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AI Tools

Generative AI Tools

Generative AI Tools
Feature Gemini ChatGPT Perplexity Claude
Underlying Data Gemini 2.5 Flash OpenAI's GPT models (GPT-4o, GPT-4o mini) Uses different LLMs, including GPT-4 Claude 4 model family
Information Accuracy Up-to-date on current events; has access to Google. Depends on pre-trained knowledge, limited web access. Excels in accuracy, real-time. Training data
Interaction Style Human-quality text in response
to a wide range of prompts and questions.		 Natural conversations Structured responses

Conversationally respond
to prompts for a variety of tasks.
Is it Free?
Best For Relevant and useful writing assistance.

Versatile conversations and content generation.

 Research and information retrieval. Users who want to upload documents, such as PDFs, to receive summaries and get their questions answered.
How-To-Use

AI Tools for Research

Research AI Tools
Feature Consensus Research Rabbit Inciteful Open Knowledge Maps 2Dsearch Elict
What it Does Uses large language models (LLMs) to help researchers find and synthesize answers to research questions, focusing on the scholarly authors' findings and claims in each paper. A citation-based mapping tool that focuses on the relationships between research works. It utilizes visualizations to help researchers identify similar papers and other researchers in their field. Provides related papers and shows citation relationships. AI tool for research topic mapping. Visual search tool that builds Boolean queries using a drag-and-drop interface on a two-dimensional canvas Automates research workflows, especially empirical research
Key Features
  • Allows users to ask questions in natural language and receive summaries with citations.
  • Visualizations
  • Personalized recommendations
  • Citation relationships
  • Multidisciplinary research support
  • Interactive interface
  • Provides a clustered overview of a research topic/field.
  • Leverages open-access databases like PubMed & BASE.
  • Meta search engine.
  • Allows you to choose which sources to search.
  • Displays relevant papers
  • Summarizes key information
Is it Free? Free
Paid subscriptions

Free

 Free Free Free Free
Paid subscriptions
Best For Answers scientific questions by extracting information from peer-reviewed research. Discovering literature and author connections Multidisciplinary research Researchers, students, librarians, educators, and science journalists who need a quick, visual overview of a broad research topic to identify central themes and key literature. Anyone who needs a visual format for searching across multiple sources. Streamlining empirical research
How-To-Use

AI Tools for Teaching & Learning

AI Tools for Teaching & Learning
Feature Notebook LM ClassPoint Gamma Jungle
Purpose AI-powered note-taking and summarization Interactive presentation tool AI-powered platform for quickly creating professional presentations, documents, and webpages from simple text prompts or pasted content. Study platform that uses AI to generate flashcards, quizzes, and practice materials from user-uploaded documents.
Key Features
  • Note organization
  • Summarization
  • Integration with Google Workspace
  • Interactive quizzes
  • Annotation tools
  • AI-generated content
  • Customized themes
  • Can be used by individuals or teams 
  • Features collaborative content
  • personalized learning
  • interactive study materials
  • creates flashcards and multiple-choice questions. 
Price Free with a Google account.

Free
Pro: $8/month

 Free
Paid accounts		 Free
Paid account
Performance Organizes and summarizes notes efficiently. Enhances presentations with interactive features Users provide an idea, and Gamma's AI generates an entire first draft with formatted text, images, and layouts, allowing for rapid content creation without the need for design skills. Uses advanced AI models to analyze your learning materials, create personalized study plans, and generate practice questions. 
Best For Students and professionals who need organized note-taking. Teachers enhancing classroom presentations. For creating presentations, documents, and webpages quickly from short text prompts, uploaded files, or URLs. Students and researchers
How-To-Use  

