There are numerous types of generative AI tools or apps that can generate text, images, video, music, speech, or even a blend of these. The flexibility of these tools provides new ways to create content, explore ideas or to synthesize information. The list of tools listed provided on this page is by no means exhaustive and new developments happen quicker than we can keep up with!
Please note: we are not endorsing tools mentioned in this guide. We are only sharing some of the most commonly used AI tools in colleges and universities.
*For some considerations on the use of AI in scholarly publishing and the responsibilities of authors, please review this position statement on authorship and AI tools from COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics).
Always be sure to confirm the AI tool's information sources, currency, etc. before using one for information purposes. See the Home Page on this guide for more information as well as the Using Generative AI page for tips on checking the information produced by AI.
AI tools for research can help you to discover new sources for your literature review or research assignment. These tools will synthesize information from large databases of scholarly output with the aim of finding the most relevant articles and saving researchers' time. As with our research databases or any other search tool, however, it's important not to rely on one tool for all of your research, as you will risk missing important information on your topic of interest.
| AI Tool | What is Does | Underlying Data and FAQs | Cost | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elicit | Using large language models (LLMs), Elicit finds papers relevant to your topic by searching through papers and citations and extracting and synthesizing key information. |
Semantic Scholar Database |
Free with paid subscriptions available. | ||
| Consensus | Similar to Elicit, Consensus uses LLMs to help researchers find and synthesize answers to research questions, focusing on the scholarly authors' findings and claims in each paper. |
Semantic Scholar Database |
Free (20 searches/month); Paid version allows unlimited searching. | ||
| ResearchRabbit | Research Rabbit is a citation-based mapping tool that focuses on the relationships between research works. It uses visualizations to help researchers find similar papers and other researchers in their field. | Research Rabbit uses multiple databases, but does not name them. FAQs | Research Rabbit is currently free. | ||
| Semantic Scholar | Semantic Scholar (which supplies underlying data for many of the other tools on this list) provides brief summaries ('TLDR's) of the main objectives and results of papers. |
Semantic Scholar Database (more info in FAQs) |
Semantic Scholar is currently free. | ||
| Connected Papers | Like Research Rabbit, Connected Papers focuses on the relationships between research papers to find similar research. You can also use Connected Papers to get a visual overview of an academic field. |
Semantic Scholar Database "About" for more info |
Free (5 graphs/month); paid version allows unlimited graphing. | ||
| Scholarcy | Scholarcy summarizes key points and claims of articles into 'summary cards' that researchers can read, share, and annotate when compiling research on a given topic. | Scholarcy only uses research papers uploaded or linked by the researcher themselves. It works as a way to help you read and summarize your research, but is not a search engine. FAQs | Free (short articles only); Paid version allows articles of any length. | ||
| scite | scite has a suite of products that help researchers develop their topics, find papers, and search citations in context (describing whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence) |
Many different sources (an incomplete list can be found on this page) |
No. (Pricing information) | ||
| ChatGPT |
|
The paid versions of ChatGPT are currently connected to the internet through Bing. The free version was trained on data last updated in September 2021, but that might change in the future. |
There is a free version available. | ||
| Perplexity | Using LLMs, perplexity is a search engine that provides AI-generated answers (much like ChatGPT) including citations which are linked above the summaries. |
Internal search index |
Free with paid subscriptions available. | ||
| Gemini |
|
Gemini can currently connect to the Internet. |
Gemini is currently free to use. (Personal Google account required, does not work with GU accounts.) | ||
| Keenious | AI recommendation engine that analyzes your document, understands its content, and compares it to millions of scientific publications. Microsoft Word and Google Doc compatibility. |
Keenious uses the OpenAlex catalog |
Free with paid subscriptions available. |
OpenAI DALL-E3 is an AI system from that can create images and art from a description in natural language. Free and paid versions.
Bing Image Generator is an AI-powered text-to-image generator transforms your words into visuals in seconds. Perfect for quick and easy image creation. Free.
Midjourney Similar to OpenAI's DALL-E3, Midjourney generates images from natural language descriptions (prompts). Subscription plans.
Synthesia creates studio-quality videos with AI avatars and voiceovers in 140+ languages. Free and paid versions.
Researchers and developers have been working to create and enhance their AI tools specifically for academic researchers to provide a better and easier user experience. They are designed to help faculty and students use AI to gather information for literature reviews relevant to their topic and tools that provide summaries, citation count, citations and resource management.
Providers of resources such as EBSCO and APA PsychInfo are developing new Generative AI tools that will be incorporated into their databases. These tools will have a huge advantage over AI tools, such as Perplexity.ai, because they can search data that is not limited to Open Access (OA). The current generative AI tools are crippled by being limited to access abstracts and full text only from OA publications, with access to abstracts from non-public publications also limited.
AI Tools for Studying (e.g. summarizing, note-taking. etc.)
Claude is an "AI assistant created by Anthropic to be helpful, harmless, and honest." Claude is known for having a particularly large memory and can summarize large documents or multiple pdfs.
ChatPDF is an AI-powered app that makes reading journal articles easier and faster. Upload a PDF and start asking questions. Free 2 PDFs per day.
Explainpaper is an AI-powered platform that helps readers understand complex academic research papers quickly and easily. It allows users to highlight confusing sections of a paper and receive simplified explanations of the key concepts. Free and paid versions.
Humata is an AI tool for text-based files that can assist in understanding a complicated research paper. Free and paid versions.
Otter An AI meeting assistant records audio, writes notes, automatically captures slides, and generates summaries. Free and paid versions.
AI Tools to assist with Writing and Citations
Grammarly Reviews spelling, grammar, punctuation, and clarity in English texts, detects plagiarism, and suggests replacements for the identified errors. Free and paid versions.
ChatGPT is an tool that lets users enter prompts to receive humanlike images, text or videos that are created by AI. Free and paid versions.
EasyBib creates citations and checks grammar using AI enhanced tools. Free and paid versions.
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