ai writes essay for students

Write essays 10x faster

Ai co-writer that helps students research, write, paraphrase and cite. effortlessly..

Used by 230,000+ smart students from

Mighty but simple AI co-writer

Use the power of chatgpt while keeping your unique voice and originality, outline generator.

Not sure how to start? Litero AI will suggest an outline for your specific topic.

AI Autosuggest

Got writer's block? Litero AI will seamlessly suggest the next sentence or paragraph.

Citation tool

Add references and citations effortlessly in MLA, APA and other formats.

AI Detector & Humanizer

Run an AI detection check and make the essay AI-free

Ideal for faster writing and better grades

Save time with our built-in tools every student needs for a perfect essay..

Plagiarism Detector

Check your text for plagiarism with accurate results.

Grammar Checker

Find and fix issues with grammar, spelling, punctuation, and more!

Easy export

Download your document in needed format: APA, MLA, etc

Try for free, upgrade anytime

• AI commands
• Unlimited sources search
• Unlimited citation generation and formatting
• Limited Daily AI generation
• Limited Humanizer
• AI detector
• Unlimited Drafts generation
• Unlimited AI generation and AI commands
• Unlimited inbuilt ChatGPT 4o
• Unlimited Humanizer
• Plagiarism checker

People love Litero. And talk about it.

Litero has an intuitive interface, which I like. Its autosuggestions elevated my papers to a whole new level. It's like having a personal writing mentor always at my side, guiding me toward clearer, more impactful expression.

David Brown

Georgetown University

Litero is my writing lifeline 📚✍️

Vikky Singh

Duke University

I never knew I needed Litero until I tried it for my homework. Now I use it at least 3 or 4 times a week to write faster.

Princeton University

Litero effortlessly handles issues with formatting, citations, and references, saving me hours of work on essays. Kudos to the team behind it!

Mason Wilson

University of Southern California

Big-big help with sources and adding references. I no longer need to worry about margins, citations - Litero helps me do it easier. I focus on the content of my papers, confident that the presentation will be top-notch. If you have some spare bucks the paid version is absolutely worth it.

Daniel Miller

Cornell University

Litero has become an essential instrument in my college life. Thank you for making my writing shine!

Emma Robinson

Washington University in St. Louis

As someone who strives for perfection in everything, Litero is a godsend. This tool helps me polish my academic writing to perfection, ensuring it meets the highest standards.

Stanford University

Discovering this tool is gold for my postgrad education. After trying the free version, I upgraded to the paid one, and I can't help but regret not using this writing AI earlier. It's the real deal!

University of Florida

Being a STEM student, I dread writing assignments and, frankly, anything connected to writing essays. Litero is perfect for me and anyone else with the same struggles.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Litero makes writing a breeze! A true lifesaver!

Ethan Mitchell

Rice University

I am all about efficient solutions and time-management. AI text tools from Litero streamline my studies. They help me improve my writing, saving me time and ensuring accuracy. Invaluable!

Nisha Reddy

Johns Hopkins University

I am glad I found Litero . It saved me so much time working on my articles and research with its smart and easy-to-use functionality. I'm impressed!

Chris Malkin

University of California, Berkeley

Securing a scholarship demands a high GPA and maintaining my high GPA is a top priority. I started using Litero and it helps me a lot with my homework.

Liam Anderson

Millenium high school

It's a game-changer for sure. I just can't believe how EASY it became to put my thoughts into writing: even when I have no idea how to start they have a tool for that! Litero 's been of great help so far and took a lot of stress away. Great AI tool for students.

Maria Robles

Boston University

Why use Litero if I can use ChatGPT for free?

Does litero plagiarize, how much should i pay for using litero, is my personal information safe, does litero have an app.

• Resources Home 🏠
• Try SciSpace Copilot
• Search research papers
• Add Copilot Extension
• Try AI Detector
• Try Paraphraser
• Try Citation Generator
• April Papers
• June Papers
• July Papers

AI for Essay Writing — Exploring Top 10 Essay Writers

Table of Contents

Let’s admit it — essay writing is quite a challenging task for students. Especially with the stringent deadlines, conducting research, writing , editing, and addressing to-and-fro reviews — consumes a whole lot of time and often becomes stressful. Therefore, students are always on the lookout for tools that speed up the essay writing process.

And that’s when AI writing tools make their debut! Using the best AI for essay writing makes the lives of students much easier by automatically generating the essay for them.

The rise in the popularity of artificial intelligence technology and deep learning has paved the way for the numerous AI writer tools available today. To help you understand the different types of AI tools and their benefits, we’ve uncovered the features of the top 10 AI essay generators in this article.

Let’s explore the tools and learn how they are transforming the tedious task of essay writing!

What is essay writing?

Essay writing is a part of academic writing that emphasizes formulating an idea or argument. The main objective of academic essay writing is to present a well-reasoned argument or idea. Evidence, analysis, and interpretation are the three major components of essay writing . It should have a logical structure to support the argument or idea of the essay so that it communicates clearly and concisely.

What is an AI essay writer?

AI essay writers is a tool that is designed to help students generate essays using machine learning techniques. They can be used to generate a full essay or generate a few parts of the essay, for example, essay titles, introduction, conclusion, etc.

