AI for students
AI can help you organise reading, locate information and prepare a literature-based assignment. It is useful when you keep a clear question in mind and check the documents behind the results. Elicit searches for publications, summarises articles and extracts information into tables. Recall saves material and summarises videos, podcasts and PDF documents. These uses do not replace learning how an argument works, reading closely or writing the work your course expects from you. During a study day, you might find papers for a presentation, compare their summaries and then read the relevant sections in the original texts. You build your argument from checked notes rather than accepting the summaries as evidence. The practical test is whether the process helps you understand the topic and explain your choices when discussing the assignment with your teacher.
Tasks where AI saves time
- Search for publications with Elicit to build an initial reading list connected to your assignment.
- Compare information extracted in Elicit to prepare a reading table that you check against the papers.
- Summarise a PDF with Recall to identify passages worth reading in their original context afterwards.
- Organise articles and videos with Recall so you can find resources while preparing an assignment.
- Ask questions about a document in AMiner to guide your reading of unfamiliar or difficult passages.
- Transcribe a project meeting with Otter.ai, with appropriate permission, to review the decisions your group made.
Our picks
Picks set by simple rules on the verified data, with no partnership:
- Best scored : Gemini. 85/100 on our access and transparency grid.
- Cheapest paid option : SwifDoo PDF. First plan at $1.66 per month.
- To keep data in Europe : ASReview. Processing on your device.
In figures
Of the 133 tools selected for this job, 122 (92%) offer a free tier, 47% have a public API and 39 have a French interface. The median entry price, per month, is $9 (across 87 tools with a published price). 69 disclose where data is hosted, 18 of them in Europe or on device.
Research assistants
To find, read and summarise papers: 15 tools. See the whole category.
| Tool | Free | Entry price | API | Data | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Consensus Consensus searches scientific publications and synthesizes findings from multiple studies. It serves people who want to filter papers by method, organ | Yes | $144 per year | Yes | United States | 81 |
| AMiner AMiner lets people conducting research find scientific publications, ask questions about documents, and explore researcher profiles. It produces resea | Yes | CN¥0.01 pay as you go | Yes | China | 78 |
| ASReview ASReview helps researchers screen literature by ranking publications according to their likely relevance. It learns from researchers’ decisions, simul | Yes | not published | Yes | On device | 78 |
| Elicit Elicit helps people conducting scientific research find and summarize publications. It supports asking questions about articles, extracting informatio | Yes | $132 per year | Yes | United States | 75 |
| Ai2 Asta Ai2 Asta helps people conducting research find scientific papers and write summaries with citations. It also analyzes datasets using natural language | Yes | not published | Yes | United States | 73 |
| SciSpace SciSpace supports people searching and comparing scientific publications. It allows questions about articles and PDFs, comparisons across studies, dat | Yes | $12 per month | – | United States | 71 |
| Rayyan Rayyan helps research teams screen systematic review references, detect duplicates and estimate article relevance. It also supports data extraction fr | Yes | $4.99 per month | Yes | Not disclosed | 68 |
| genei genei lets people working with documents summarize PDFs and web pages and search for answers across documents. It also supports project organization, | Yes | £3.99 per month | Yes | Not disclosed | 61 |
General AI chatbots
To chat with a general-purpose AI: 14 tools. See the whole category.
| Tool | Free | Entry price | API | Data | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini Gemini is a chatbot for people who want to ask questions, draft documents, or work on code. It also creates images from descriptions and conducts in-d | Yes | $4.99 per month | Yes | Several regions | 85 |
| ChatGPT ChatGPT helps people write texts, search for information, and analyze files and tables. It also supports image creation and editing, voice conversatio | Yes | $8 per month | Yes | Several regions | 83 |
| Poe Poe lets chatbot users talk with multiple AI models and create assistants with their own instructions. It also supports sharing conversation excerpts, | Yes | $4.99 per month | Yes | Not disclosed | 70 |
| Grok Grok answers questions, searches the web and X, and analyzes files and images. It serves people who want to generate images and videos or speak with a | Yes | $8 per month | Yes | Not disclosed | 66 |
| Kimi Kimi answers questions, searches the web and analyzes long documents. It serves people who want to create presentations, process documents and tables, | Yes | not published | Yes | China | 65 |
| HuggingChat HuggingChat is for people who want to chat with different open models or get help writing code. Users can choose a model manually or let a router sele | Yes | $9 per month | – | United States | 65 |
| Qwen Qwen helps people ask questions in a conversation, write and understand code, and conduct research. It also analyzes images and documents and generate | Yes | not published | Yes | Several regions | 58 |
| Z.ai Z.ai lets people seeking help with programming or questions requiring multiple steps interact with GLM models. It also offers presentation creation al | Yes | $12.6 per month | Yes | Not disclosed | 56 |
Education and tutoring
To learn and teach: 14 tools. See the whole category.
| Tool | Free | Entry price | API | Data | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MagicSchool MagicSchool helps teachers prepare lesson plans and quizzes and adjust the difficulty of texts. It also suggests feedback on written work and lets tea | Yes | $8.33 per month | – | United States | 70 |
| Caktus AI Caktus AI supports users with essay writing, mathematics, and studying. It searches for publications, prepares bibliographies, turns notes into study | Yes | $180 per year | Yes | Not disclosed | 68 |
| LearnClash LearnClash lets learners compete in quizzes and read explanations after each answer. They can revisit missed questions at spaced intervals and create | Yes | $7.99 per month | – | Several regions | 63 |
| Khanmigo Khanmigo guides students through exercises and provides feedback on writing or code. For teachers, it supports lesson planning, quiz and rubric creati | Yes | $44 per year | – | Not disclosed | 60 |
| Quizlet Quizlet lets people studying create flashcards and review material with adapted questions. It also provides practice tests and explained solutions for | Yes | $35.99 per year | – | Not disclosed | 60 |
| Quizgecko Quizgecko turns documents into quizzes, flashcards and course summaries. It serves people who want to review learning materials, including through aud | Yes | $108 per year | Yes | Not disclosed | 58 |
| QuizRise QuizRise creates questions from files and videos, produces flashcards and summarizes course documents. It serves users who want to share quizzes with | Yes | not published | Yes | Not disclosed | 58 |
| AnkiDecks AnkiDecks lets people studying turn documents and videos into flashcards. It supports reviewing with spaced repetition, generates quizzes, and lets us | Yes | $60 per year | – | European Union | 53 |
Résumés and job search
To prepare résumés, letters and interviews: 13 tools. See the whole category.
| Tool | Free | Entry price | API | Data | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kickresume Kickresume helps job seekers write a resume for a target position and create a cover letter. It also checks resume compatibility with recruitment soft | Yes | $8 per month | – | European Union | 65 |
| Teal Teal is for job seekers who want to create multiple versions of their resume. It also compares resumes with job requirements, helps write cover letter | Yes | $29 per month | – | United States | 65 |
| AIApply AIApply assists job seekers with resumes and cover letters. It searches for matching jobs, automatically submits applications, simulates interviews wi | Yes | $99 per year | No | European Union | 63 |
| Huntr Huntr lets job seekers create and format resumes, adapt them to job postings, and write cover letters. It also tracks applications and interviews, fil | Yes | $26.66 per month | Yes | Not disclosed | 58 |
| Rezi Rezi serves people preparing a resume for a job opening. It rewrites experience descriptions, identifies missing keywords, evaluates content and struc | Yes | $29 per month | Yes | Not disclosed | 58 |
| Careerflow AI Mock Interview Careerflow AI Mock Interview lets candidates practice interviews tailored to a position, company, resume, and job listing. It asks follow-up questions | Yes | $44.99 per month | No | United States | 48 |
| ParakeetAI ParakeetAI supports people preparing for interviews and job applications. It offers mock interviews, questions organized by company, answer suggestion | Yes | $22.9 per month | – | Not disclosed | 48 |
| Resume Worded Resume Worded analyzes résumés and LinkedIn profiles for job seekers. It compares résumés with job posting keywords, suggests revised experience descr | Yes | $229 per year | Yes | Not disclosed | 48 |
Note-taking and knowledge bases
To organise notes and knowledge: 10 tools. See the whole category.