AI Tools for Creating

AI Tools for Creating
Feature quso.ai Dall-E 3 Veed Beatoven.ai Canva
Purpose AI content repurposing and video editing AI image generation using text prompts Online video editing and creation Provides content creators with a platform to generate unique, royalty-free music for their videos, podcasts, and other projects using artificial intelligence New features in Canva powered by AI to generate presentations, images, social posts, and small videos. Other features include instant reformatting, AI editing, and text generation.
Key Features
  • Content repurposing
  • Video editing suite
  • Credit-based system
  • High-quality image outputs
  • AI avatars
  • AI-powered editing
  • Collaboration tools
  • Stock library
  • create royalty-free custom soundtracks from simple text prompts, existing audio, or uploaded video content.
  • Generates several automated designs and contents within seconds
  • AI-powered photo editing tools allow for quick editing
  • Transforming formats (e. g., doc to slides), languages, and dimensions instantly
  • Several AI-powered tools make the design process easier and faster
Price Free | 75 credits per month
Paid subscriptions		 Free credits for new users; additional credits available for purchase Free tier available; Lite: $12/month; Pro: $30/month/ Free trial
Buy minutes		 Free education account
Best For Professionals needing robust content repurposing solutions Creative professionals and hobbyists exploring AI art Creators looking for easy-to-use online editing tools Content creators, marketers, anyone needs customized background music for their project. Anyone who needs to create visual content. 
How-To-Use How to Use quso.ai Introducing DALL E 3 How To Use Veed.io For Beginners

Beatoven Tutorials & Walkthroughs

 Canva Help Center

Additional AI Tools

  • Georgetown University's Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS) offers a list of additional AI tools with a range of different purposes, including visual design, writing, time management, and more.
  • Ithaka S+R has created a Generative AI Product Tracker, which lists tools by their primary purposes and includes pricing information, as well as updates on the tools' features and limitations.

Benefits & Limitations of GenAI Tools

Benefits of Generative AI Tools
  • Brainstorm: Chatbot tools such as Microsoft CoPilot* and Gemini may be helpful for brainstorming ideas for research topics, organizing your thoughts, jump-starting your work and tackling writer's block.
  • Break down concepts: Chatbot tools such as Microsoft CoPilot* and Gemini may help you break down and understand a complex concept or assignment prompt.
  • Illustrate: Image generation tools such as Midjourney and Dall-e may be helpful for presenting or illustrating your work.
  • Create: Many AI tools may be useful for creative adaptations.
  • Summarize: Many AI tools, including chatbots like Microsoft CoPilot* and AI literature search, synthesis and visualization tools like ResearchRabbit and Elicit, can summarize articles.
  • Discover new research: Many literature search, syntheisis and visualization  AI tools such as Research Rabbit and Elicit may help you discover new research in your area and visualize connections between researchers and between research literature.
  • Translate: AI tools may help you translate between languages.
  • Code: AI tools such as GitHub Copilot may help you generate new code and clean up existing code.
Limitations of Generative AI Tools
  • Hallucinations: When using AI tools such as Gemini or ChatGPT for research, they may make up credible-sounding citations to sources that do not exist, or give inaccurate information, which is called “hallucinating".
  • Paywalled content: Literature search tools such as Research Rabbit or Elicit do not have access to the full range or full text of articles that are behind a paywall. They may help with literature searching and with systematic reviews, but cannot fully substitute for a human being with access to this paywalled content.
  • Scope of training data: AI tools can only produce based on the data they have been trained on, so it is important to understand what comprises the training data and the date ranges included. For example, as of January 2024, the data ingested from the Web used to train ChatGPT 4.0 only goes through April 2023. If you ask it who won the US presidential election in November 2024, it cannot answer.
  • Reproducibility: Because generative AI tools such as Gemini and ChatGPT create new content based on their training data, the content it creates is not reproducible. In addition, because these tools create new content, you may find that multiple people using the same prompt at the same time will get different results.
  • Ethics, Privacy, etc.: There are numerous limitations related to ethics, privacy, bias, labor and environmental impact outlined on the Ethics and Privacy page.
  • Legal Context: US laws related to AI tools are evolving, and tools to identify AI-created content are not fully effective. See Copyright page for more information about copyright and intellectual property.

This content is from the University of Texas Libraries, "Artificial Intellegence (AI) , licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.

About this Guide

AI tools and their use are changing rapidly. We will periodically update this guide and provide the date of last update to inform your use.

Last Updated: September 2025

AI Tools content is adapted from Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies.