10 best AI tools for students

Artificial intelligence – love it, hate it or fear it, AI is part of our life now. 

To make the most of this, it’s important to know which are the best AI tools for you.

From medicine to transport, there are hundreds of AI-powered tools and applications available for everything, and anyone on the Internet can dabble with them.

ChatGPT may be the most famous among students, but it’s by no means the only tool out there that can take you from just a regular student to one of the best students in your class.

But before you start using just about any AI tool out there, you first have to beware the risks.

The hidden dangers of AI

We’re not saying that AI will take over the world and destroy everything. But as AI grows more sophisticated and widespread, so do the voices warning against its potential dangers. 

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, in particular, is a highly-discussed topic for its potential to cause misinformation, plagiarism, copyright infringements and harmful content.

Just recently, European lawmakers passed the world’s first major act to regulate AI’s usage in predictive policing and systems that use biometric information to infer an individual’s race, religion, or sexual orientation.

To many students, these are dangers that are out of sight and out of mind — until using AI tools get them in trouble.

In the best-case scenario, using ChatGPT helps you write essays with unusually formal tones, no human touch, overly complex sentence structures, incorrect information, and unnecessarily long and wordy paragraphs written in passive form.

In the worst-case scenario, your teacher spots you copying from ChatGPT and either fails, suspends or expels you from school or college. If you’re an international student, you stand to get kicked out of the country as well.

That’s not to say you can’t use any AI tool at all.

You just have to be smart and know which are the best AI tools and services for students.

The best AI tools for students

Grammarly 

Grammarly uses a powerful AI algorithm to offer real-time suggestions on your document, website, or even social media. It suggests grammar improvements, picks out incorrect spelling and even detects your content tone and writing style to offer the right suggestions.

The multi-platform support aspect is what makes it so fantastic. Grammarly works across your desktop and browsers, even integrating with Microsoft Word, Outlook and Excel. 

Most students can use it for free, but Grammarly offers a premium tier starting from US$12 a month.

The premium tiers include extra features such as a plagiarism checker, text generation, style guides and even an analytics dashboard.

Otter.ai

We’re big fans of Otter.ai, and you should be, too. 

It’s a great, AI-powered assistant that helps anyone record, transcribe and even organise recordings and conversations. 

You can transcribe conversations, both in real-time or in recordings – you’ll see text appear on the screen as people speak, and the AI even picks out who’s speaking at the time.

Otter.ai offers many other useful features, such as being able to pick out key points in your transcripts, search for specific keywords or phrases, pinpoint action items and more.

It’s great for recording lectures, especially virtual sessions and lessons that may not include closed captions. 

The free version offers great features, with platform-to-platform integration for Teams, Zoom and Google Meet, along with 300 monthly transcription minutes.

For those looking for something more, pricing starts from US$10 a month up to customised enterprise-level plans. 

Notion 

You might already be familiar with Notion, a popular management platform that allows anyone to organise their work, projects and life in one place.

Users can build their own workplace using blocks of text boxes, to-do lists, tables, databases, and even embedded videos or web clips. And now, they’ve stepped up their game by integrating AI.

Notion AI breaks down technical jargon, translates languages and even edits your voice and tone.

For example, typing in SSO will immediately produce a pop-up saying “Single Sign-On,” making it easier for its user to understand.

The platform can also analyse meeting notes to generate the next steps instantly, provide summaries across hundreds of items and provide short insights from your own notes. 

What makes Notion AI different from its competitors is that its in-app integration allows for seamless work.

There’s no need to switch back and forth between your notes and a separate AI-powered tool, when AI is already integrated across the place where you’re already doing your work.

Quizgecko

Quizgecko is an AI-powered tool that helps create tests, quizzes and assessments based on a given topic.

It’s perfect for both students and teachers alike, and even corporate organisations have found use for it by creating employee assessments. 

All you have to do is provide it with content such as articles, documents, webpages or even YouTube videos.

Quizgecko will automatically generate tests, flashcards and quizzes in formats of your choice, such as multiple choice, true/false, fill-in-the-blank, and short answer.

Users can even adjust the difficulty levels of the quiz and add functionalities like time limits if they wish. 

The generated tests are easy to share – users can share links for others to access or even export and embed tests onto their own websites. 

A bonus is that Quizgecko not only creates the tests, but it grades them too. The platform even provides AI-powered feedback for mistakes and suggestions on how to improve, which is helpful for students eager to prepare for their examinations.

Quizgecko doesn’t offer free trials, but their free plan allows for three quiz generations a month. Their basic plan starts from US$18 a month, up to US$500 for their enterprise plan. 

ClickUp

Some might already be familiar with this popular productivity platform – ClickUp is great for helping individuals and teams manage tasks, projects, communication and goals in a single, unified workspace. 

Their AI-powered suite of features is aptly named ClickUp Brain, which adds a layer of intelligence to how you manage your projects and tasks.

It operates on three key functionalities:

• AI Knowledge Manager, which acts like a smart search assistant
• AI Project Manager, which automates various project management functions
• AI Writer for Work, which helps with writing tasks and expanding on brief notes.

While it’s still a work in progress, the platform already offers many handy features at the cost of US$5 a month, such as voice and video transcription, 100+ pre-built prompts and templates, automatic team updates and more. 

