This article lists the best AI tools for college students. We also share important tips and guidelines that you can follow when using these platforms. Learn about these tools and use them without spending a penny!
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Has assignment writing become challenging for you? Do you face problems taking notes during lectures? Has it become difficult for you to work on group projects because you don’t know about tools that can help you in this regard? The right AI tools can help you take notes, write with ease, and collaborate smoothly.
According to the University Canada West, AI tools play an important role in quality education because they ensure a personalised learning experience for every student. Over the years, many organisations and artificial intelligence companies have invested millions of dollars in developing new tools for students and professionals. They can easily use these platforms to enhance their educational performance.
What are the tools that can enhance the academic performance of college students? How can students use these platforms? Let’s learn about these tools and make our academic journey hassle-free.
Top Points to Remember:
- ChatGPT is a versatile AI tool for writing essays, solving queries, and generating ideas. It is ideal for all academic levels.
- Perplexity acts like a research assistant, providing citation-based summaries and reducing the need for endless browser tabs.
- Notion AI & Obsidian help organise lecture notes and personal knowledge through smart templates and offline access.
- Grammarly enhances grammar, structure, and tone, making your writing clearer and more professional. It is perfect for essays and reports.
- Caktus AI & GitHub Copilot are ideal for recording lectures, summarising group sessions, and coding. This is especially helpful for students in tech and engineering.
What Are the Best AI Tools for College Students? Top Free Options!
It has become nearly impossible for students to continue their academic journey without utilising AI tools. However, this use is not as simple as it sounds. It brings several challenges for educational professionals.
For instance, AI tools can help you create an essay for any subject. You can face severe penalties if you don’t edit the first draft carefully because it can include plagiarised and AI content. To avoid this factor, students can seek assistance from reputable college essay writing services. The Academic Papers UK has expert human writers who can write your homework with perfection.
Here are the best AI tools for college students that are completely free. You will be able to use them without getting any training. Let’s take a glance at these tools!
1. ChatGPT
As per ChatGPT, it is a free AI tool that students and professionals use to complete their tasks easily. This is supported by the latest and most advanced language model. This tool will help students in various academic tasks. For instance, it will answer your complex queries. Let’s say you are facing difficulties finding a historical reference for a topic. It will help you to find the best source, whether it is a book or a research paper. Additionally, ChatGPT will help you write essays and debug code, in addition to getting news ideas. It can also explain complex concepts.
This is the best and free AI tool for college students. It can significantly enhance your learning and productivity. However, some of its features will come at a price. The free version will be enough to complete all the tasks. Students of every level can easily use it. You can receive help in various areas, including homework assistance and programming support. Whether you’re creating a marketing campaign or learning about an economic theory, ChatGPT will be your intelligent partner.
Please remember that this tool will not be able to pull the latest data. It will not access the latest information for research articles. Sometimes, it may produce outdated responses. You can easily overcome these issues during the editing process.
However, users should note that it doesn’t pull data in real time from academic databases, and it may occasionally produce incorrect or outdated responses. Always verify its suggestions with reliable sources, especially for academic submissions.
Here are tips that you can follow to use this amazing tool:
- You must always provide a clear prompt without any ambiguity.
- Ask this tool to enhance your prompts and add necessary information.
- You can also use it to generate references.
2. Perplexity
According to the Demand Sage, Perplexity has more than 15 million monthly active users. It will be an intelligence research assistant. This tool will effectively streamline your data collection process and cite all the information. It is not like a traditional search engine. Perplexity will understand your query with the help of the latest natural language model and then provide an answer. It will also create organised summaries for your text and provide direct links. By using this tool, you will feel that you are chatting with an AI librarian.
This tool will be especially beneficial for you to write essays and assignments. It will also help you to prepare for exams. Perplexity will reduce the need for dozens of browser tabs, and it will produce citation-supported responses. Whether you are understanding a scientific topic or reviewing literature, Perplexity will provide a focused experience. It will be especially beneficial for students who are working on research papers and conducting discriminant analysis.
Students can follow these tips to use Perplexity:
- You must verify all the sources. Students will verify these sources through various platforms, such as Google Scholar and online research libraries.
- You can easily use multiple queries for detailed notes. You can change the content of a query every time.
- This is among the best AI tools for college students if they are working on unfamiliar topics. It will help you first understand the topic and then work on it.
Students need to remember that it does not have in-depth expertise in technical or academic topics. Be careful when producing content for these subjects. It may generate poor references for your query. However, this quality depends on your question. You may enhance your prompt to reduce the risk of errors.
3. Notion AI
Notion is the best AI tool for college students. It plays an important role in organising notes and tasks. They are also beneficial for managing class materials. You can integrate this tool into the education plan with a free email. You can even enhance your productivity by combining it with other AI tools, such as ChatGPT. Notion AI incorporates intelligent features that can support you in your academic endeavours. This includes automatic summarisation and grammar correction. Moreover, you can also enhance the process of text generation.
Whether you are creating lecture summaries or study guides, AI will allow you to start and write faster. It will become a fingertip task for you to stay organised. For instance, you can paste your raw notes into the Notion App. Students can easily create multiple categories in this app to track things more efficiently. While using this tool, you will feel as though you have a study partner who is always there to assist you.
Students need to remember these tips before using the best AI for study notes:
- You don’t have to invent a new meal. Students can easily use the existing templates. Furthermore, you can also use embedded AI prompts. This will streamline your note-taking and essay-writing process.
- Accessing summaries of various tasks always remains a challenge for students. However, they can easily overcome this issue. They can filter by keywords. These keywords will help you access summaries without encountering any problems.
- Don’t try to follow everything blindly. You will need to cross-check the point. Students will match this content with the syllabus or the professor’s notes.
4. Obsidian AI
Obsidian is not your ordinary note-taking app. This is a powerful knowledge management system that will run locally on your device. You can easily access Obsidian AI with its free plan. Students can take advantage of various features. These features will include AI-generated summaries and text generation. It will empower you to get complete control over their data. Obsidian will ensure a unique network approach. You can easily create atomic notes. Students will link all these notes through backlinks and tags. This structure will let you build personal knowledge.
This app will empower you to connect different ideas. Obsidian will enhance this structure by answering natural-language questions from your notes. It will help you draft your content with the right text. Do you know why Obsidian is the best AI tool for college students? This is the first offline tool that will keep everything organised on your device. This is a perfect option for privacy-conscious students. You can also use it if you face issues with unreliable internet access.
Follow these tips and earn high grades:
- You must use Graph View to avoid hassle. This view will be beneficial to see visual topic connections.
- You can easily build a daily learning note. Students can easily do it with a pre-designed template. These templates will be beneficial for generating summaries.
- After installing this app or visiting the website, you can easily start with basic vaults. These vaults will include Biology or Coding. You can easily grow from there.
5. Grammarly
Grammarly is one of the best AI tools for engineering students, not only for engineering learning but also for other CS or law students. This is an effective tool for every learner to improve their writing without hassle. The free plan will empower you to avoid grammar and spelling mistakes. Additionally, it empowers you to avoid punctuation errors. It will make your tone clear and enhance your structure. Whether you’re working on a term paper or writing an engineering report, Grammarly will ensure that your content remains professional.
Without spending a penny, you can easily integrate this tool with various platforms. These platforms include Google Docs, Gmail, and Microsoft Word. Therefore, it remains the most effective AI tool for both academic and personal communication. Grammarly will become a real asset for you if you plan to rewrite an entire paper. It can rephrase complex sentences with a single click. If you always remain conscious of your writing style, Grammarly will provide multiple alternatives.
Here are a few guidelines for students to follow:
- Always click the rewrite button. This allows you to explore various sentence variations. This plays an important role in enhancing the style of your essay or assignment. This way, it will become easy for you to earn high grades.
- Many students use this tool alone. However, this is not a recommended approach. It is beneficial for you to combine it with ChatGPT or other AI tools. It will improve the grammar flow. You can also use it to enhance the flow of your writing. If you use Grammarly for your writing, it will become easier for your reader to read your essay or assignment.
- You will need to review Grammarly suggestions carefully. Sometimes, its recommendations are not appropriate. You can’t accept changes blindly.
6. Caktus AI
Caktus AI is an innovative tool that always acts as an AI-powered assistant. This is the best AI college tool for college students, helping them record and transcribe. It is also beneficial to summarise classes and study sessions. Have you been looking for a tool renowned for its multitasking capabilities? This tool is specifically designed for multitasking. Its free version will allow you to capture audio and make smart bullet points. In addition, you can also keep a record of past lectures.
Sometimes, students need to work on group projects. Without an effective tool, it will be difficult for them to collaborate. This platform will make collaboration a fingertip task. Usually, you don’t understand a topic when you try to take notes quickly. However, this app will empower you to record a study session. You don’t have to pay anything for this platform. After recording it, you can easily transcribe the entire recording session. Furthermore, it will be easy for you to access this session through a keyword.
You can enjoy tagging options with this tool. It will become easy for you to generate summaries for your study sessions. Let’s say the duration of your session is more than one hour. It will be an uphill battle for you to transcribe this recording. With this app or tool, you will not face this type of problem. Instead, it will write structured notes for you based on the recording session.
Here are a few things you need to remember while using this app:
- This app is not just for lectures. You can also use it for group meetings. Students can also utilise it to record a conversation and make communication transparent.
- You can easily turn on the noise reduction feature. This feature will be especially beneficial for large lecture halls. This will help you capture clearer audio.
7. GitHub Copilot
As per the GitHub Blog, more than 50,000 organisations have adopted this platform for various purposes. Do you know who developed this model? GitHub professionals are behind this project. OpenAI Codex powers this platform. This will always remain the best AI tool for college students working on computer science or engineering projects.
GitHub Copilot will work perfectly in various code editors. These editors include VSCode, Visual Studio, and JetBrains IDEs. This way, you will get the latest code suggestions. You will be able to know whether a function is completed automatically or not. What is the best part of this tool? Microsoft will provide free access to verified students. You can use the option of the GitHub Student Developer Pack.
You don’t have to start it from a blank screen. Copilot will empower you to generate boilerplate code and fix bugs. You can also complete various functions with just a few clicks. This will support multiple programming languages. These languages include Python, C++, and CSS. Do you face problems when writing assignments for CS projects? You get assistance from these tools.
This will also support your learning journey. For instance, you can easily add inline comments that will include all the necessary information about the code.
You can follow these tips to shine in your academic journey:
- You will always need to review and edit code carefully. You must do it before the final submission. An error here can destroy the impact of your project.
- You must use specific prompts. These prompts will be beneficial for generating C++. You can even generate it for a linked list.
- You can easily combine it with online compilers. This will allow debuggers to perform quick testing.
8. SciSpace
SciSpace has become a game-changer for college students. It will help you manage academic content without facing problems. This tool is originally built to format research papers. If you succeed in formatting your research paper carefully, the chances of its publication will increase significantly. It has become an AI-powered PDF reader that simplifies the reading process. With numerous free tools, students can summarise complex sections of their research papers.
They also get error-free citations from this tool. Furthermore, creating Q&A flashcards becomes easy. You can easily pull metadata from research papers. The interesting part? You will complete all tasks within a single interface. Whether you are reviewing journal articles or preparing for an exam, SciSpace will save you a significant amount of time.
You can simply upload a document to this tool. Students can also use the option of a browser extension. To save time, you can ask a lot of queries. For instance, you can ask: What are the limitations of this research article? As a result, it will generate accurate paragraphs and references according to the nature of your query.
Here is why this is beneficial for your research journey:
- This tool is especially helpful for literature reviews and exam preparation. It is also effective to manage all the citations. It will highlight everything for future reference.
- No worries if you don’t want to overwhelm your laptop. You can simply use a browser extension. This way, it becomes easy for you to access summaries.
- You can export content into Zotero and Notion. Students will also integrate it to build a research database.
- You can combine flashcards with spaced repetition tools. This tool will serve as the best memory option for you.
9. Wolfram Alpha
Wolfram Alpha is not an ordinary search engine. Instead, it is the best AI tool for college students. This intelligence platform is built to solve complex equations. It can easily run detailed calculations. It will provide error-free information in various subjects. You can confidently use it in mathematics, chemistry, and statistics. With the free version, students will get access to powerful solutions. This will help you overcome academic challenges without breaking the bank.
From solving definite integrals to calculating molar masses, this tool will bring clarity to your study sessions. This can also work well for visualising projectile motion. Please note that this tool is widely used for homework checking. You can also capitalise on it for concept reinforcement. STEM and economics students can confidently use it to reduce the risk of errors in their assignments. Do you know why this system stands out in academia?
It provides a step-by-step explanation for every concept and topic. You can easily manage the entire process. These features will be ideal for exam preparation and skill-building.
Here is how you can use it:
- It will go your way if you use natural language prompts. These prompts will help you produce the best answer. For instance, you can make a query like this: solve x^2 – 5x + 6 = 0.
- Students don’t have to trust this tool blindly. They must review every logic step carefully. You will not copy all the results.
- You can combine this free tool with ChatGPT. This approach will empower you to get simple explanations of the formulas.
10. Anki
Anki has been the most trusted platform among students. It is famous for its free flashcard program, which uses spaced repetition. This tool helps you retain your knowledge efficiently. You can secure your data for several months and years. Do you face problems memorising various formulas? Has vocabulary become a severe headache for you? Is it difficult for you to gather historical data? All these issues can easily be prevented through this tool. Please note that the Desktop version is available free of charge to every student and professional.
However, you must purchase a subscription plan to download the app. This investment will be worth it for students who want to learn research concepts on mobile. Do you know why Anki is the best tool for college students? It has the best system of AI plugins. It features various AI tools, including AnkiGPT and AnkiConnect. This will help you generate content and translate various documents. Whether you are learning a new language or preparing for different exams, you can easily use this tool to enhance your understanding of multiple concepts.
College students must follow these tips:
- Students will need to use HTML or Markdown. This will empower them to format cards with images. It becomes easy for students to bold the text to remember things easily.
- Students don’t have to bear a lot of hassle to review the AI-generated cards. It will ensure accuracy at every step. As a result, students are able to avoid mistakes in their papers.
- You can easily schedule daily reviews. It will help you stay consistent with spaced repetition. This way, you can clear your concepts and perform exceptionally in every task.
Is ChatGPT Free for Students?
Yes, ChatGPT is free for students. However, there are certain limitations for them. The reason? It offers several features that are included with a subscription plan. Students can freely use the 3.5 version of this tool. This is a powerful version that answers various queries. It can also generate text and summarise long essays.
Students can easily set up their accounts. They will use their regular email address. The tool will not verify whether you are a student or not. The free version will be useful for academic purposes. For instance, you can use it to create an outline for your essay or assignment. Please note that the free version will not have access to the latest information.
Is DeepSeek Better Than ChatGPT?
This is a very subjective question. Whether DeepSeek is better than ChatGPT will depend on your specific needs. DeepSeek is a famous AI platform that is a trusted choice among students for strong performance. You can use it to generate code and design various applications. It effectively supports Chinese and English. Its many models are open-source.
On the other hand, ChatGPT is developed by OpenAI. This is a more famous choice among students. It will help you generate hundreds of ideas without spending a penny. ChatGPT will be beneficial for you if you want to paraphrase content. It will make your text engaging.
Final Thoughts
College students can use AI tools to enhance their academic performance. These platforms can play an important role in streamlining their journey. For instance, they can easily write essays and assignments with these tools. However, these platforms always bring several challenges. For instance, ChatGPT is the most famous tool for students and professionals.
This tool clearly states that it does not have access to the latest information. This means that you will not be able to support your arguments with the latest data. In these circumstances, you may contact top-notch essay writing agencies in the UK. These firms will explore several online research journals and libraries to gather this data. This way, you will be able to write an impressive essay.