Why should researchers use AI essay generators?

There are infinite benefits to using AI tools for writing unique essays, especially for researchers or students. Here are a few of them —

1. Saves time

Using best AI for essay writing has its own benefits. Students can take care of the research process while these AI tools write the essays for them. Be it an essay topic or a full-length essay generation, it saves a bunch of students' time.

2. Boosts productivity

Writing is a tedious task especially when you want to write an essay about a novel topic, that writer’s block starts haunting and your productivity gets affected. But, with AI, it’s the other way around and increases productivity by quickly generating the essays for you.

3. Enhances writing skills — Vocabulary and Style

Adopting the best AI essay writing AI tool not only help with creating essays but also help us hone our writing skills by giving proper suggestions about grammar, sentence structure, tone, style, and word choice.

4. Reduces stress

Students often undergo a lot of pressure and stress because of deadlines and submissions. With the best AI essay generator, they help you write essays smarter thereby reducing stress and fear in no time.

5. Facilitates multidisciplinary research

AI essay writing tools foster interdisciplinary study through their ability to scan and combine knowledge from multiple domains. That way, it helps us quickly get a grasp of new subjects or topics without a heavy-lifting process.

6. Cost-effective

Most of the AI essay writing tools have lower pricing and also allow certain discounts for students. So, it is also a cost-effective approach to use AI writing tools.

The Top AI Essay Writing Tools and Their Features

Several AI essay writers are available based on the types of essays one would want to generate. Now, let's quickly understand the top 10 AI writing tools that generate essays within just a few minutes.

1. PerfectEssayWriter.ai

It is one of the best AI for essay writing that not only creates an essay but also comes up with advanced features including plagiarism detection, auto-referencing, and contextual analysis. As a result, it generates coherent essays that are well-researched and properly cited. It is best recommended for creating academic essays and essay outlines.

How does PerfectEssayWriter work?

• Pick the right tool for your purpose — Go with an essay writer if you want to generate a full essay or choose the essay outliner if you want to create just the outline of the essay.
• Enter your specific conditions and preferences. Add essay topic, academic level, essay type, number of pages, and special instructions, if any.
• Click on “generate” and wait for the result
• Once you have the essay generated, you can review, edit, or refine it and then download it.
• Generates a large chunk of data up to 2000 words
• Output is provided within 90 seconds
• Provides a plethora of other tools like Citation generator, grammar checker, thesis statement generator, and more
• Comes with 10+ essay writing templates
• Subscription-based and not a free tool
• Human review is a mandate

2. Essaybot - Personalized AI writing

Essaybot is the product of a reputed online essay-writing service, MyPerfectWords. It is meant to enhance academic essay writing and streamline the tasks of students. Its user friendly website makes it an instant and hassle-free essay generation saving a lot of time and effort for students.

How does Essaybot work?

• Enter the essay title or topic
• Click on “start writing” and wait for it to generate a well-reasoned essay.
• The tools come for free
• No sign-up is required
• 100% unique and High-quality output
• Very limited features that lack advanced functionalities

3. FreeEssayWriter.net

FreeEssayWriter is an organization that provides essay-writing services to students worldwide. It has an AI essay typer tool — that helps you generate essays instantly. What sets this essay typer apart is its initiative to help students with their free essay writer providing the students with a 2-page free essay.

How does FreeEssayWriter.net work?

It works similarly to Essaybot, input the title or the topic of your essay and wait for it to generate the essay. They also have an option to edit and download a free version of the generated essay instantly.

• Provides high-quality essays and is considered to be one of the reliable and trusted sources of information
• Students can improve their writing skills and learn more about essays by referring to their free essay database or sources
• Priority customer support is available 24*7
• The site is not optimized for mobile devices
• The quality of the essay output could still be improved

4. MyEssayWriter

This AI essay writing tool is no exception in terms of generating a high-quality essay. You can generate essays for various topics depending on the background of your research study. Be it academic or non-academic essay writing, this tool comes in handy.

How does MyEssay Writer work?

Add your preferences and then click on generate. It will give you a high-quality and 100% unique essay crafted based on your requirements.

• The tool comes for free — no subscription is required
• Knows for its consistency in the quality and the tone of the essay output
• Also has a paid custom writing service that provides human-written essays
• Might not provide quality output for complex and technical-based keywords or topic

5. College Essay AI

College essay AI stands unique as an ai writing tool as it not only uses an AI-based algorithm to generate essays but it also backs up the output as it is reviewed and approved by a team of professional experts. It is the best AI essay writing tool for college and graduate students where the output adheres to the graduate students' essay writing guidelines.

How does the College Essay AI generator work?

• Input the required information — essay topic, academic level, number of pages, sources, and specific instructions, if any.
• Click on “generate essay” and wait for the output
• Conduct plagiarism and grammar check
• Download the essay
• High-level output for academic essay writing
• Pocket-friendly premium plans
• Doesn’t provide multiple sets of templates
• Not quite suitable for non-academic essay writing

6. Jasper AI

Jasper AI has been the oldest player in the game of AI content writing. Fast forward to now, its features have been magnified with the inception of natural language processing algorithms and that’s how they are helping students write their essays as well. However, Jasper is the best AI tool for non-academic writing projects like content writing or creative writing.

How does Jasper AI work?

• Choose a template — if you are about to write an essay, go with the “document”
• Add your preferences
• Click “compose” and get the output
• Generates the essays instantly
• Provides well-structured output according to the tone and style of your preferences
• Not quite suitable for academic writing essays

7. Textero AI

Textero AI provides a few writing tools for students that facilitate their various academic papers and writing projects. Its essay generator helps you generate ideas for a full-length essay based on the topic and also suggests new topic ideas or thesis statement ideas for your academic assignments.

How does Textero AI work?

• Click on “Essay Generator” located on the LHS (Left-hand Side)
• Input the title and description based on which you want to generate the essay
• Pick the right citation style
• Click “generate” and wait for the output
• It also provides other tools like an outline generator, and summary generator and has an AI research assistant that answers all your questions relevant to the research
• The output is 100% unique and plagiarism and error-free
• Might fail to provide an essay focussed on complex or technical topics

8. Quillbot

Though Quillbot is essentially built for paraphrasing and summarizing tasks. It comes as a rescue when you have to revamp, improvise, or refine your already-composed essay. Its co-writer helps you transform your thoughts and ideas and make them more coherent by rephrasing them. You can easily customize your text based on the customization options available.

How does Quillbot Paraphraser work?

• Import or copy the content
• Click on “Paraphrase” “Summarize” or “Suggest text” based on your requirement
• Make the required customizations and save the document.
• Offers a plethora of tools required for students
• Both free and premium plans are available
• Enhances vocabulary and language skills
• Limited customization options with the free plan
• Only supports the English language

9. SciSpace Paraphraser

SciSpace is the best AI tool that helps you fine-tune your essay. If you feel your essay writing needs AI suggestions to improve the language, vocabulary, writing styles, and tone of your essay, SciSpace is at your rescue. It has more customized options than Quillbot and improves your essay by rephrasing it according to the required or preferred writing style, and tone. This is a very good alternative to Quillbot.

How does SciSpace Paraphrasing work?

• Simply paste the content to the screen
• Choose the length and variation properly
• Select the language
• Click “Paraphrase”
• Has 22 custom tones and all of them are available even on the free plan
• Supports 75+ languages
• Comes with an AI-detection report for English paraphrase output
• Delay in the output

10. ChatGPT

It would be unfair if we talk about AI tools and do not enlist ChatGPT. When it comes to automated essay writing tasks, ChatGPT is not trivial. With proper prompts, you can automate the essay writing process and generate a well-crafted and coherent essay. However, the quality and the accuracy cannot be trusted as the model hallucinates and doesn’t include sources.

How does ChatGPT work?

• Create a prompt based on your requirement
• Ask ChatGPT to write an essay about your topic, specify conditions and preferences
• Click enter and wait for the essay
• Comes for free
• Cannot rely on the output as the model hallucinates
• Lacks the upgraded features that other essay-writing tools have

Concluding!

Writing essays can be a real struggle. But, the inception of the best AI essay-generation tools makes the entire writing process a lot easier and smoother. However, you should be extra vigilant while relying on these tools and consciously use them only as a technological aid. Because over-reliance on these AI tools could diminish student's writing skills and the user can become more gripped by the tools. So, use it wisely without affecting your knowledge and skills.

You can explore the above tools whenever you need any help with essay writing, and reap the benefits of them without compromising on the quality of your writing.

And! If you're stuck exploring multiple research papers or want to conduct a comprehensive literature review , you know which tool to use? Yes, it's SciSpace Literature Review, our AI-powered workspace, which is meant to make your research workflow easier. Plus, it also comes with SciSpace Copilot , our AI research assistant that answers any question that you may have about the research paper.

If you haven't used it yet, you can use it here !

Choosing the best AI for writing long-form essays depends on your requirements. Here are the top 5 tools that help you create long-form and college essays —

1. Free Essay Writer AI

2. College Essay AI

3. My Essay Writer

4. Textero AI

5. Perfect Essay Writer

The Perfect Essay Writer AI and Textero AI are the two best AI essay generators that help you write the best essays.

ChatGPT is not specifically built to assist you with essay writing, however, you can use the tool to create college essays and long-form essays. It’s important to review, fact-check the essay, and refer to the sources properly.

Essaybot is a free AI essay generator tool that helps you create a well-reasoned essay with just a click.

Unless your university permits it, using AI essay generators or writing tools to write your essay can be considered as plagiarism.

You might also like

This ChatGPT Alternative Will Change How You Read PDFs Forever!

Smallpdf vs SciSpace: Which ChatPDF is Right for You?

Adobe PDF Reader vs. SciSpace ChatPDF — Best Chat PDF Tools

"Essay-to-quiz feature is a game-changer"

"Olovka AI makes studying much easier"

"Writing essays is 10x faster with Olovka"

AI Essay Writer & Learning Companion for Students

Write perfect essays and transform them into interactive quizzes to learn faster with generative ai tailored for students. powered by openai.

Reflctive Journal

Research Paper

Literature Review

Project Report

Developed with students at the world's leading universities

The universities doesn't see Olovka as a problem, because it's not writing essays for you, it's helping you write it yourself, just in 10x less time.

It's undetectable, because it writes like your clone. Unlike other AI writers.

The only AI essay writing tool designed specifically for your academic level, field and type of paper, offering precise, tailored assistance that no AI tool can match.

The most advanced text editor, customized for AI. Built for students.

Olovka's AI guides you through the essay writing process with targeted suggestions, enhancing your work every step of the way without doing it all for you.

Research while writing your essay or paper.  Chat with your AI writer.

Chat with your essays to get instant insights and explanations, streamlining your research process and overcome writer's block with Olovka's AI writing tools.

Generate tests from your essays and papers. So you actually learn something.

Enhance your understanding and retention by practicing with quizzes generated directly from your essays. Say goodbye to passive studying and hello to active learning.

Frequently asked questions

Olovka is an advanced AI essay writer and learning companion tailored specifically for students. Powered by OpenAI, Olovka helps you write perfect essays, conduct detailed research, and transform your essays into interactive quizzes for faster, active learning.

Olovka's generative AI provides targeted suggestions and guides you through each phase of the essay writing process. With its advanced text editor, you can write essays 10x faster without compromising on quality.

Yes, Olovka is the only AI essay writing tool designed specifically for various academic levels and fields. Whether you're working on a thesis, research paper, literature review, or case study, Olovka offers precise, tailored assistance unmatched by other AI tools.

Yes, Olovka allows you to research while writing your essay or paper. You can chat with your AI writer to get instant insights and explanations, streamlining your research process and helping you overcome any writer's block you may encounter.

Yes, Olovka supports various types of academic work, including reflective journals, thesis papers, research papers, literature reviews, case studies, project reports, presentations and more...

Olovka has been developed in collaboration with students from the world's leading universities. It has been designed to assist students in enhancing their writing skills without being considered a problem by academic institutions.

Olovka can generate quizzes from your essays and papers, which enhances your understanding and retention of the material. This feature promotes active learning and ensures that you actually learn something from your written work.

AI ESSAY WRITER

Writing essays without Olovka is like doing math without a calculator

Rewrite, Expand & Shorten

Tailored Style & Tone

LEARNING & TEST MODE

Academic References

Try the AI Essay Writer and become a better student one paper at a time.

Free AI Writing Resources

Improve your writing with ai.

Improve your academic performance and write like a pro without cheating or jeopardizing your degree. Get access to free AI writing tools, useful ChatGPT prompts, the latest articles about AI, and more.

Start writing

AI tools to help you write with confidence

Paraphrasing Tool

Avoid accidental plagiarism and make your text sound better. Paraphrase now

Grammar Checker

Get instant feedback on your writing. Don’t let typos bring down your grade. Grammar check now

Read more in less time. Distill lengthy and complex texts down to their key points. Summarize now

Detect AI-generated content

Detect AI-generated content like ChatGPT3.5, GPT4 and Google Bard in seconds

Try AI Detector

And fix any mistakes with AI

Scribbr’s AI Proofreader checks your document and corrects spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes with near-human accuracy and the efficiency of AI!

Try the new AI Proofreader

ChatGPT prompting 101

ChatGPT can be a great study assistant, but the responses you get are only as good as the input you provide. Keep these four tips in mind to craft great ChatGPT prompts :

• Give ChatGPT a role to play
• Be precise and provide context
• Test and improve your prompts

ChatGPT prompts

100% ethical ChatGPT prompts

Write a research question

• Generate three possible research questions for an argumentative high school essay on the following topic: “The long-term impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Brainstorm topic ideas

• Generate 10 questions to help me brainstorm topics for my college admission essay.

Quiz yourself

• I’m learning about [ insert topic here ]. Please create a practice test with 4 multiple-choice questions, each with 4 possible answers and solutions (show the solutions separately under the multiple-choice test).

Learn by metaphors and stories

• I ‘m learning about [ insert topic here ]. Convert the key lessons from this topic into engaging stories and metaphors to aid my memorization.

Find limitations

• What are some common limitations or critiques of research in the field of [ insert topic here ]?

Learn about a topic

• I want to learn about [ insert topic here ]. Identify and share the most important 20% of learnings from this topic that will help me understand 80% of it. Explain [ insert topic here ] to me without jargon and buzzwords, in the most simplified way possible.

Source recommendations

• What types of sources can I use to write an essay on the following research question? “ [insert research question here] ?”

Overview of arguments

• What are the main arguments or debates in the literature on [ insert topic here ]?

Develop an outline

• Develop an outline for an argumentative high school essay with the following research question: “ [insert research question here] ?”The essay will be about 4 pages long.

Latest articles

Learn more about ai, citing chatgpt, using chatgpt for assignments, how do ai detectors work, using chatgpt in your studies, ai tool reviews.

Best AI Detectors

AI detectors detect text generated by AI tools like ChatGPT. We tested various example texts, including ChatGPT-generated, mixed AI–human, and fully human, as well as text generated by paraphrasing tools. Check out the best AI detectors

Best Paraphrasing Tools

Paraphrasing tools improve your writing by automatically rewriting text. We tested seven popular free and premium paraphrasers to determine their reliability when it comes to producing correct, readable English. Check out the best paraphrasing tools

Best Grammar Checkers

We tested 10 popular free grammar checkers , evaluating their accuracy in fixing errors (and introducing new ones) and user-friendliness. Find out what grammar checker to use

Best summarizers

Summarizers are ideal for distilling lengthy and complicated texts down to their key points—but which summarizers are most accurate? We tested 11 summarizers to find out. Discover the most accurate summarizer

Universities’ policies on AI

Based on our analysis of the top 100 US universities, it appears that the majority haven’t established clear-cut regulations concerning AI tools at this time. As a result, it is up to individual professors to determine what is permissible in their respective courses.

Check out policies in detail

Scribbr's stance on AI

We think educators should be open to the possibilities presented by AI-powered tools. Students should employ these tools in an honest and responsible way, using them to facilitate learning rather than to skip steps in the learning process.

You can use such tools in a responsible way that benefits your education during the research and writing process by relying on them for the following:

• Brainstorming and explore topics in an interactive way
• Assisting with programming and coding
• Developing research questions and paper outlines
• Asking for feedback on your own writing

Write faster, study better – all for free

Generative AI in Academic Writing

What this handout is about.

You’ve likely heard of AI tools such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, or others by now. These tools fall under a broad, encompassing term called generative AI that describes technology that can create new text, images, sounds, video, etc. based on information and examples drawn from the internet. Some AI tools are free or offer free tiers, while others require a subscription and payment. In this handout, we will focus on potential uses and pitfalls of generative AI tools that generate text.

Before we begin: Stay tuned to your instructor

Instructors’ opinions on the use of AI tools may vary dramatically from one class to the next, so don’t assume that all of your instructors will think alike on this topic. Consult each syllabus for guidance or requirements related to the use of AI tools. If you have questions about if/how/when it may be appropriate to use generative AI in your coursework, be sure to seek input from your instructor before you turn something in for a grade. You are always 100% responsible for whatever writing you chose to turn in to an instructor, so it pays to inquire early.

Note that when your instructors authorize the use of generative AI tools, they will likely assume that these tools may help you think and write—not think or write for you. Keep that principle in mind when you are drafting and revising your assignments. You can maintain your academic integrity and employ the tools with the same high ethical standards and source use practices that you use in any piece of academic writing.

What is generative AI, and how does it work?

Generative AI is an artificial intelligence tool that allows users to ask it questions or make requests and receive quick written responses. It uses Large Language Models (LLMs) to analyze vast amounts of textual data to determine patterns in words and phrases. Detecting patterns allows LLMs to predict what words may follow other words and to transform the content of its corpus (the textual data) into new sentences that respond to the questions or requests. Using complex neural network models, LLMs generate writing that mimics human intelligence and varied writing styles.

The textual data used to train the LLM has been scraped from the internet, though it is unclear exactly which sources have been included in the corpus for each AI tool. As you can imagine, the internet has a vast array of content of variable quality and utility, and generative AI does not distinguish between accurate/inaccurate or biased/unbiased information. It can also recombine accurate source information in ways that generate inaccurate statements, so it’s important to be discerning when you use these tools and to carefully digest what’s generated for you. That said, the AI tools may spark ideas, save you time, offer models, and help you improve your writing skills. Just plan to bring your critical thinking skills to bear as you begin to experiment with and explore AI tools.

As you explore the world of generative AI tools, note that there are both free and paid versions. Some require you to create an account, while others don’t. Whatever tools you experiment with, take the time to read the terms before you proceed, especially the terms about how they will use your personal data and prompt history.

In order to generate responses from AI tools, you start by asking a question or making a request, called a “prompt.” Prompting is akin to putting words into a browser’s search bar, but you can make much more sophisticated requests from AI tools with a little practice. Just as you learned to use Google or other search engines by using keywords or strings, you will need to experiment with how you can extract responses from generative AI tools. You can experiment with brief prompts and with prompts that include as much information as possible, like information about the goal, the context, and the constraints.

You could experiment with some fun requests like “Create an itinerary for a trip to a North Carolina beach.” You may then refine your prompt to “Create an itinerary for a relaxing weekend at Topsail Beach and include restaurant recommendations” or “Create an itinerary for a summer weekend at Topsail Beach for teenagers who hate water sports.” You can experiment with style by refining the prompt to “Rephrase the itinerary in the style of a sailor shanty.” Look carefully at the results for each version of the prompt to see how your changes have shaped the answers.

The more you experiment with generative AI for fun, the more knowledgeable and prepared you will be to use the tool responsibly if you have occasion to use it for your academic work. Here are some ways you might experiment with generative AI tools when drafting or exploring a topic for a paper.

Potential uses

Brainstorming/exploring the instructor’s prompt Generative AI can help spark ideas or categories for brainstorming. You could try taking key words from your topic and asking questions about these ideas or concepts. As you narrow in on a topic, you can ask more specific or in-depth questions.

Based on the answers that you get from the AI tool, you may identify some topics, ideas, or areas you are interested in researching further. At this point, you can start exploring credible academic sources, visit your instructor’s office hours to discuss topic directions, meet with a research librarian for search strategies, etc.

Generating outlines AI tools can generate outlines of writing project timelines, slide presentations, and a variety of writing tasks. You can revise the prompt to generate several versions of the outlines that include, exclude, and prioritize different information. Analyze the output to spark your own thinking about how you’d like to structure the draft you’re working on.

Models of genres or types of writing If you are uncertain how to approach a new format or type of writing, an AI tool may quickly generate an example that may inform how you develop your draft. For example, you may never have written—a literature review, a cover letter for an internship, or an abstract for a research project. With good prompting, an AI tool may show you what type of written product you are aiming to develop, including typical components of that genre and examples. You can analyze the output for the sequence of information to help you get a sense of the structure of that genre, but be cautious about relying on the actual information (see pitfalls below). You can use what you learn about the structures to develop drafts with your own content.

Summarizing longer texts You can put longer texts into the AI tool and ask for a summary of the key points. You can use the summary as a guide to orient you to the text. After reading the summary, you can read the full text to analyze how the author has shaped the argument, to get the important details, and to capture important points that the tool may have omitted from the summary.

Editing/refining AI tools can help you improve your text at the sentence level. While sometimes simplistic, AI-generated text is generally free of grammatical errors. You can insert text you have written into an AI tool and ask it to check for grammatical errors or offer sentence level improvements. If this draft will be turned into your instructor, be sure to check your instructor’s policies on using AI for coursework.

As an extension of editing and revising, you may be curious about what AI can tell you about your own writing. For example, after asking AI tools to fix grammatical and punctuation errors in your text, compare your original and the AI edited version side-by-side. What do you notice about the changes that were made? Can you identify patterns in these changes? Do you agree with the changes that were made? Did AI make your writing more clear? Did it remove your unique voice? Writing is always a series of choices you make. Just because AI suggests a change, doesn’t mean you need to make it, but understanding why it was suggested may help you take a different perspective on your writing.

Translation You can prompt generative AI tools to translate text or audio into different languages for you. But similar to tools like Google Translate, these translations are not considered completely “fluent.” Generative AI can struggle with things like idiomatic phrases, context, and degree of formality.

Transactional communication Academic writing can often involve transactional communication—messages that move the writing project forward. AI tools can quickly generate drafts of polite emails to professors or classmates, meeting agendas, project timelines, event promotions, etc. Review each of the results and refine them appropriately for your audiences and purposes.

Potential pitfalls

Information may be false AI tools derive their responses by reassembling language in their data sets, most of which has been culled from the internet. As you learned long ago, not everything you read on the internet is true, so it follows that not everything culled and reassembled from the internet is true either. Beware of clearly written, but factually inaccurate or misleading responses from AI tools. Additionally, while they can appear to be “thinking,” they are literally assembling language–without human intelligence. They can produce information that seems plausible, but is in fact partly or entirely fabricated or fictional. The tendency for AI tools to invent information is sometimes referred to as “hallucinating.”

Citations and quotes may be invented AI responses may include citations (especially if you prompt them to do so), but beware. While the citations may seem reasonable and look correctly formatted, they may, in fact, not exist or be incorrect. For example, the tools may invent an author, produce a book title that doesn’t exist or incorrectly attribute language to an author who didn’t write the quote or wrote something quite different. Your instructors are conversant in the fields you are writing about and may readily identify these errors. Generative AI tools are not authoritative sources.

Responses may contain biases Again, AI tools are drawing from vast swaths of language from their data sets–and everything and anything has been said there. Accordingly, the tools mimic and repeat distortions in ideas on any topic in which bias easily enters in. Consider and look for biases in responses generated by AI tools.

You risk violating academic integrity standards When you prompt an AI tool, you may often receive a coherent, well written—and sometimes tempting—response. Unless you have received explicit, written guidance from an instructor on use of AI generated text, do not assume it is okay to copy and paste or paraphrase that language into your text—maybe at all. See your instructor’s syllabus and consult with them about how they authorize the use of AI tools and how they expect you to include citations for any content generated by the tool. The AI tools should help you to think and write, not think or write for you. You may find yourself violating the honor code if you are not thoughtful or careful in your use of any AI generated material.

The tools consume personal or private information (text or images) Do not input anything you prefer not to have widely shared into an AI generator. The tools take whatever you put in to a prompt and incorporate it into its systems for others to use.

Your ideas may be changed unacceptably When asked to paraphrase or polish a piece of writing, the tools can change the meaning. Be discerning and thorough in reviewing any generated responses to ensure the meaning captures and aligns with your own understanding.

A final note

Would you like to learn more about using AI in academic writing? Take a look at the modules in Carolina AI Literacy and the UNC Libraries’ Student Guide to AI Literacy . Acquainting yourself with these tools may be important as your thinking and writing skills grow. While these tools are new and still under development, they may be essential tools for you to understand in your current academic life and in your career after you leave the university. Beginning to experiment with and develop an understanding of the tools at this stage may serve you well along the way.

Note: This tip sheet was created in July 2023. Generative AI technology is evolving quickly. We will update the document as the technology and university landscapes change.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Make a Gift

Center for Educational Effectiveness

Ai & student writing.

AI & Teaching

What is it.

Generative AI (GenAI) like ChatGPT and Google Bard are based on Large Language Models (LLMs). These chatbots were trained by applying machine learning techniques, modeled on neural networks, to find patterns in billions of documents. They generate original text by predicting the likeliest sequence of words in response to a prompt, based on their training data. They do not understand content and can make mistakes. Many professions are incorporating AI into their workflows, so educators may need to cultivate AI literacy and train students to use these tools strategically and thoughtfully.

Research on AI and student writing is rapidly evolving with the technology. Current research suggests that when used appropriately, AI may enhance student drafting, revision, and research practices (Dobrin, 2023). Additionally, AI may help students who have had less access to academic English to receive feedback on word choice and grammar (Warschauer et al., 2023). Despite this benefit, these tools reinforce dominant language practices which often erase marginalized voices and encode existing social, racial and linguistic bias (Bender et al, 2020). “Chatbots can democratize access to expertise,” but in recent history, over reliance on AI has hindered critical judgment and even “erode[d] expertise” (MacArthur, 2023). If students over rely on chatbots, they may “limit their intellectual growth and confidence” (Buriak et al., 2023). Since policies that prohibit AI are ineffective, instructors should strive to create learning environments that encourage critical and transparent AI use (MLA-CCCC, 2023).

• "43%  of college students have used ChatGPT or a similar AI application. Of those who have used AI tools, 50% say they have used them to help complete assignments or exams.” (Welding, 2023)
• " Over half of college students (54%) say their instructors have not openly discussed the use of AI tools like ChatGPT.” (Welding, 2023)

Teaching Strategies

T o mitigate plagiarism, set clear policies for AI use in your syllabi. Here are three samples from the University Writing Program . Provide students with resources on how to ethically cite AI ( APA ; MLA ; Chicago ).

Identify the content, skills, and writing tasks your students struggle with. Consider whether AI would help student learning in these areas.

Brainstorming:   AI can be especially useful before students start drafting. For example, AI can provide background information or generate a list of research questions.

Editing: AI can increase equity for students who have had less access to academic English. On the other hand, these same students may be accused of plagiarism more often (Warschauer et al., 2023). Example prompt: “Copy edit this text. Then, tell me what you changed and why.” 

Tutoring: Students can use AI to help learn new or difficult concepts and skills with prompts like “Act like a tutor…” . AI can also generate examples to help students grasp new ideas or to provide instructors with examples for classroom use.

Discuss the benefits and risks of AI in science communication.  While AI can assist with the writing process in many ways, from improving organization to refining abstracts, it can also omit minority perspectives, replicate human bias, and impede the critical thinking necessary for creative science and the development of expertise.

Test out your assignments on AI to determine their level of exposure and adjust accordingly. Critique AI drafts with students to identify lack of complexity or nuance.

Provide students with clear criteria, assignment goals or rubrics so they can ask AI for targeted feedback (Mollick & Mollick, 2023). AI is not always correct; remind students they should view feedback critically and ask them to explain feedback they used. Share Chatbot prompting resources and see Mollick & Mollick (2023) for detailed prompts.

Students say …

"AI writing tools can be helpful in aiding the research and writing process. They assist me  in sorting through information, brainstorming ideas, and even providing inspiration. However, it is important for me to remain vigilant and maintain a thorough understanding and control of the content throughout the writing process."

“ ChatGPT … helped me reorganize sentences that were confusing for native speakers"

• "I will never be comfortable using AI to come up with statements and concepts for projects I am responsible for."
• How do you encourage students to work with AI Writing Tools in ethical, critical, and constructive ways that reflect writing processes and workflows they will engage in not only in their academic work but also during their professional careers?
• What aspects of your classroom policies (e.g., Syllabus Language around AI Writing Tools Usage, Grading, Participation) can you revise to better reflect your commitment to integrating thoughtful and critical AI usage into your writing assignments?
• Consider the content and skills you intend to teach with an assignment. What do students struggle with? Does the struggle help or hinder their learning? For example, academic reading is difficult for many students and AI can help them understand technical concepts; however, If your goal is for students to to analyze research methods, then an AI summary may hinder learning.
• Have you shared tips with students to protect peers’ and their own privacy and intellectual property while using AI? Consider discussing how chatbots may use their work to further train itself and create and sell new products.
• Have you reviewed the Instructor Resources created by the University Writing Program and the Writing Center (see Further Resources below)?

Further Resources

Writing and AI: Resources for Instructors Resources for Students to Develop Critical AI Literacy ChatGPT Resources  -  This list of articles and other resources is curated by Dr. Margaret Merrill, Senior Instructional Design Consultant at the University of California, Davis. 

Contributors

Joanna Johnson , Marit MacArthur , Sophia Minnillo , Kem Saichaie , Lisa Sperber , Nick Stillman , and Carl Whithaus

Share your feedback

After exploring our AI & Student Writing JITT, we invite you to respond to a few brief questions. We value your time and feedback as we strive to continuously improve Just-In-Time Teaching resources on Generative AI.

