This section provides an overview of some of the AI tools currently available to support academic work. It presents key categories of tools and offers a starting point for exploring how they might be used. The aim is to help you become familiar with the landscape of AI tools and consider which might be relevant to your studies or research.
ChatGPT is a widely used AI tool developed by OpenAI. It's primarily a text-based tool, but it also supports a growing range of content types, such as code and images, with full functionalities available through premium licences. While other tools excel in specific areas, ChatGPT's versatility makes it a good, all-purpose assistant.
ChatGPT Edu, a version of ChatGPT for universities, is now available to all University staff and students for free. For further information, see the "Generative AI at Oxford" page, which includes how to get started with ChatGPT Edu and various training offerings across the University.
| Key Info | Details |
|---|---|
| What is it? | A general-purpose chatbot developed by OpenAI that responds to prompts in natural language. |
| Common uses | Answering questions, brainstorming, drafting text, research reports, summarising information, and translating. |
| Strengths | Easy to use, innovates extra features regularly, and supports a wide range of topics and responses. |
| Limitations | May generate incorrect or misleading information. Paid plans offer access to more advanced versions. |
| Do you need an account? | No, you don't need an account, although creating one unlocks key features like saving your chat history and sharing conversations. |
Anthropic's Claude is capable of handling many of the same academic tasks as ChatGPT, including document analysis, summarisation, and writing assistance. Where Claude shines is with coding and creative tasks such as long-form writing. Some users also prefer Claude due to its writing style, believing it to be more natural and adaptive than its GenAI competitors.
| Key Info | Details |
|---|---|
| What is it? | An AI chatbot developed by Anthropic. |
| Common uses | Analysing (long) documents, answering questions, coding, creative writing, and similar uses to ChatGPT. |
| Strengths | Handles long documents well. Capable of varied writing styles. |
| Limitations | May still produce incorrect or vague answers. |
| Do you need an account? | Yes, a free account is required. Access is currently limited in some regions. |
Gemini is Google's GenAI chatbot. A paid licence offers integration with Google Workspace apps like Docs, Drive, and Gmail, making it a natural choice for users already working within Google’s ecosystem. It currently offers fewer specialist features than its competitors, but like Claude, Gemini may work well with long form content, and it may be helpful for collaborative academic writing or organising projects in groups.
| Key Info | Details |
|---|---|
| What is it? | A chatbot developed by Google. Formerly known as Bard. |
| Common uses | Analysing text, collaborative academic work, quick drafting, summarising content, and writing e-mails - while integrating with Google products such as Docs and Gmail. |
| Strengths | Strong integration with Google Workspace; access to up-to-date web information (in some modes). |
| Limitations | Accuracy varies. Integration with Google Workspace locked behind paid plans. Some features may be unavailable in certain regions. |
| Do you need an account? | Yes, requires a Google account. |
Microsoft 365 Copilot integrates AI capabilities into applications such as Excel, PowerPoint, and Word. It supports academic tasks like analysing spreadsheet data and creating presentations, as well as traditional GenAI proficiencies like text analysis and writing assistance.
Microsoft 365 Copilot is only available through a paid licence, but note that Microsoft Copilot Chat is available for free to University members. This is a more limited product that doesn't integrate into Microsoft's apps, but does provide a conversational interface to answer your questions and generate content.
| Key Info | Details |
|---|---|
| What is it? | A GenAI assistant developed by Microsoft, integrated into tools like Word, Excel, and other Microsoft 365 apps. |
| Common uses | Analysing spreadsheets, creating presentations, generating text, and typical GenAI uses. |
| Strengths | Deep integration with Microsoft products; helpful for working with familiar software. |
| Limitations | Access to software integration requires a Microsoft 365 licence with Copilot enabled, usually through an institutional or enterprise plan. |
| Do you need an account? | M365 Copilot requires a Microsoft account. |
Consensus is an AI-powered academic search engine that draws on millions of peer-reviewed papers to answer research questions. Unlike general-purpose GenAI tools, it generates evidence-based summaries from published studies. For each question (e.g. “Does exercise improve cognition?”), it provides a brief answer and a Consensus Meter indicating the overall agreement in the research. It’s useful for students and researchers seeking quick, credible insights.
| Key Info | Details |
|---|---|
| What is it? | An AI-supported academic search engine. It finds answers to research questions by extracting findings from peer-reviewed papers. |
| Common uses | Searching for evidence-based answers to academic-style questions; identifying relevant research studies. |
| Strengths | Only draws from peer-reviewed literature; shows source papers and key findings; useful for quick evidence scans. |
| Limitations | Coverage is limited to available indexed papers; not a replacement for full literature reviews; not all disciplines equally covered. |
| Do you need an account? | No account is needed to try it out, but a free account does unlocks additional features like extra searches per month. A paid account gives you unlimited access to its features. |
Elicit is a research assistant that helps you find and summarise academic papers in response to research questions. Its core “Find Papers” feature extracts key information - like abstracts, methods, and findings - and presents a summary with a table of relevant papers. It also offers a “Research Report” feature that generates structured research reports, similar to the features offered by ChatGPT and Perplexity.
| Key Info | Details |
|---|---|
| What is it? | An AI-powered research assistant that finds and summarises papers related to a research question. It can also produce research reports and perform systematic reviews. |
| Common uses | Comparing methods and results across papers, summarising abstracts, and supporting literature reviews. |
| Strengths | Organises key information from multiple papers side by side; saves time in early research stages. |
| Limitations | May include non-peer-reviewed or less relevant sources; coverage depends on what’s indexed; number of papers retrieved is limited without a premium plan. |
| Do you need an account? | Yes, an account is needed. Some features are also locked behind paid subscriptions (e.g. systematic reviews). |
Perplexity is an "answer engine" that combines the conversational style of a chatbot with real-time web search. Unlike some earlier AI tools that relied solely on static training data, Perplexity retrieves and cites current web sources to generate its responses. It can be a useful tool for quickly exploring topics or identifying potential sources, and Pro users can select from a range of language models.
| Key Info | Details |
|---|---|
| What is it? | A chatbot that combines real-time web search with AI-generated answers. |
| Common uses | Quick research overviews, identifying sources, clarifying concepts, and exploring topics. |
| Strengths | Easy to use; often includes citations and links to sources; good for topic discovery; paid users can choose between different LLMs to generate Perplexity's answers. |
| Limitations | Sources vary in quality. May prioritise accessible web content and social media sources over peer-reviewed literature. |
| Do you need an account? | No, you can use it without signing in, although many of its features will be limited. |
ResearchRabbit is a visual literature mapping tool that helps users explore connections between academic papers and authors. Instead of searching for articles by keyword alone, you can start with one or more papers and use ResearchRabbit to discover related works, see citation networks, and track new publications over time. It’s helpful for building a deeper understanding of a research area and identifying influential authors or overlooked studies.
| Key Info | Details |
|---|---|
| What is it? | A tool for exploring academic literature through visual maps and citation networks. Note: Not truly AI, but may use machine learning techniques to improve recommendations or cluster papers. |
| Common uses | Finding related papers, discovering new authors, and tracking developments in a research area. |
| Strengths | Visualises relationships between papers; good for idea generation and identifying trends; integrates with most reference managers to import and export papers. |
| Limitations | Interface can be confusing to new users, with many expanding columns. |
| Do you need an account? | Yes, an account is required, but it's a completely free tool with no features locked behind a subscription. |
Grammarly is a writing assistant that uses AI to improve a user's grammar, spelling, clarity, and tone. It works across a range of platforms, including web browsers and word processors. While Grammarly is not designed for generating large amounts of text, it provides real-time feedback and suggestions that can refine and polish written material.
| Key Info | Details |
|---|---|
| What is it? | An AI-supported writing assistant. |
| Common uses | Proofreading and altering essays, reports, and other written work. |
| Strengths | Real-time suggestions; integrates with many platforms; helpful for non-native English speakers. |
| Limitations | Free version has limited features; not designed for content generation; be wary of its plagiarism detection feature - it may be unreliable. |
| Do you need an account? | Yes, a free account is required. Paid plans unlock more advanced features. |
QuillBot is a writing and editing tool that uses AI to help improve, rephrase, summarise, and translate text. Extra features such as a citation generator and plagiarism detector are also available, with full functionalities available for paid users.
| Key Info | Details |
|---|---|
| What is it? | An AI-powered tool with writing and editing features at its core. |
| Common uses | Checking grammar, rewording sentences, and summarising and translating text. |
| Strengths | Quick paraphrasing with adjustable tone and formality; includes citation support. |
| Limitations | Paraphrasing feature may oversimplify or distort meaning, and can compromise the academic integrity of written work. Additional features such as AI and plagiarism detection could be unreliable. |
| Do you need an account? | No, basic features are available without sign-in. Paid plans unlock full functionalities and longer inputs. |
DALL·E is an AI image generation tool developed by OpenAI that creates images from text prompts. It can generate visuals in many styles, including photorealistic imagery, and the latest version, DALL·E 3, has a greater ability to generate coherent and accurate text within images than its predecessors.
| Key Info | Details |
|---|---|
| What is it? | An AI tool that generates images from text descriptions. |
| Common uses | Creating visuals for presentations, illustrating concepts, and creative exploration. |
| Strengths | Easy to use; can create unique, high-quality images. |
| Limitations | May produce inaccurate or generic imagery; ethical concerns around representation and realism. |
| Do you need an account? | Yes, an OpenAI account is required. Image generation capabilities may also be limited without a paid plan. |
GitHub Copilot is an AI coding assistant developed by GitHub in collaboration with OpenAI. It works inside code editors like Visual Studio Code, offering real-time code suggestions as you type. Copilot can generate entire functions, suggest fixes for bugs, and complete repetitive coding tasks, amongst other features.
| Key Info | Details |
|---|---|
| What is it? | A coding assistant that provides suggestions and completions within supported code editors. |
| Common uses | Writing functions, completing code, learning syntax, and exploring different coding approaches. |
| Strengths | Potentially speeds up coding; supports many languages and frameworks; useful for repetitive tasks or boilerplate code. |
| Limitations | May generate incorrect or insecure code, and suggestions can resemble existing code from public repositories. |
| Do you need an account? | Yes, you need an account. Verified students and teachers may be able to get a GitHub Pro account for free, but for others, a paid subscription improves usage limits and other features. |
Midjourney is an image generation tool that creates detailed, stylised visuals from text prompts. It’s known for its artistic and sometimes surreal aesthetic. Initially available only through the Discord platform, with users creating artwork via bot commands, Midjourney can now also be accessed through the web.
| Key Info | Details |
|---|---|
| What is it? | An AI image generation tool that creates visuals from text prompts. |
| Common uses | Creating stylised art, concept visuals, cover images, and mood boards. |
| Strengths | High-quality, visually rich images; distinctive artistic style; flexible creative control due to a high level of options. |
| Limitations | Bias in generated images. Prioritises aesthetic output over factual correctness. |
| Do you need an account? | Yes, you need an account and a paid subscription. |
Currently, ChatGPT Edu, Google Gemini, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and Microsoft Copilot Chat are the primary tools that have passed the University's security reviews, are suitable for confidential data, and are supported by the AI Competency Centre.
ChatGPT Edu and Microsoft Copilot Chat are free to all University staff and students, while a paid licence is required for Microsoft 365 Copilot. Gemini is also free through the University Google Workspace.
See the AI Competency Centre's website for more information about accessing University-provided AI platforms.
The Bodleian Information Skills (iSkills) workshops are free sessions aimed at building expertise in information discovery and scholarly communication across disciplines.
The "Using AI to Find, Analyse, and Share Information Sources" workshop is our introductory course on AI, assuming no prior knowledge and featuring practical exercises to improve your skills with help from our instructors. The sessions for Michaelmas Term 2025 will cover ChatGPT, Elicit, and ResearchRabbit. They will run on November 3rd and November 21st, and you can find more information including how to register on the iSkills workshop page.