AI tools
In this chapter, we will explore some different AI tools that can be used in academic study and research. This is no way an exhaustive list but will give you a starting point of tools to explore. AI tools are constantly changing and evolving, new tools appear and existing tools may change to premium versions. It is worth looking at a few options, noting that new AI tools arrive daily. Each tool has its own unique capabilities and use cases, so it’s important to choose the right tool for your specific research needs.
- GenAI tools: Generative AI (GenAI) is a type of artificial intelligence that uses machine learning algorithms to generate new data based on existing data.
- AI Research Tools: There are many AI-powered tools available for academic research. These tools can help researchers search for research, analyse data, extract key insights, and make informed decisions with greater speed and accuracy.
- AI Tools for teaching and learning: There are several tools specifically designed for teaching and learning in mind. These help provide teachers with lesson planning support such as producing handouts, questions and presentations. For students there are note taking tools and organisational tools to help you get organised and with time management.
Note
Software such as Grammarly can only be used in an assessment task if it is specifically approved in the Subject Outline. The use of software that is not specifically approved in the Subject Outline may constitute a breach of Charles Sturt’s Student Misconduct Rule 2020 and Academic Integrity Policy. To get feedback with grammar, punctuation or strategies to write more clearly, submit a draft of your assignment to Studiosity.
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| Free tools are completely free to use with all features. | |
Freeware tools include basic functionality for free. Additional features may need to be paid for. |
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Open source tools are developed in a collaborative manner and can be used, modified or shared openly. This software can be used for free and often includes a lot of support documentation. |
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Paid tools can only be used after purchasing, and agreeing to, a product licence. |
GenAI Tools
Key Point
| Tools | Summary | Help and Tutorials | Cost |
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| Anthropic’s Claude 2 | Chatbot. A genAI Large Language Model, in open beta and has limited unpaid users. | How to use new Claude 2.1 | |
| Gemini (Google’s Bard) | Chatbot. An internet-connected genAI tool, powered by PaLM2 and it is free. | Getting Started with Gemini AI. How to use Gemini AI - Tutorial for beginners. |
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| Meta AI’s Hugging Face Llama 2 Chat | Chatbot. A genAI tool with a user interface provided by Perplexity Labs, free to use. | Llama 2 with Hugging Face Pipeline: Tutorial for beginners | |
| Microsoft’s Copilot in Bing | Chatbot. A Microsoft search engine now with AI-powered functionality; requires Microsoft sign-in and using Edge web browser software and is free. Can be used to navigate large content (e.g. government websites) for information and locate sources. Can add documents that are held securely, not accessible to others, for use in copilot. Provides its process of thought. | How Copilot for Microsoft 365 works Get started with Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 Get started with Microsoft Copilot Studio: How to create your first copilot |
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| OpenAI’s ChatGPT | Chatbot. A genAI chatbot with the current free public version running GPT-3.5 and the paid ChatGPT Plus accounts having access to GPT-4. | Introducing ChatGPT ChatGPT Tutorial 2024: How to use ChatGPT - Beginner to Pro! |
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| Adobe Firefly | Multimodal genAI. A suite of generative AI tools developed by Adobe for generating images. Free or premium plans. | Overview of Adobe Firefly Learn how to use Adobe Firely: 5 minute tutorial |
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| OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 | Multimodal genAI. A genAI system developed by OpenAI that can create realistic images from a text description. | How to use DALL-E 2: A step-by-step guide How to use DALL-E 2 to generate images & A.I. Art |
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| Midjourney AI | Multimodal genAI. A genAI for creating images, can only be accessed via their official Discord server. | Discord Help Centre Midjourney quick start guide |
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| Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion | Multimodal genAI. AI text-to-image generator. | How to use Stable Diffusion Stable Diffusion crash course for beginners |
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| D-iD | Video creation platform. Humanises interactions with digital world. Creates agents/avatars which can be used in presentations, videos or to chat with. | Getting Started FAQs A step-by-step guide to creating videos with D-iD |
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| Runway v2 | Multimodal genAI. Can generate novel videos with text, images or video clips. | How to use Runway Gen-2 to create AI videos Runway Gen-2 ultimate tutorial: Everything you need to know! |