| Tool | Free | Entry price | API | Data | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recall Recall lets users save articles and videos and summarize videos, podcasts and PDFs. It serves people who want to organize and connect knowledge, query | Yes | $10 per month | Yes | Several regions | 78 |
| Obsidian Obsidian helps people write and organize Markdown notes. Users can link notes together, view their connections in a graph, arrange ideas on a canvas, | Yes | $4 per month | Yes | On device | 73 |
| Glasp Glasp helps people keep reading notes and highlight web pages and PDFs. It summarizes YouTube videos, answers questions about saved content, transcrib | Yes | $150 per year | Yes | United States | 70 |
| Open Notebook Open Notebook organizes documents into notebooks for people who want to query and search their sources. It provides cited answers, summarizes content | Yes | not published | Yes | On device | 68 |
| Fabric Fabric lets individuals and teams collect notes, links, and files in shared spaces. It provides search by meaning, audio and video transcription, and | Yes | $96 per year | Yes | Not disclosed | 58 |
| MindMap AI MindMap AI helps people organize knowledge by turning topics, documents and recordings into mind maps. Users can develop branches through conversation | Yes | $3.99 per month | – | Not disclosed | 53 |
| Whisper Memos Whisper Memos serves people recording voice notes or transcribing meetings. It transcribes imported recordings, emails transcripts, creates summaries | No | $69.99 per year | – | Not disclosed | 48 |
| MyMap MyMap helps people structure ideas through mind maps, flowcharts and SWOT analyses. It lets users rearrange canvas elements, present maps as slides an | Yes | $144 per year | – | Several regions | 48 |
Grammar and paraphrasing
To fix and rephrase text: 9 tools. See the whole category.
| Tool | Free | Entry price | API | Data | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LanguageTool LanguageTool helps people writing texts correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. It also lets users rephrase a sentence and apply a personal | Yes | not published | Yes | Several regions | 75 |
| Grammarly Grammarly helps people write and revise texts. It corrects spelling and grammar, rephrases sentences, adjusts message tone, identifies similarities wi | Yes | $12 per month | – | United States | 73 |
| Wordtune Wordtune is for people revising texts, rephrasing sentences, or adjusting their tone. It also supports grammar and spelling correction, shortening or | Yes | $6.99 per month | Yes | United States | 71 |
| WriteHuman WriteHuman is for people who want to rephrase text while preserving its meaning. It varies sentences and vocabulary, offers several alternative versio | Yes | $12 per month | Yes | Several regions | 68 |
| Quillbot Quillbot supports people writing or revising texts with paraphrasing and grammar correction. It also allows users to summarize documents, translate te | Yes | €8.33 per month | No | Not disclosed | 61 |
| editGPT editGPT lets people reviewing text correct grammar and punctuation while examining each proposed change. It also adjusts tone, rephrases passages, and | Yes | $96 per year | – | Not disclosed | 61 |
| WordfixerBot WordfixerBot serves people revising or rephrasing text. It preserves meaning when rephrasing, changes a passage's tone, checks grammar, summarizes con | Yes | $48 per year | – | Several regions | 58 |
| Antidote Antidote helps people who write check and revise their texts. It corrects spelling, grammar and typography, suggests rewording, identifies stylistic r | No | €59 per year | – | Several regions | 50 |
AI for documents and PDFs
To query and summarise documents: 9 tools. See the whole category.
| Tool | Free | Entry price | API | Data | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini Notebook Gemini Notebook helps people study collections of documents. It retrieves passages supporting answers, produces study guides, turns sources into audio | Yes | $9.99 per month | Yes | Several regions | 73 |
| UPDF AI UPDF AI lets people reading PDFs ask questions, summarize documents, and get explanations of difficult passages. It also supports translating pages wh | Yes | not published | – | Several regions | 60 |
| Documind Documind lets people working with PDFs ask questions across several files and receive answers with document references. It also summarizes long docume | Yes | $9.93 per month | Yes | United States | 58 |
| Humata Humata lets users and teams ask questions about documents and summarize multiple files. It displays passages supporting answers and allows a document | Yes | $9.99 per month | Yes | Not disclosed | 55 |
| SwifDoo PDF SwifDoo PDF lets people working with PDFs summarize, question, and edit their documents. It also supports translation, conversion to office documents, | Yes | $1.66 per month | – | Not disclosed | 53 |
| ChatPDF ChatPDF lets users ask questions about documents and summarize multiple files. It serves people who want to compare document contents or find the page | Yes | not published | Yes | Not disclosed | 51 |
| aiPDF aiPDF lets people working with books and reports ask questions and obtain summaries. It analyzes multiple PDF or EPUB documents together and retrieves | Yes | $9 per month | – | Several regions | 48 |
| PdfGPT PdfGPT lets people working with PDFs summarize documents and ask questions with page references. It supports conversations covering several documents | Yes | $4.99 per month | – | Not disclosed | 48 |
AI writing tools
To write texts, articles and content: 7 tools. See the whole category.
