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Generative AI and Copilot: Gen AI Tools

Generative AI Tools

AI Tool

Purpose

Benefits

Weaknesses

Elicit

Provides article suggestions and summaries for literature reviews though using Large Language Models

  • Good for Literature reviews

  • Shows abstract summaries, and identifies interventions, outcomes and participants

  • Highlights where these parts are found in the abstracts to make it easier to check accuracy

  • Search within articles

  • Upload your own articles / PDFs to analyse

  • Can miss the nuance of articles, sometimes gets information wrong, and cannot evaluate reliability

  • Does not include all articles.

Consensus

Search engine using AI and Natural Language queries to find answers in Evidence-Based scientific research.

  • Includes information from only peer reviewed sources

  • Summarises key findings

  • Indicates the reputation of journals articles are published in.

  • Includes disputed and retracted articles in results, although they are flagged

  • Does not evaluate the reliability of articles.

Note: All gen AI search engines tend to be more locked-down than gen AI systems tooled for "chatting" (like ChatGPT and GPT4All) not all the prompt engineering strategies will work outside the more role play-capable chat systems.

AI Tool

Purpose

Benefits

Weaknesses

Google Gemini

Based on Google's PaLM 2 model
  • Good for news sources and popular culture
  • Full chat features

  • Sources are not scholarly

  • May misinterpret results (but provides links to original sources)

Microsoft Bing Chat

Based on ChatGPT
  • Good for news sources and popular culture

  • Sources are not scholarly

  • May misinterpret results (but provides links to original sources)

  • Only available with Microsoft Edge web browser

Perplexity AI 

Based on ChatGPT
  • Good for news sources and popular culture

  • Sources are not scholarly

  • May misinterpret results (but provides links to original sources)

Note: All gen AI search engines tend to be more locked-down than gen AI systems tooled for "chatting" (like ChatGPT and GPT4All) not all the prompt engineering strategies will work outside the more role play-capable chat systems.

AI Tool

Purpose

Benefits

Weaknesses
ChatGPT OpenAI's gen AI LLM, basis for Microsoft Bing's AI search feature
  • Very Large Language Model and constantly improving
  • Open API and store for plugins like Wolfram Alpha which helps verify factual information before retuning output
  • Privacy concerns when training is allowed
  • Requires payment for full use
GPT4All

Based on Meta's Llama model and many different training sets on offer
  • Open source model
  • Free to use (some training sets are not licensed for commercial use)
  • Run offline with no privacy concerns
  • Less powerful than ChatGPT, but comparable in certain areas

 

AI Tool

Purpose

Benefits

Weaknesses
DALL.E 2 Created by OpenAI    
Midjourney

 

 
  • Only available via Discord

Stable Diffusion

 

  • Open source model

  • Can run natively on some mobile devices

 

Note: All gen AI search engines tend to be more locked-down than gen AI systems tooled for "chatting" (like ChatGPT and GPT4All) not all the prompt engineering strategies will work outside the more role play-capable chat systems.

Note: All gen AI tools are subject to "hallucination" and bias. When using an AI-powered tool, be aware it may misrepresent otherwise credible sources.

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  • Last Updated: Mar 12, 2025 10:39 AM
  • URL: https://ecu.au.libguides.com/generative-ai
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