposal on an editable copy. If you need Word comments to send back, the built-in review flow exports those.

  • A real quote can still be attached to a weak conclusion

    The app can be right about the words and wrong about what they mean. Open two or three of the passages it cites, especially the one it uses to dismiss the paper.

  • Figures need a second request

    Text alone hides charts, formulas and scans. Ask for page images explicitly — up to four pages per call — or the model will quietly reason from the caption.

  • The model is not a domain expert

    A strong referee read needs the criteria you care about. Name them in the first sentence: sample size, confounders, whether the conclusion outruns the data.

  • Only four hosts are verified end to end

    Claude, Claude Code, Codex and ChatGPT desktop were confirmed end to end. ChatGPT shares Codex’s configuration and needs a restart after connecting; the other three hosts are confirmed on their first real call.

Then what

About an hour

Brainstorm a product with your agent

When the paper is sound and the open question is what to build next.

An afternoon

Have your agent annotate a book you are reading

When you want a whole book marked up for reading, not a few challenges to answer.

About an hour

Understand a paper outside your field

When you would rather have MindMax’s own AI explain it first.

DownloadAll use cases

A review you did not answer is still just a list of opinions.

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