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| ElevenLabs | Converts text to speech online for free with AI voice generator. Creates natural sounding voices in any language. Changes your voice with speech to speech. Access Dubbing studio for further editing of voices. | Voice cloning guide: how to use our technology safely and follow best practice How to use ElevenLabs AI to Clone your voice & generate natural speech from text |
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| HeyGPT | Chatbot. For when you have reached character limit. Can chat with larger files, websites, etc. Files stored locally and temporarily. Pinecones can be used to store larger files/vectors. Unlock Premium features with a one off fee. No subscription to keep using. Chats with files etc. | HeyGPT You can now summarize files and websites on http://HeyGPT.chat! |
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| Perplexity | Chatbot. Similar to ChatGPT but provides references from recent literature. Free. Does not read PDF's very well. | Will this AI tool blow ChatGPT out of the water for research? |
AI Research Tools
For those undertaking a more research heavy assessment, honours project or systematic-like reviews, you may benefit from utilising some of the more research focused and literature mapping AI tools. They may make a great research assistant. We have already mentioned some of these throughout this resource but there are many others, and this landscape is constantly evolving! Many of the tools can move to premium versions, so if you get asked to start paying look for alternatives and consider changing or moving between different tools. If you plan on publishing, some further guidance for use of these tools is provided in the “Where to publish: Scholarly publishing & Generative AI” Libguide.
| Tools | Summary | Help and Tutorials | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| ResearchRabbit | A citation-based literature mapping tool. Add relevant seed papers to a collection to receive recommendations for related, or connected, papers. Simple keyword search function also provided. Free to use, login with a free account. | Welcome to Research Rabbit | |
| Semantic Scholar | AI-powered academic search and discovery tool. AI algorithms assist in discovering hidden connections and links between research topics. New Semantic Reader application contextualises citations and improves accessibility among other features. Free to use, login with a free account. | Semantic Scholar 101: search | |
| Connected Papers | Creates a graph that maps literature related to an inputted paper. Input using an existing article, or conduct a topic search to locate an article. Search engine is powered by Semantic Scholar. Free tier (offering 5 graphs per month) available. | How to use connected papers to find similar and relevant research literature papers/tutorial review | |
| SciSpace | Is a comprehensive academic platform providing access to over 200 million research papers. Assists researchers in discovering, understanding, writing, formatting, and publishing their research. Simplifies academic texts and ensures compliance with journal guidelines. Free to use, login with a free account. | Introducing SciSpace | |
| Keenious | An AI-based tool to help find high quality research papers to enhance your work. Analyses the downloaded article, a link to the article, a selected passage from the article or written text and recommends similar or related content. Find ideas for an essay or article. You can use Keenious directly in Word, through a web browser or in Google Docs. | Keenious product video | |
| ChatPDF | Can summarise and answers questions about PDF documents users upload onto the site. Free version with limits: 3 PDFs/day amd 50 questions/day. | How to use ChatPDF: the AI chatbot that can tell you everything about your PDF | |
| Perplexity | A genAI search engine powered by GPT-3. Provides accurate and comprehensive answers to user queries using up to date sources, explores topics in depth to learn new things, interacts with your files and organises threads on topics. Has a copilot feature with specific aims in mind, e.g. academic research, professional research, etc. | Getting started | |
| Elicit | A genAI academic research tool powered by GPT-3. Use for finding papers, filtering study types, automating research flow, brainstorming, summarising and more. Can add own library (e.g. your own research/research notes etc.). New version can cost money, 5000 free credits to start. Considers what researchers use it for with own work (PDF's. E.g. can extract. Can create columns too for different types of information. Can use to get evidence backed answers quickly. | Start your literature review here! Elicit AI research assistant literature review tool tutorial | |
| Litmaps | Creates interactive literature maps - collections of articles that make up your different research topics. Free version allows 1 Litmap. Litmaps helps to navigate papers. It can quickly find derivatives/prior works to see what other works have cited seed paper/s. Can see what has happened in research since and where it has moved to, just from a single seed paper. | Introduction to Litmaps | |
| Scopus AI | Search tool powered by genAI that enhances your understanding and enriches your insights with unprecedented speed and clarity. Available when logged in to Scopus. | ||
| Consensus | Academic search engine using AI to find insights in research papers. Ask research questions, find relevant answers within research papers, and synthesise the results. | AI Research Tools: Consensus | |
