AI Tools for Students & Teachers

The 7 tools worth knowing in 2026

Prices and free limits change often. Treat every price or limit in this module as an example, and check the tool's own page on the day you choose.

1. ChatGPT (by OpenAI)

Best for: general-purpose assistant, writing, brainstorming. Free tier: yes, with limits. Paid: paid plans add more features (check the price on the tool's own page). Weakness: can be overly wordy; sometimes confidently wrong.

When to use it: your default for 80% of tasks. If you're going to learn one tool only, pick this one.

2. Claude (by Anthropic)

Best for: long documents, careful reasoning, code, thoughtful writing. Free tier: yes, with limits. Paid: paid plans exist. Weakness: no image generation in most plans.

When to use it: when output quality matters more than speed, essays, reports, important emails, code review.

3. Gemini (by Google)

Best for: tasks that need current information (it integrates with Google Search), summarising YouTube videos, Google Docs/Sheets integration. Free tier: yes, with limits. Paid: paid plans exist.

When to use it: research involving current events ("what happened in Kenya politics this week"), or anything in the Google Workspace ecosystem.

4. Perplexity

Best for: research with sources. Every answer comes with citations. Free tier: yes (limited). Paid: paid plans exist.

When to use it: when you need to cite something or verify claims, Perplexity links you to the actual web pages, which ChatGPT/Claude rarely do.

5. NotebookLM (by Google)

Best for: uploading a PDF/document and asking questions about it. Answers come from the documents you upload and point to where in them, but it can still misread, so check. Free tier available.

When to use it: studying a textbook, past exam papers, policy documents, legal contracts. Upload → ask questions → get answers based on that document, then check the page it points to.

6. Khanmigo (by Khan Academy)

Best for: primary/secondary homework help with Socratic-method tutoring (asks you questions back instead of giving the answer). Specifically designed for under-18 learners. Cost: there is a paid plan for families (see Khan Academy's own page for the price).

When to use it: your child's homework, safer than ChatGPT because it won't just give them the answer.

7. Photomath

Best for: maths homework. Take a photo of a maths problem, it gives you step-by-step worked solutions. Free tier: yes, with paid upgrades.

When to use it: Grade 6-12 maths. Especially good for algebra, geometry, trig.

Which to pick for which job: decision table

The "use two AIs" trick

Pro move: ask the same question to ChatGPT AND Claude. Compare the answers. The overlap is where both agree, probably true. The divergence is where to be suspicious. This simple "two-AI check" catches hallucination better than any single model.

What NOT to pay for

• AI-writer tools (Jasper, Copy.ai) that often cost much more than a direct plan. Many are built on top of the same models you can use directly, so ask what the extra price buys.
• AI resume builders. Paste your existing CV into Claude and ask "rewrite this for [job description]." Often free and good enough. Remove your ID number and phone first.
• Obscure AI chatbots that appear in WhatsApp. Many are thin ChatGPT wrappers with data-privacy concerns. Use the real thing.

I use a [phone type] and have about [number] MB of data a month. I work as a [job]. Recommend which free AI tools I should use for [task], and why. Say what to avoid and what data I should never type into them. If you are not sure about a price or a free limit, say so and tell me where to check.