Guide to Generative AI

AI tools licensed to SBU offer enhanced privacy and data protection than publicly available AI tools for personal use. These AI tools have been vetted by DoIT and are available to anyone with SBU credentials when logged in through their NetID. When you use the SBU-licensed version instead of the personal-use version, your data and interactions with these tools will not be used to train new models or shared beyond the institution. 

• Copilot: Login with your SBU credentials. If prompted two options, choose "Work" option instead of "Personal." 
  
  SBU-licensed Copilot has a different user interface compared to the personal version. Look for a green shield icon on the right top corner. When you hover it, it should say "Enterprise data protection applies to this chat." If you don't see this, you are likely using the personal version.
  
   
• Gemini: Login through your SBU Google Apps account (not your personal Google account) to access the licensed version. 
  Look for a gray shield icon next to the prompt field, just before the text "Enter a prompt for Gemini." If you don't see this, you are likely using the personal version.
  
   
• Notebook LM: Login through your SBU Google Apps account (not your personal Google account) to access the licensed version. 
  Look for your profile picture (or the first letter of your first name if you haven't set a profile picture) on the right top corner and hover over it. Your SBU email address (yourname@stonybrook.edu) should appear. If you see any other email addresses, you are likely using the personal version.
  
   
• Zoom AI Companion: Login with your SBU credentials.

Please note that even with improved safeguards, these tools are not approved for use with sensitive or regulated data, including anything covered by HIPAA.

These are the most popular AI tools, designed to handle a wide range of tasks. They are often presented through a chatbot-like interface that allows users to interact in natural language. Many of them are powered by a single family of large language models (LLMs), available in different versions, each with its own strengths. Some versions are well-rounded and work faster (e.g., ChatGPT 4o, Claude Sonnet 4, Gemini 2.5 Flash), while others are more powerful, better at reasoning, math, and code, but usually a bit slower (e.g., ChatGPT o3, Claude Opus 4, Gemini 2.5 Pro). These AI tools include:

• ChatGPT. No account is required to try basic models with some usage limits. Premium subscriptions (ChatGPT Plus) available for higher usage limits and access to more advanced models.
• Claude. A free account is required to use with some usage limits. Premium subscriptions (Claude Pro) available for higher usage limits and priority access.
• Copilot. No account is required to try basic models. Use Stony Brook account to get access to more advanced model and enterprise-level data protection.
• Deepseek. A free account is required to use with some usage limits. 
• Gemini. No account is required to try basic models. Use Stony Brook account to get enterprise-level data protection and limited access to more advanced model. Premium subscriptions (Google AI Pro or Google AI Ultra) available through personal accounts (not available through SBU account) for higher usage limits and access to more advanced models.
• Grok. An X (Twitter) social media account is required to use. 
• Perplexity. No account is required to try. Unlike the rest, Perplexity is an AI-powered answer engine that allows it users to select from a variety of LLM families instead of just one. 

These tools can help search and analyze 200M+ peer-reviewed research papers, providing summaries, conclusions, and key findings from multiple articles at once. Although they can provide more accurate answers with line-by-line source citations compared to general-purpose AI chatbots, there are still limitations to keep in mind:

1. Most of these tools are as good as the citation networks they draw from, which include Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, and other freely available networks. Many articles are left out and there are gaps, especially in humanities fields.
2. The metadata is not always reliable, up-to-date, or complete. For example, papers marked as retracted in databases like Web of Science might not be marked as such in Semantic Scholar.
3. Understand the difference between natural language searches and keyword searches & avoid prompting techniques that you might use in a text generator. To avoid irrelevant results, keep your prompts simple and not overly detailed.
4. Outputs from natural language prompts are not always reproducible like a keyword search in a database is.
5. AI summaries generated by LLMs are not the same as article abstracts written by the authors! Understand the potential for misinterpretation and the need to verify the information for yourself.

