AI Tools for Students in 2025 Beyond Standard ChatGPT
Top AI Tools Transforming the Academic Landscape in 2025
In the ever-evolving world of education, artificial intelligence (AI) is making a significant impact. Here's a rundown of some of the most noteworthy AI tools designed to boost productivity, creativity, and learning efficiency for students in 2025.
ChatGPT Study Mode - An interactive tutor that starts fresh with each session, providing explanations and answering questions. It's versatile and excellent for idea generation, making it an invaluable resource for on-demand Q&A sessions. However, sessions do not retain user data, which can be a drawback, and there's a potential for superficial answers.
Google NotebookLM - A personalised study companion that allows students to upload and manage their study materials, generate FAQs, summaries, and mind maps, and even convert materials into audio podcasts. While it's limited to uploaded content and requires initial material preparation, it's a great tool for managing large notes and personalising study materials.
Grammarly (2025) - This advanced writing assistant helps students improve their writing quality significantly by offering grammar, clarity, tone adjustments, contextual suggestions, and authenticity improvements. It seamlessly integrates across platforms, but subscription costs for premium features should be considered, and there's a risk of unintentional meaning alteration.
Otter.ai - A real-time lecture transcription tool that generates summaries and highlights key terms, reducing the note-taking burden and improving lecture review efficiency. Accuracy depends on audio quality, and the free version has usage limits.
Canva with Veo 3 - An AI-powered creativity suite that generates visuals and scripts from descriptions, making it ideal for visual learners and group projects. It requires an internet connection and may need a subscription for full features.
Quizlet - An AI-generated platform offering flashcards, practice tests, and study guides that adapt to student learning preferences. It boasts an extensive user-generated content library and personalised learning aids, but quality varies with user content, and advanced AI features are behind a paywall.
Snorkl - A personalised practice and feedback platform that identifies knowledge gaps and customises exercises, making it strong for subjects needing practice (like math and languages). It tracks progress for tailored learning, but lesser-known platforms may vary in depth by subject.
DALL·E 3 - An AI image generation tool for educational visuals, presentations, and creative content. It enhances presentations and creativity but requires a subscription for access and has a learning curve for design requests.
Quillbot - A writing assistant focusing on paraphrasing, grammar checking, plagiarism detection, summarising, and humanising AI-generated text. It improves writing style and clarity, and its affordable pricing for students is a plus. However, it occasionally misses nuanced writing context and sometimes produces formulaic paraphrasing.
Squirrel AI / Khanmigo - Intelligent tutors and adaptive learning platforms that use algorithms to analyse weaknesses and tailor study paths, offering dialogue-based learning. They provide highly personalised learning experiences, but access may be limited or region-specific, and complex interfaces can require a learning curve.
Jules and Mendeley are additional tools for coding help and reference management, respectively.
Google offers a free 12-month Google AI Pro plan for students, featuring access to Gemini 2.5 Pro for deeper research, NotebookLM with expanded multimedia support, Veo 3 for video generation, and large cloud storage.
Other notable features of NotebookLM include organising different projects into notebooks, sharing these notebooks with classmates and other collaborators, Audio Overview for creating audio files with explanations of complex concepts, clear citations for responses, and a limit of three queries daily on the deep research feature for free plan users.
These tools are revolutionising the academic environment by boosting productivity, creativity, writing, note-taking, study personalisation, and research efficiency. The choice depends on individual needs such as writing, visual learning, personalised study, or project creation.
Tools like Perplexity, Gamma, and NotebookLM are also increasingly being used by students on the African continent for tasks such as creating study plans, summarising documents, and designing presentations. A third-year history student at the University of Lagos, Anjola, finds these tools particularly useful when course materials are outdated and comprehensive resources are scarce.
- Mobile technology, paired with education-and-self-development tools like Quillbot, can significantly improve writing style and clarity for students, offering affordable pricing for students as an added benefit.
- Technology such as DALL·E 3 and Canva with Veo 3 can be beneficial for visual learners, providing AI-generated educational visuals and scripts from descriptions for effective presentations and creative content, albeit with a learning curve and subscription fees.