| Tool | Free | Entry price | API | Data | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jenni Jenni helps people write texts using research documents. It completes text during writing, inserts citations, formats bibliographies, and lets users d | Yes | $12 per month | – | United States | 66 |
| HyperWrite HyperWrite helps people write texts through suggestions while typing and passage rewrites. It can also find publications, add references, and adapt it | Yes | $16 per month | – | Several regions | 61 |
| Spell Spell helps individuals and teams write documents from prompts. It rewrites selected passages, edits content through conversation, supports collaborat | Yes | $20 per month | – | United States | 58 |
| Moonbeam Moonbeam helps people write articles and long texts. It turns notes into article outlines, rephrases selected passages, and suggests several topics re | Yes | $49 per month | – | Not disclosed | 51 |
| Nexus AI Nexus AI supports writing and academic work. It lets users find references, ask questions about imported files, create presentations from text, and ge | Yes | not published | Yes | Not disclosed | 48 |
| SopCreator SopCreator helps university applicants write a statement of purpose from a questionnaire. It adapts the text to their background and target program, w | Yes | ₹333 one-off payment | – | Not disclosed | 48 |
| Yomu AI Yomu AI helps people writing texts and working with references. It suggests continuations, rephrases or shortens passages, finds and formats reference | Yes | $10 per month | – | Not disclosed | 38 |
Other useful categories
- Productivity and organisation : RescueTime, Todoist, and AI File Finder
- Speech to text : Wispr Flow, Vibe, and Rythmex
- AI search engines : Perplexity, Felo, and Andi
- AI browsers and extensions : Sider, Monica, and Merlin
- Language learning : Praktika, Duolingo, and Speak
- Text to speech : Speechify and NaturalReader
- AI content detection : ZeroGPT and Compilatio
- AI coding assistants : AI2SQL and ZZZ Code AI
- AI translation : Google Traduction and Reverso
- AI summarisers : Podwise and SMMRY
- AI presentation makers : SlidesAI and SlideSpeak
- Spreadsheets and data analysis : RTutor and Julius AI
- Developer tools : Code to Flow and SQLAI.ai
- Meeting assistants : Otter.ai
- Audio and podcast : Snipd
- Local LLM tools : GPT4All
- Graphic design : FigureLabs
- AI agent builders : GPT Researcher
- Data science and machine learning : HeyTensor
- Gaming : Quick, Draw.
- Creative writing and scripts : ShyEditor
Job-specific precautions
Check your course rules before using assistance in an assignment or examination. Describe your use when required, and avoid presenting generated material as evidence that you personally read a source. Consult original references because summaries can omit limitations or distort conclusions. Respect rights in teaching materials and obtain permission before recording or transcribing a session. Avoid uploading classmates’ personal information, confidential assignments or placement documents to an unapproved service. Keep enough source detail in your notes to verify claims when you write and review your work.
Where to start
Choose an article relevant to your current assignment and use Elicit to obtain a summary. Then read the article and correct your reading notes against the original text. Record the full time, including verification, and compare it with your usual approach on a similar paper. Check whether you can explain the argument without looking at the summary. Keep the workflow if it supports your understanding and reduces repetitive preparation without making source checking harder.
Want to go beyond a single tool? AI agents chain several tasks on their own; our quiz helps you pick one.
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Frequently asked questions
Which AI tools for students?
The most useful categories are research assistants, general AI chatbots, and education and tutoring. Top of our grid: Gemini, Otter.ai, and ChatGPT.
Can you start for free?
Yes: 122 of the 133 selected tools have a free tier, for example Gemini, Otter.ai, and ChatGPT.
Can I use a summary without reading the paper?
A summary can help you decide whether a paper deserves closer attention. Before using it to support an argument, read the relevant sections and limitations in the original. You should be able to explain what the study actually shows and distinguish that from the interpretation offered by the summary.
How do I avoid references that do not fit my topic?
Check the title, authors, available document and research question before keeping a reference. Read the original abstract and relevant sections. A publication found through Elicit or Consensus may use the same terms as your assignment while addressing a different problem. Relevance needs checking beyond the search result.
Can I transcribe a lecture or group meeting?
Obtain the necessary permission and check your institution’s rules first. A transcript may contain personal remarks or protected teaching material. Limit sharing to the agreed setting, review storage conditions and correct errors before relying on it. Make sure everyone involved understands how the recording and transcript will be used.
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Neutrality. No affiliate links. No vendor pays to be reviewed, rated or ranked. Reviews are directed by François Chollet, neutral and factual, and every data point is dated and sourced. How we score