Slidesgo 

We all know that Canva is a popular option when it comes to designing presentations and decks. It’s the same with Slidesgo, but they take it up a notch when it comes to creating your next big presentation.

Students can input the topic of their presentation and choose a visual style into Slidesgo, and the platform will produce a draft with slides and layouts to jumpstart your creative process.

It’s the perfect helper when you lack inspiration or are running short on time.

The beauty of the platform is you can change the text, fonts, colours, images and layouts to your liking.

Another bonus? Free images and icons from Freepik and Flaticon. 

The application still offers a premium tier for more unique, editable templates that start from US$13.05, but its AI feature is 100% free and doesn’t require additional installation. 

Google Gemini

For when you don’t feel like flipping through multiple articles and blogs to find out how to do something.

Ever tried to look up how to line your baking tray with parchment paper, and instead, you ended up reading through 600 words about how someone’s grandmother nurtured their love for baking, five photos of their Le Creuset collection, and a sponsored shoutout? Believe us, we’ve been there.

Google Gemini makes it easier for you to find the information you need, with responses double-checked by Google Search. Their platform explicitly states that while Gemini doesn’t always get it right, they highlight important pointers you can refer to and look up to streamline your search progress. 

This means when you type in “How do I line a baking tray?”, Gemini explains it exactly how you want it. It provides short, simple steps for square, rectangle and round pans, while providing a couple of tips, such as using a non-stick cooking spray and even quick video options for visual learners. 

The best part? Gemini has real-time access to Google’s search index, unlike GPT-4. This means the bot can draw on data pulled from the Internet to answer queries, fine-tuning its output to display specific data.

Similar to ChatGPT, most features are free, with an option to upgrade to Gemini Advanced, an upgrade that is Google’s largest and most capable state-of-the-art AI model yet.

It is far more capable at highly complex tasks like coding, logical reasoning, following nuanced instructions and collaborating on creative projects as compared to the free version. 

To get Gemini Advanced, users will have to purchase the AI Premium option from Google which includes two terabytes of storage, extra member benefits and access to Google experts.

Explain Like I’m Five

While there is a great subreddit for real experts to provide layperson-friendly explanations, Explain Like I’m Five (ELI5) is an AI-powered platform that takes complicated topics and turn them into clear, simple explanations.

Imagine – it’s been a really long day, and you’ve been trying to wrap your head around the concept of the butterfly effect. A quick Internet search will have you looking through pages of the 2004 American science fiction thriller film of the same name, reviews about games using the butterfly effect system such as Until Dawn and Life is Strange, or lengthy articles about chaos theory.

ELI5 will explain the concept to you in two simple sentences – the butterfly effect is a concept in chaos theory that suggests a small change in one part of a system can have large effects on another part of the system.

It’s named after the idea that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in one location could potentially cause a tornado in another location. 

The platform goes a step further by giving an example: think of a pebble thrown into a calm pond. The small disturbance created by the pebble creates ripples that spread out and influence the entire water surface, possibly disturbing a sleeping creature such as a water snake or a crocodile hidden beneath the surface.

To top it all off, it also provides a verifiable fact about the butterfly effect. It was coined by mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz, who introduced the idea in a scientific paper in 1972. This concept has since become popular in various fields, including meteorology, physics, economics, and even social sciences.

ELI5 is a great platform to use on the days you don’t feel like thinking too much. The platform even offers a witty sarcasm filter for fun, and a “I’m Feeling-” filter ranging from “Pretty Dumb” to “Pretty Smart” that will calibrate the way the answer is presented to you.

The platform offers free tokens daily, allowing up to three questions before prompting users to check out their pricing plans. Plans start from US$3.99 to US$11.99 a month, which includes a seven-day free trial.

Socratic 

Socratic is a free learning app developed by Google that’s aimed at high school and college students to help with their studies. It’s available on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

Their tagline is “Get Unstuck. Learn Better.” As it says, Socratic helps students by providing explanations and tutorials to any question they have trouble with. 

What makes Socratic such a favourite is the app’s ability to provide not just text explanations, but also interactive tutorials, simulations, videos and even visual aids like diagrams and charts. It’s one of the best AI tools for visual learners out there.

To use the app, students can type in questions or even take a picture using their device’s camera, such as a math equation.

Recent updates even include voice aid – students can now ask questions directly!

Socratic will assess the equation and provide a breakdown, explanation and even visual guides to help its user understand the problem better.

Mendeley

Mendeley is a reference management programme designed especially for academic research.

If you’re working on a dissertation or your final year thesis, this can be especially handy to deal with all those research papers and PDFs you’ve been saving.

The platform allows users to add and upload papers and documents, simplifying your workflow and making your referencing process much easier.

Mendeley automatically extracts key information like titles, authors, and publication details — saving you time and effort. A lot of it.

You can also add your own tags and notes to further categorise your research, which is especially useful if you’re working with different topics.

You can then search and insert individual or multiple references and bibliographies in just a few clicks, and even collaborate with friends or teammates.

The best part? It comes with a citation plugin for Microsoft World, allowing you to check and insert citations when needed without tabbing out. Gone are the headaches of keeping track of citations and formatting references (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

Mendeley offers subscription plans that start from US$4.99 a month with 5GB of storage.