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Using AI

Getting Started with AI


To maximise the potential of generative AI, it is important to select suitable tools and learn how to use them effectively and responsibly, as well as understanding their limitations. Using the right tool will enable learners to harness the capabilities of AI.

This section provides information on the AI tools and services available to staff and students at Queen’s. It also includes a selection of publicly available AI tools, including free and paid options, to help you explore the wider AI landscape and get started responsibly. 

QUB Supported AI Tools

All Queen’s University staff and students have access to Microsoft Copilot Chat, providing a secure AI tool to support learning, study, and academic tasks. To use Copilot, please log in using your @qub.ac.uk email address. Logging in this way provides Enterprise Data Protection, and means that your conversations are not used to train public models. Copilot Chat is supported officially on Microsoft Edge and Chrome (using the latest Stable Channel update). 

Google Gemini Logo


Queen's staff and students also have access to a Google Gemini Edu by logging in with your QUB email and password, providing you with a secure version of Gemini. You can also use your QUB credentials to access Gemini Notebook.

It is incumbent on us that we safeguard against risks, such as biases, privacy concerns, and the potential over-reliance on AI-driven responses. These tools have been known to produce inaccurate content (sometimes called “hallucinations”), please verify any information generated by an AI tool, and make sure to reference the tool as you would any other source.

If you have any concerns about privacy related to AI at Queen’s, or if you have questions about the type of data that can be shared with Copilot, please contact our IT Help Desk.

Publicly available AI Tools and Systems

While Queen’s provides access to approved AI tools that are designed to support your learning safely and securely, there are also many publicly available AI tools that you may wish to explore. Whatever tool you choose, it is important to understand its capabilities, limitations and any implications for privacy, security and academic integrity.

To help you explore the AI landscape, we have included a small selection of publicly available AI tools. These tools have both free and paid plans. 

AI chatbots can answer questions, explain concepts, generate ideas and support a wide range of everyday and academic tasks. Their responses may be inaccurate, so always think critically and verify important information.

  • ChatGPT – A general-purpose AI assistant by Open AI that can explain concepts, brainstorm ideas, analyse files, provide feedback and help with planning or revision.
  • Claude – A conversational assistant by Anthropic particularly useful for explaining complex material, analysing long documents and providing detailed feedback.
  • Perplexity – An AI-powered search assistant that finds current information online and produces concise answers with citations, helping you verify sources and explore topics further.
  • Mistral Le Chat – A general-purpose AI assistant that can answer questions, search the web, analyse documents and images, generate content, and support research or coding tasks.
  • DeepSeek – A general-purpose chatbot with tools for reasoning, coding, content creation and working with uploaded documents.

AI writing tools can help improve spelling, grammar, clarity and tone. Before using them for assessed work, check your assignment brief and guidance from your lecturer to confirm what level of AI assistance is permitted.

  • Grammarly – Checks spelling, grammar, clarity and tone, while offering AI-assisted suggestions for improving written communication.
  • QuillBot – Provides paraphrasing, summarising, grammar-checking and citation-formatting tools.
  • DeepL Write – Suggests improvements to wording, grammar, style and tone, with support for several languages.
  • Wordtune – Helps users rewrite, clarify, shorten or expand sentences while retaining their intended meaning.
  • LanguageTool – A multilingual spelling, grammar and style checker that works across many websites and writing platforms.

AI research tools can be a valuable addition to your research process. However, many can access only open-access publications, so they may not include the latest or most relevant research available through your university’s library databases. Please consult the AI and the Library Guide for more on using AI for research.

  • Perplexity – Searches the web and produces concise answers with linked sources, making it useful for beginning an investigation into a topic.
  • Gemini Notebook – Previously known as NotebookLM, Gemini Notebook analyses sources you provide and can generate summaries, explanations, study guides, questions and audio overviews grounded in those materials.
  • Elicit – Helps users find academic papers, summarise studies and extract information into structured tables.
  • Consensus – Searches peer-reviewed research and uses AI to summarise what the available evidence says about a question.
  • Scite – Helps evaluate scholarly literature by showing whether later publications support, challenge or simply mention a study.

Not just for text generation, the power of generative AI can be harnessed for a wide variety of design and media purposes. It has the capabilities to generate and enhance images, develop presentations from scratch, produce videos, create design elements, and even build websites. Here are a selection of available tools to try.

  • Canva – Combines templates with AI tools for creating and editing presentations, posters, infographics, videos and social media graphics.
  • Adobe Firefly – Generates and edits images, graphics, audio and video using text instructions.
  • Gamma – Uses AI to create visually engaging presentations, documents and webpages from a prompt, notes or an outline.
  • Runway – A video-focused platform for generating, editing and transforming video using text, images or existing footage.
  • ElevenLabs – Creates natural-sounding AI speech, voiceovers, sound effects and other audio for videos, podcasts and creative projects.

With new AI tools being created daily, utilising directories can be helpful in finding specific tools for your needs, as well as gaining insight into their functionality and pricing. Below are some tool directories that can aid you in your search.

Person using a digital neural network concept