| MonkeyLearn | Provides text analytics, creates instant data visualisations and detailed insights, supports various types of analysis. MonkeyLearn is a fully featured Artificial Intelligence Software designed to serve Startups, Enterprises. MonkeyLearn provides end-to-end solutions designed for Web App. This online Artificial Intelligence system offers Graphical Data Presentation, Text Analysis, Summarization, Topic Clustering, Taxonomy Classification at one place. | Advice and answers from the MonkeyLearn Team AI guides |
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| Julius AI | JuliusAI is a powerful AI data analyst that helps you analyze and visualize your data. Chat with your data, create graphs, build forecasting models, and more. It helps you to interpret, analyze, and visualize complex data in a user-friendly manner, making data analysis accessible to individuals without a background in data science or statistics. | How to use Julius AI? A step by step guide | |
| Tableau | Allows user to connect to data, create data visualizations, present your findings, and share your insights with others. Various products at different pricing. Can access a free trial. Students and teachers can apply for a free 1 year license. | Tableau tutorial - a step-by-step guide for beginners | |
| Microsoft Power BI | Turns data into visuals with advanced data-analysis tools, AI capabilities, and a user-friendly report-creation tool. Works with Copilot, an AI tool that create reports in seconds, generate DAX calculations, create summaries, and get answers, all in conversational language. | How to use Microsoft Power BI - tutorial for beginners Get started with Power BI desktop |
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| Polymer | Free trial for 14 days. Create visualizations, build dashboards, and present your data like a pro — in minutes. Can work with data across different platforms. | Polymer app overview | |
| Akkio | Free trial for 14 days. Adds AI-powered analytics and predictive modeling to your service offering, so customers can chat with their data, create live charts and graphs, and predict future trends. It also helps generate reports and predictions. | Getting started with Akkio The complete beginner's guide to machine learning |
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| Copyseeker | Helps reverse image search to find images you may want to use and where they came from. Great for locating image rights and illegal copies of users works. | Copyseeker.net: AI-powered reverse image search Reverse image search - things you should know |
Only API function has a fee. |
| Scite assistant | Science researcher. Accesses research articles. Assisting in generating easy tables/scaffolds from our inputs to allow for analysis of information early and save time. Free trial 7 days. | How does scite Assistant work? Scite tutorials/guides |
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| Cognosys | Free version. Connects to other apps, improves workflow and automates tasks. Provides a variety of sources plus the links to where the information was found (i.e. articles). Up to date (better at finding newer research). Won't replace literature reviews. | Agent GPT rival on the browser: Cognosys AI - beginner's tutorial: No code AI agent | |
| Aomni | As a research tool, it provides more recent research, shows internal thought process and how it found information and why. Also provides better overview of information. Includes a free trial. | Aomni AI research tool: how to use in 2024 (step by step) | |
| Notion | Notion is a connected workplace that supports docs, wikis, projects and calendar functions. It helps build and use databases and is designed to support small business, enterprises and personal use. AI has been added to Notion to also help answer questions, summarise information, and act as an integrated assistant. It has an education pricing which is free for students, teachers and student organisations and discounts for teams and schools. | Reference Getting started with Notion AI: introduction and everything we'll cover in this course |
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| Weights and Biases | Quickly track experiments, version and iterate on datasets, evaluate model performance, reproduce models, and manage your ML workflows end-to-end. Supports visualisation of data with live metrics, datasets, logs, code, and system stats in a centralized location. Helps analyze collaboratively across your team to uncover key insights and allows for comparing side-by-side to debug easily, and build iteratively. | Welcome to Weights & Biases - introduction walkthrough (2020) A complete Weights & Biases tutorial Quickstart guide |
AI Tools for teaching and learning
Here are a few more AI tools mainly with teachers in mind to help streamline the lesson planning process and save time so that the focus can be more on the time in the classroom not on admin. There are also a few AI tools added here for students who want to streamline some of the processes like note taking. Please note however that when taking away one process, that usually contributes to retaining information, it is a good idea to use that time to implement another learning strategy such as teaching someone else what you learnt. This way you have saved time but also worked towards retaining the information you have learnt.
