The article discusses the goals of creation, tasks and features of the functioning of analytical centers, their place in the political and economic systems of various levels. Typical organizational units with the functions of accumulation, systematization, analysis, processing, translation of knowledge within knowledge management systems are in the scope of this research. The problems of perception of the goals, objectives and capabilities of such structural units, which give rise to the erroneous attribution of them with the qualities inherent in independent observers, are identified. The already known problems of classification and impact assessment of think tanks are also considered. As an attempt to improve the classification, in order to illustrate the belonging of the names of structural units to the same domain of terms, general classification features are defined. The said features characterize the impact that is the result of the functioning of the structural unit. The possible types of impacts exerted by such structural units in the process of functioning are studied. Particular attention is paid to the influences that create the threat of introducing alien ideas into political systems under the guise of objective expert opinions through covert lobbying of the interests of economic or political structures.