Visual Summary / DVFZ Books
Let the tool take the busywork, not the learning
Forty AI tools sorted into nine learning jobs, and one rule the book keeps returning to: AI assists, it does not replace.
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01 Read it as a snapshot
The tools in this book are dated, and the book says so first
This is a directory of forty AI tools written against the state of the market in September 2023. Names change, prices change, owners change, and some products stop existing. The book puts that warning on its own opening pages, before the first tool.
So take the specific claims on this page as a record of what the book said in 2023, not as advice about what any tool costs or does today. Everything quoted here is the book's, including the prices it lists and the features it describes. None of it has been updated, corrected or extended.
What survives is underneath the product names: which parts of studying AI is being pointed at, how to choose between competing tools, and where a learner's own work has to stay. That is what the rest of this page is about.
The data presented in this book is based on the information available as of September 2023. The authors have made every effort to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the data, but they do not have control over the changes made by each AI tool's creator. The readers are advised to verify the data and the AI tools before relying on them.Disclaimer, front matter
Before you trust any tool description here, open that tool's own pricing and features page and read it yourself. The book asks for exactly this, and it takes two minutes.
02 The map
Forty products, but only nine jobs
The book does not sort its tools by company or by price. It sorts them into nine categories, and each category is a job in a student's week. Once you see the nine, the forty stop looking like a shopping list and start looking like a map.
Four of the nine deal with getting material in: speech to text, content summarisation, research assistance and language translation. Two deal with working it out: virtual tutors and chatbots, and data visualisation and analysis. Two deal with producing the work: writing assistance, and grammar checking and editing. The ninth, the multifunctional tools, cross all three.
The sizes tell you something too. Speech to text gets six chapters and the multifunctional platforms get eight, so those two categories alone take fourteen of the forty. Translation and summarisation get three each.
Name the part of your week that costs you the most hours: taking the material in, understanding it, or producing the work. Start from that job and look only at its category. Ignore the other eight for now.
03 How to choose
Every tool in the book is judged on the same five questions
Each of the nine categories ends with a chart summary, and every chart has the same four columns: core features, user experience, pricing, free trial. Each chapter then adds a fifth check of its own, platform compatibility. Those five questions are the reusable part of the book.
They work in order. Features first, because a tool that does not do your job is not cheap at any price. Then whether you can actually drive it, which the book records honestly: Elicit is called simple and intuitive but with "a bit of a learning curve for some users". Then cost, then whether you can test it for free, then whether it runs on what you own. ExamCram is iOS only, which settles the question for anyone without an iPhone.
The pricing column shows several shapes, not one. Monthly subscriptions, per minute billing, pay as you go credits, institutional licences, and at least one tool listed as free forever for researchers. Ask which shape suits a student term, not just which number is smallest.
Use the free trial column before the pricing column. Most tools in the book's charts list a free plan or a trial, so run one against a real assignment for a week before any card details go in.
04 The handoff
The tool takes the busywork at both ends, and you keep the middle
Read the forty chapters together and the same shape appears. A tool gathers and condenses at the front, a tool tidies and checks at the back, and in between sits the part the book never hands over: deciding what matters, connecting sources, and forming the argument.
The book is explicit about it. Mindgrasp "does the busywork of analyzing and extracting critical information so students can focus on learning". AudioPen "handles the busywork of transcription". Geleza automates repetitive tasks so students "spend less time on busywork and more time learning". The word keeps coming back, and it is always the tool's half.
The middle is yours, and it is where the loop lives. If the summary is not the summary you needed, you go back and ask again with a narrower question. That is a skill, and it is the one the tool cannot supply for you.
Elicit helps students save time, improve their research, and focus on their higher-level tasks like critical thinking and drawing connections between sources.Chapter 16, Elicit
Do the deciding before you open the tool. Write one sentence saying what you are trying to find out, then let the tool gather and condense against that sentence. Judging what matters stays with you.
05 Verification
Checking the answer is not optional, it is part of using the tool
The book says plainly that these systems get things wrong, and it puts the fact-check on you rather than on the software. That single sentence is worth more than any feature list in the book.