| Tools | Summary | Help and Tutorials | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Otter AI | Creates meeting notes. Real time transcriptions. Can use to record collaborative meetings and discussions. Also has a workspace for teams and organisations. | Otter quick start guide | |
| Eduaide AI | Lesson planning platform. Helps generate teaching resources, streamline administrative duties, creates assessments, adjust difficulty level to meet divers learners, accesses over 15 languages, has a chat function. It also can help provide timely, relevant and actionable feedback. | Eduaide.ai quick run-through Eduaide - AI for teacher |
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| Goblin Tools | Magic ToDo - Input an item you have to do and it generates a list of smaller steps to help manage those big tasks. Formalizer - improves ideas/writing. Judge - helps identify tone of text. Estimates timeframe of tasks. Generates a list of tasks based on random thoughts input. Chef - Write ingredients, dietary needs, serving sizes and anything else needed to get a recipe for what you can cook. | What the tech: Goblin Tools | Through webpage. App has a small one time fee. |
| Immerse zone | Helps reverse image search using image file or sketch. Searches quotes. | How to find similar images with Immerse.zone AI | |
| ChatTube | ChatTube allows you to chat with YouTube videos in real-time using AI - ask questions, get summaries, pinpoint key points, translate content, and more. | ||
| Quizalize | Helps teachers create quizzes. Use quizzes in interactive games. Student progress can be monitored and gaps in learning pinpointed with student data tools. Can add follow up activities. Can use others quizzes. | How to use Quizalize: the basics Welcome to Quizalize. All you need to know in two minutes! |
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| TeachMateAI | AI-powered digital assistant. AI tools include free access to our Report Writer, Activity Ideas Generator, and Maths Starter Questions — to improve learning experiences while drastically reducing your workload. Supports Australian curriculum | Step-by-step instructions A step-by-step guide for TeachMateAI - updated summer 2023 |
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| Translate Video | Generates captions, subtitles, video dubbing, AI voice-overs, records voice, generates transcripts and exports files for video content. Exports of files however require a subscription. | ||
| Twee | Generates learning resources to use in class. Can generate questions, activities or summaries for youtube videos (5 minutes at a time in the free version). Can generate texts on topics with activities for students to work through in class. Can also help generate tasks to build vocabulary and grammar. Generates homework tasks and tasks to get students talking. | Twee: AI tools for English teachers to create EFL lesson plans fast and with minimal effort AI powered tools for English teachers |
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| Teach AI | Generates gamification lessons for student engagement, quiz generation, lesson plans, and other teaching resources. Also provides an AI tutor and automates school reports. | Introducing TeachAi: unlocking next-generation educational potential with generative AI | |
| Khanmigo | Provides one-on-one tutoring, lesson planning, insightful student feedback, provides suggested next moves for students to improve/complete task, helps students learn code. | ||
| Structured | Day planner that automatically syncs across devices. Can import calendars, plan recurring tasks and customise alerts. Structured assistant uses AI technology to organise a schedule based on prompts you put in about what you want to do and timing. | How to use the structured assistant |
Can’t find the right tool?
See Futurepedia for this ever-expanding list or check out There’s an AI for that for AI tools lists and their launch dates if you want to try the latest tools, or try the search function for a quick list of relevant tools.