Website: https://copilot.microsoft.com/
Uses: Generates text, code, and images using ChatGPT and DALL-E. Includes links to some web resources.
Cost: Free through UT
Access: Log in with your UT Microsoft account and then your EID.
User Privacy: When using CoPilot licensed through UT, your prompts and responses are not retained by Microsoft or used to train AI models, and your information is encrypted. It is not currently approved for use with confidential university data (e.g., FERPA, HIPAA, PCI, IRB).
Additional information: UT Microsoft 365 AI page.
Website: https://gemini.google.com/
Uses: Generates text, images and code.
Cost: Log in with your UT Mail Google for Education account (your utexas.edu account)
Access: Make sure you are logged into your utexas account and navigate to the Gemini page.
User Privacy: When using GoogleGemini with your utexas (Google for Education) account, your data is protected. It is not currently approved for use with confidential university data (e.g., FERPA, HIPAA, PCI, IRB).
Additional information: https://tech.utexas.edu/initiatives/artificial-intelligence
Website: https://notebooklm.google.com
Uses: Upload sources to a notebook to be able to chat with the sources or generate audio, video, a mindmap, a slidedeck, a quiz, a study guide and more based on the sources. Also has a deep research mode that pulls in and cites sources from the web to answer questions.
Cost: Free through UT
Access: Log in with your UT Mail Google for Education account (your utexas.edu account)
User Privacy: Your data and uploaded sources are not used to train the tool.
Additional information: Introduction to NotebookLM
Website: https://sage.eta.its.utexas.edu/
UT Sage is a virtual instructional designer and AI tutor developed at UT. Instructors may create a UT Sage tutor for their course or content using their course materials to train the tutor. Students then interact with the tutor as they would any AI chatbot. Students may also create a tutor to assist them with any class.
Additional information: UT Sage
Website: https://spark.utexas.edu/
Uses: UT’s all-in-one AI platform includes chatbots, specialized agents and the option to create your own agent.
Cost: Free for students, faculty and staff.
Access: Log in with your UT Microsoft account and then your EID.
User Privacy: Your data is not used to train AI models or shared with vendors. It is stored at UT. See the UT Spark Usage & Data Privacy Guide.
Additional information: UT Spark Training and Documentation
UT provides access to ChatGPT Enterprise and Claude for Education, including APIs for both, for a fee.
As we consider how to engage with AI, it is important to understand that it appears in many tools used to do research. In some cases, you have to opt in and in others, it appears automatically.
Faculty and instructors should consider this when creating policies and guidelines about AI for their courses.
Selected library databases:
EBSCO: Many EBSCO databases have a beta feature called Generate AI Insights available in search results. This feature generates takeaways from the source.
Factiva: Use the "Switch Factiva" option to toggle between the classic and new interfaces. The new interfaces includes an AI powered search that supports natural language searching and AI generated "smart summaries."
Gale Cengage: Many databases from this vendor incorporate AI in their topic finder tool.
JSTOR: Get AI generated summaries of a source, chat with the source and find related topics and sources within JSTOR.
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global: The Research Assistant suggests keywords on the search results screen, and offers key takeaways and additional sources when clicking into the record for a thesis or dissertation.
ScienceDirect: The AI Reading Assistant allows users to ask questions of an article, get an article summary and compare experiments.
Statista: Use Research AI to ask questions using natural language, and get generated answers with links to sources within Statista.
Worldcat: A book recommender is available when you view the record for an item.
Increasingly, other library vendors are incorporating generative AI features into their tools so we expect this list to grow.
Like all LLM summaries, the output of these tools draws from a limited scope of information and has a tendency to contain biases. All summaries should be read critically and should not be viewed as a total replacement of engaging with the literature. These tools are owned by private companies and collect user data.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Generic License.