It also shows you which design makes checking cheap. Consensus ties every answer to actual studies with citations. Bing lists the websites it used with clickable links, and labels speculative information as speculative. Tableau shows the rationale behind a prediction, so users are "not merely taking Tableau's word" for it. Elicit publishes what it cannot do: it will not surface information that is not written about in an academic paper, and works less well on facts and on non-empirical questions. Taia adds human linguists to review and correct AI translation errors.
A tool that shows its sources costs you one click to verify. A tool that shows only an answer costs you the whole search. Prefer the first, and check either way.
It is, however, important to note that AI tools like Bing AI are not 100% accurate, so manual fact-checking is essential for reliable information.Chapter 25, Bing
Ask any tool where its answer came from. If it cannot show you, treat the answer as a draft note to yourself and confirm it from a real source before it goes anywhere near your assignment.
06 The real distinction
A tool that answers and a tool that teaches are not the same tool
Some of the forty finish your task. Others make you better at it. Both leave you with the homework done, and the difference only shows up the next time you meet a problem like it.
The book keeps describing the second kind. SnapXam gives instant answers but "includes explanations not just the final solution", and the book suggests using it to double-check answers you worked out by hand. Mindgrasp generates quizzes so you can "assess your understanding and identify areas that need further review". ExamCram tracks progress by accuracy so you can focus on what you are struggling with, and the book says its features lessen the need to cram at all. Tableau's interactive visualisations are described as a chance to develop critical thinking, where students "do not only memorize facts but also understand the 'why' behind them".
The first kind is in the book too. Some tools listed here will produce a finished essay or answer an assignment question outright. The book presents those as time savers, and never as something to hand in as your own work. Nothing in it advises evading a plagiarism or AI check, and its closing pages argue the opposite case.
For students, this is an opportunity to develop critical thinking skills. They do not only memorize facts but also understand the "why" behind them.Chapter 6, Tableau
When a tool gives you an answer, ask it for the steps as well. Then close it and redo the problem yourself. If you cannot, you did not learn it, and you now know that before the exam does.
07 The rule underneath
AI is the assistant, and the foundations are still yours to build
The book ends on a warning rather than a sales pitch. Its position is that AI use must not weaken the core learning process, and that the skills underneath, research, writing, analysis and clear thinking, still have to be built by the student who is using the tools.
The same line runs through the chapters. On OpenAI the book says it is important to remember that AI tools are created to assist humans and not replace humans. Its honest-use guidance is practical rather than moral: run the plagiarism checkers to confirm your own work is original before you submit it, and generate your citations properly. Scholarcy is credited with reducing the risk of unintentional plagiarism, and with linking out to the open-access versions of the papers it summarises, so the summary is a way into the source rather than a replacement for it.
Your institution's rules on AI use come first, always, and the book does not know what they are. Check them. Then use these tools inside them.
AI tools are best used to complement these efforts, not replace the hard work required for deep learning.Conclusion
Name the skill each tool in your workflow is standing in for. If the answer is research, writing, analysis or critical thinking, do that part yourself and give the tool the busywork around it.
08 Recap
Three things to carry, whichever tool is in front of you
The forty products in this book will keep changing. These three habits work on the next forty as well as on these.
Job before product
Nine jobs, not forty brands. Name the job first, then run the book's five checks: features, usability, price, free trial, platform.
Verify before you rely
The book says these tools are not 100% accurate and that manual fact-checking is essential. Prefer tools that show their sources, and follow them.
Hold on to the middle
Let the tool take the transcribing, condensing and tidying. Deciding what matters, connecting sources and forming the argument stay yours.
Ask of any tool: does this finish my work, or does it make me better at my work? Both are useful. Only one of them is still useful next term.
Adapted from 40 Powerful AI Tools for Smart Learning
HumAI Co-Lab Team, edited by Selynna Payne · © 2023 DVFZ Training Consultancy Services.
40 tool chapters in nine categories · tool data current to September 2023