Use the gallery below to find and access various generative AI tools, separated by content focus and potential uses. Each entry provides a brief summary of the tool and a website link.
Notes regarding the content on this page:
- Due to the speed with which generative AI tools proliferate, this is not a comprehensive list of all generative AI tools available to the public, nor is it designed to be. It is simply to provide information about relevant generative AI tools.
- Additionally, many tools listed here can be used in more situations than just the top-line descriptors. Take time to learn what these tools do well, and just as importantly, what they don't do well.
- Use this page in combination with the "Considerations and Limitations" page for additional information on the best ways to use these tools and associated ethical considerations.
Spider AI
Overview
Launched in the Fall of 2024, SpiderAI is an initiative stemming from the Faculty Hub's Faculty Learning Community (FLC) on Generative AI. This project represents a partnership between faculty members, the Faculty Hub, and Information Services. Our pilot program aims to provide equitable access to GenAI tools, thereby enhancing digital literacy across our campus.
SpiderAI provides access to frontier generative AI models, including OpenAI's ChatGPT and DALL-E 3, Anthropic's Claude, Google Gemini, and more. Students must be provided access by a faculty member before they can use the tools.
Please note that information classified as classified, restricted, or official-use is not permissible for processing through SpiderAI. This product is currently in Beta and will be receiving updates throughout the semester. For technical issues, please reach out to IS for support. For faculty training on the use of Generative AI, contact the Faculty Hub.
Access
Click on the image above to read more about SpiderAI and access the suite of tools, or copy/paste the following link in your browser: https://genai.richmond.edu/case-studies/spiderai.html
Generative AI Tools
ChatGPT ▼
- Created by OpenAI, this chatbot is designed to interact with users conversationally, answering questions and refining results based on user inputs. Beyond text inputs and conversations, users can also upload files, engage in data analysis, and generate images/videos.
- Click here to access ChatGPT
- You can also access ChatGPT by copying/pasting the following link into your web browser: https://chat.openai.com/auth/login
- Must create an account with email address and/or phone number. Free access allows use of GPT 4o mini, with "real-time data from the web", but with caps on the number of chats, image generation, and file analysis. Paid personal accounts get access to GPT-o3 mini, o3-mini-high, and o1, including extended limits on chats/file analysis. The highest-paid tier provides unlimited access to GPT-4o and greater limits on chats/file analysis.
- SpiderAI provides the UR community access to the GPT-4o and GPT-4o-mini models.
Google Gemini ▼
- Conversational-style tool developed by Google that can respond to a wide range of user prompts, including text-chats and images/files. It can also integrate directly with users' Google Drive accounts.
- Click here to access Google Gemini
- You can also access Gemini by copying/pasting the following link into your web browser: https://gemini.google.com/app
- You must have a Google account in order to access Gemini. Users can freely access the Gemini 2.0 Flash and 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental models, which includes integration with other Google apps like YouTube and Google Maps. Users can pay for Gemini Advanced accounts, which integrates with Google Docs and Gmail, in addition to much larger context windows and priority access to future updates.
- SpiderAI provides the UR community access to the Gemini 1.5 Flash and 1.5 Pro models, including the ability to use audio and video files as inputs.
Microsoft Copilot ▼
- Tool created by Microsoft's AI team (formerly called Bing Chat) designed to answer a wide range of user prompts. Has access to live internet results via Bing Search, and allows chats using files, images, and audio.
- Click here to access Microsoft Copilot
- You can also access Microsoft Copilot by copying/pasting the following link into your web browser: https://copilot.microsoft.com/
- Free access to Copilot requires users to create a Microsoft account, and includes the features discussed above on a limited basis. Paid accounts to Copilot Pro offer a great number of chats and direct integration with Microsoft 365 apps (Excel, OneNote, etc.).
Claude ▼
- A flexible chatbot created by Anthropic that can address a wide range of user prompts. You can upload PDFs and other text files that Claude can summarize, even when using the free version.
- Click here to access Claude
- You can also access Claude by copying/pasting the following link into your web browser: https://claude.ai/login?returnTo=%2F
- You must create an account to use Claude, either using a personal email address or your Google account. The free version limits the number of prompts per day, and you can upload ~5 PDF documents (no larger than 10 megabytes) every four hours. The paid version allows a greater number of daily prompts.