Here are some AI-powered research tools:

• Consensus. No account is required to try. The free basic plan provides 10 Pro analyses per month. Students can access a 3-month premium plan using their university email address.
• Elicit. Account required, but there's a free basic plan that includes automated research reports & imports from Zotero.
• Liner. No account is required to try. The free basic plan provides access to basic model and 1 file per day only. A 14-day free trial is available for all new users.
• scite_. No account is required to try, but limited to 2 prompts. A 7-day free trial is available for all new users. No free plan is available.
• Scicpace. No account is required to try. The free basic plan provides limited access to all features and standard model. No free-trials are available but all plans have 100% money back guarantee for 24 hours.
• Undermind. Unique in that it tries to mimic the iterative human research process. It searches with both semantic & keyword search and will coach you on your research question to make sure it is effective before running through the generative process. Adapts the search based on the results, so the process takes longer but is more accurate. Account required, but free version available.

There are hundreds of specialized AI tools out there, but here is a small sample, categorized by its type:

Chart, Diagram, and Illustration Generators

• Eraser Diagram. No account is required to try.
• Leiga. No account is required to try.
• Napkin. Requires an account, but has a free plan to generate visuals from text.

Data Analysis and Visualization

• Gemini in Google Colab. A Google account is required to use. Gemini can help code in both Python and R.
• Julius. Requires an account, but has a free plan to analyze and visualize your data.
• Quadratic. Requires an account, but has a free plan to analyze and visualize your data.

Image Editors

• Canva Photo Editor. A premium Canva subscription is required to use this feature. A 30-day free trial is available for all new users.
• DeepAI. No account is required to try ads-supported basic models. Paid subscriptions provide more access to more advanced models.
• Google Magic Editor. Included in the Google Photos app. Available on Android, ChromeOS, and iOS devices. Feature availability varies by device. A Google account is required to use.
• Pixlr Express. Requires an account, but has a free plan to use AI tools features. A 7-day free trial is available for premium plans.

Image Generators

• Midjourney. Requires an account with a paid subscription. No free trials are available.
• DALL·E. Available with a paid subscription to ChatGPT.
• Stable Diffusion: Requires an account with a paid subscription. A 3-day free trial is available for all new users.
• Stable Diffusion Web: A Stable Diffusion wrapper. The free plan provides 10 image generations per day. 
• Adobe Firefly. No account is required to try, but with limited access to both standard and premium creative AI features. Also included in the Adobe Creative Cloud Pro subscriptions.
• Canva Image Generator. No account is required to try. Limited use with free Canva account. A 30-day free trial is available for all new users.
• Gemini. A Google account is required to generate images. Use SBU version for enhanced privacy and data protection.

Presentation Generators

• Chatslide. Requires an account with a paid subscription. A free trial is available.
• Gamma. Requires an account. A free plan is available.
• Sendsteps. Requires an account. A free plan is available.
• Slidesgo. Requires an account. A free plan is available.

Sound & Music Generators

• AIVA: Requires an account, but free to use and can download up to 3 tracks per month for free, with additional paid versions available. Inspired more by classical music genres than popular music genres.
• ElevenLabs: Sound effect generator. Can try it without an account; free version with an account.
• SFX Engine: Sound effect generator. Requires an account, but there's a free version.
• Suno: Requires an account, but has a free plan to generate songs from a variety of genres.
• Udio: Requires an account, but has a free trial to generate songs from a text prompt.

Voice Generators

• ElevenLabs. No account is required to try. The free plan provides 10k credits/month
• Respeecher. A free account is required to try. Pay-as-you-go pricing.
• Typecast.ai. No account is required to try. The free plan provides unlimited voice generation & playback as well as 5 AI talking avatar generations.
• Voice.ai. No account is required to try. No clear pricing information on the web page.

Video Generators

• Midjourney. Requires an account with a paid subscription to start creating. No free trials are available.
• Sora. Available with a paid subscription to ChatGPT.
• Veo: Available with a paid subscription to Google AI Pro or Google AI Ultra.
• HeyGen: A free account is required to try. The free plan allows up to 3 video generations per month at 720p resolution, with a maximum duration of 3 minutes each.
• invideo: A free account is required to try. The free plan allows up to 10 AI mins per week with invideo watermark and no access to generative features.