- SpiderAI provides the UR community access to Claude's 3.5 Sonnet, 3.5 Haiku, and 3.5 Opus models.
Perplexity ▼
- A resource discovery tool that uses gen. AI principles to enhance internet searches. It can provide links to web articles and freely available scholarly articles as citations in its responses to user prompts. Runs on LLM platforms from OpenAI, Anthropic, and DeepSeek.
- Click here to access Perplexity
- You can also access Perplexity by copying/pasting the following link into your web browser: https://www.perplexity.ai/
- Must provide an email address when creating an account. The free version offers unlimited prompts, but only three prompts with attached PDFs per day, and five prompts using its Enhanced feature that taps into frontier OpenAI models for more accurate/detailed results. The paid version (Perplexity Pro) offers unlimited PDF attachments and Enhanced searches.
SciSpace ▼
- Pitched as an "all-in-one" generative AI tool, SciSpace allows users to search for freely available scholarly articles, annotate and explain uploaded PDFs, and create bibliographies and citations from resource collections.
- Click here to access SciSpace
- You can also access SciSpace by copying/pasting the following link into your web browser: https://scispace.com/
- Must provide an email address when making an account. The free version offers limited access to each of its core tools, while the paid versions (SciSpace Premium & Advanced) offer expanded access to those tools.
Elicit ▼
- Focused on empirical research articles, Elicit allows users to ask general research questions to find related free journal articles, or provide a single "seed" paper that can be used to find related resources through keyword/subject term searching. Created by Ought.
- Click here to access Elicit
- You can also access Elicit by copying/pasting the following link into your web browser: https://elicit.org/
- Must provide an email address when making an account. Elicit has a free tier with all the functionality described above, and a paid tier that offers more monthly uses and prioritized customer support.
Research Rabbit ▼
- Tool that allows users to upload journal articles and create a visual map of related papers, based on subject or direct author citation, as a way to aid in the search process, especially for literature reviews. From there, users can create individual collections of related papers.
- Click here to access Research Rabbit
- Must provide an email address to create an account. Research Rabbit is currently free with no additional paid tiers.
- You can also access Research Rabbit by copying/pasting the following link into your web browser: https://www.researchrabbit.ai/
Grammarly ▼
- Tool focused on correcting grammar, offering writing suggestions for tone and style, and providing AI-generate writing prompts for papers, emails, resumes, and more. Grammarly has integrations with Google Docs, Microsoft Office suite products like Word and PowerPoint, and web browsers like Google Chrome, Safari, and Firefox.
- Click here to access Grammarly
- You can also access Grammarly by copying/pasting the following link into your web browser: https://www.grammarly.com/
- Must provide an email address when creating an account. Grammarly has a free tier with all the functionality described above, and a paid tier that offers more specific grammar recommendations and plagiarism detection.
QuillBot ▼
- Text paraphrasing tool that can edit written passages for consistency, tone, and clarity. QuillBot also offers additional tools like plagiarism detection and citation generators.
- Click here to access QuillBot
- You can also access QuillBot by copying/pasting the following link into your web browser: https://quillbot.com/
- Must provide an email address when creating an account. QuillBot offers a free tier with all the functionality described above, and a paid premium tier that offers additional monthly uses and more diverse writing tone recommendations.
DALL-E 3 ▼
- Created by OpenAI, DALL-E 3 can create images based on natural language text inputs from users in a variety of styles. DALL-E 3 can also edit existing images and create variations on themes presented in original images.
- Click here to access DALL-E 3
- You can also access DALL-E 3 by copying/pasting the following link into your web browser: https://openai.com/index/dall-e-3
- Must provide an email address to create an account. DALL-E 3 is built into the functionality of ChatGPT, so accessing ChatGPT will give you access to DALL-E 3 image generation.
- SpiderAI provides the UR community access to DALL-E 3.
Midjourney ▼
- Tool created by Midjourney (also the name for the research lab), giving it a relatively unique, non-OpenAI-based approach to generating images in terms of user accessibility and outputs.
- Click here to access Midjourney
- You can also access Midjourney by copying/pasting the following link into your web browser: https://www.midjourney.com/
- Must provide an email address when creating an account. Currently, Midjourney is only available in paid tiers, with higher tiers offering additional monthly uses and processing speed.
Adobe Firefly ▼
- Text-to-image generating tool created by Adobe. Firefly is available both as a standalone tool and as an integrated part of Adobe's other image tools like Photoshop and Illustrator, complete with the ability to edit AI-generated images using Adobe's other products.
- Click here for more information on Adobe Firefly
- Must provide an email address when making a free account with Adobe for Firefly standalone access. If you have paid access to the Adobe Creative Cloud suite Firefly is available to use through those applications.
- UR students, staff, and faculty looking to explore Firefly can also do so via the Technology Learning Center. Click here for more information on the TLC, or copy/paste the following link into your web browser: https://spidertechnet.richmond.edu/TDClient/1955/Portal/KB/ArticleDet?ID=113212
Want to discover other generative AI tools? Use the links below to find additional tools:
Best Practices for Using Generative AI Tools
As GenAI poses to be a revolutionary tool that can change the academic space and beyond, it is important for you to understand why and how you intend to use these new, powerful tools. These are a few questions to consider and note that the answers to these questions will vary for each person.
- Is using a GenAI-based tool helping me learn more and think better?
- Is using a GenAI-based tool enabling or hindering my mastery of the stated course objectives?
- Is the content I generate accurate and verifiable? Is it free of biases that might harm other groups of society?
- How will I treat content that might have been generated using a GenAI-based tool?
- Is using a GenAI-based tool equitable to my peers in my course?
- How can my actions in using a GenAI-based tool lead to the greater good of society?
Understand that your usage of GenAI-based tools can give you the means to better not just yourself, but also society as a whole, and there is an ethical responsibility towards doing so.
1. Be Clear and Specific
Adding details and providing contextual information to your prompt will generate more relevant responses. Include outcome, length, format, style, etc.
Below is an example prompt:
- Original: "Words like 'climate change'"
- Refined: "Provide a list of synonyms and keywords that relate to term 'climate change'."
2. Be Direct
Phrase your input as a command rather than a statement or question. To create a command, place an action verb at the front of a sentence. Generative AI tools can more effectively design responses that are clear and direct, so make sure to avoid ambiguous language.
Below is an example prompt:
- Original: “Could you please tell me what the word potable means?”
- Refined: “Define ‘potable’ and provide two examples of how to use potable in a sentence. Include a list of industries where the concept of ‘potable’ is applied.
3. Don't Use "Not" or Negative Language
Avoid using language asking the generator not to do an output. Instead, find a way to rephrase your command that specifics exactly what you want it to generate. Using positive instructions will be more effective than negative instructions.
Below is an example prompt:
- Original: “What are some plays not written by Shakespeare?”
- Refined: “Identify a list with brief descriptions of well-known English plays and exclude plays written by William Shakespeare.”
4. Break down complex questions into smaller parts
Below is an example prompt:
- Original: “What is the population of Sri Lanka? What are the most profitable industries in Sri Lanka? What natural resources are mined in Sri Lanka?”
- Refined: “Provide the total population and demographic breakdown of religion, ethnic groups, and language of Sri Lanka.”
5. Create a Role or Give an Example
Prompt the generative AI tool to take on a role or provide an example for the generator to mimic. This will allow the tool more direction and generate more specific responses.
Below is an example prompt:
- Original: “Give me information about mass conversion around a chemical reaction.”
- Refined: “Respond to the prompt about mass conversion around a chemical reaction, as an undergraduate chemistry tutor.”
Souce: University of Illinois Library guide "Introduction to Generative AI - Effective Prompt Strategies"
Here are some questions to consider when evaluating output from generative AI tools:
- Date: When was the information created? Has it been updated?
- Authority: Who created the information? What is their authority and what are their credentials? What is their point of view? What possible biases might they have?
- Purpose: What is the information source’s purpose? Why was it created? Who is the intended audience?
- Documentation: What sources are cited in this information? If none, is there another way to verify the information?
You might notice that these questions are difficult (or sometimes even impossible) to answer when using generative AI tools. You will have to decide how this affects if and how you use the information you get from these tools.
Source: Boston College Libraries - Generative AI - "Evaluating Output"