Feedback Form

Bender, E. M., Gebru, T., McMillan-Major, A., & Shmitchell, S. (2021). On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? 🦜. Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency , 610–623. https://doi.org/10.1145/3442188.3445922

Buriak, J. M., Akinwande, D., Artzi, N., Brinker, C. J., Burrows, C., Chan, W. C. W., Chen, C., Chen, X., Chhowalla, M., Chi, L., Chueh, W., Crudden, C. M., Di Carlo, D., Glotzer, S. C., Hersam, M. C., Ho, D., Hu, T. Y., Huang, J., Javey, A., … Ye, J. (2023). Best Practices for Using AI When Writing Scientific Manuscripts. ACS Nano , 17 (5), 4091–4093. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.3c01544

ChatGPT . (2023, July 13). ChatGPT. Retrieved August 31, 2023, from https://chat.openai.com

Dobrin, Sidney. (2023). Talking About Generative AI: A Guide for Instructors . Broadview Press. https://drive.google.com/file/u/1/d/1svsCFEs0t42Psd6t-VCSRd333ZcZynfK/view?usp=sharing&usp=embed_facebook

Gladd, J. (2020). How to Prompt AI Chatbots. In Write What Matters . Press Books. https://idaho.pressbooks.pub/write/chapter/how-to-begin-prompting-ai-chatbots/

MacArthur, Marit. (2023). Expertise, Generative AI, and the Convergent Futures of (Teaching) Writing and Coding. Inside Higher Ed. (forthcoming).

MLA-CCCC Joint Task Force on Writing and AI. (2023, July). MLA-CCCC Joint Task Force on Writing and AI Working Paper: Overview of the Issues, Statement of Principles, and Recommendations . https://aiandwriting.hcommons.org/working-paper-1/

Mollick, E. R., & Mollick, L. (2023). Assigning AI: Seven Approaches for Students, with Prompts (SSRN Scholarly Paper 4475995). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4475995

University of Pittsburgh Writing Institute Workshop on AI and the & Teaching of Writing. (2023, June 1). Stress Testing Writing Assignments: Evaluating Exposure of an Assignment’s Tasks to AI . https://www.writinginstitute.pitt.edu/sites/default/files/PDFs/stress_testing_writing_assignments_6.1.23.pdf

Warschauer, M., Tseng, W., Yim, S., Webster, T., Jacob, S., Du, Q., & Tate, T. (2023). The Affordances and Contradictions of AI-Generated Text for Second Language Writers (SSRN Scholarly Paper 4404380). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4404380

Welding, L. (2023, March 27). Half of College Students Say Using AI Is Cheating . Best Colleges. https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/college-students-ai-tools-survey/

Top 10 AI Essay Writers for Students in 2024 (Tested by Teachers)

What is the hardest part of writing an essay? It’s different for everyone. For some students, it’s coming up with a unique, original idea. Meanwhile, many experience writer’s block midway. Despite these issues, your submission must be timely and of high quality. So, how do you speed things up? Well, you use AI. 

Many students find themselves staring at a blank screen while the application deadlines are only days away. The stress and impending doom further dries up their creative juices. And many of them contact me through social media for a solution. 

In these cases, I don’t hesitate to suggest a few affordable AI essay writers to them. But don’t you get caught for unoriginal writing if you use AI? Not if you follow the proper strategies, I tell them. Your writing won’t be any less human-like or original if you use the tools correctly. 

Guess what? Students who followed this advice were able to submit their college essay timely and get admission to desired institutions. Follow this discussion, and you will be able to do the same. 

10 Best AI Essay Writer Tools For Students

There are more than a few AI writing tools out there. All of them help you generate bodies of text in seconds or minutes. However, you will find that most of these tools can’t create the coherent and well-structured text that college essays require. 

We have handpicked ten tools to save you the time and frustration of trying out hundreds of AI essay writers. The tools in this list have excellent ratings and are highly recommended by students and academics worldwide.  

1. PerfectEssay Writer.ai

Perfect Essay Writer is designed to help students of all academic levels. You generate original high-quality essays within seconds using this tool. They offer an AI essay writer, an outliner, and a large collection of templates to work with. 

The developing company, MyPerfectWords, has been providing professional writing services to students for a long time. They have a team whose expertise is in academic writing. So, it’s safe to assume these people know what they are doing. 

PerfectEssay Writer’s advanced algorithm can help you churn out assignments and dissertations in a very short time. 

The tool’s features can help you generate essay topics and create an outline for them. You can use the paraphraser and grammar checker to make your writing impeccable. 

Students short on a budget can use PerfectEssay Writer’s free plan. You get to use all the features the tool offers. However, since it’s a free plan, you won’t be able to enjoy the tool’s capabilities to the full extent. 

Price:  $9.99/month premium plan

• Reliable for academic writing 
• Easy to use with instant results
• Offers the users various suggestions to improve their writing 
• An experienced teacher might be able to detect AI writing
• Isn’t reliable when the essay’s topic is too complex
• Compatibility issues with some devices and browsers

2. EssayGenius.ai

Essay Genius is a professional AI Essay Generator. The tool has a simple interface like Google’s home page. You can get right down to business by entering a topic in the box and clicking ‘Start Writing.’ Browse their Showcase of essays to get an idea about the quality of work. 

This is another AI writing tool developed by linguists and educators. Therefore, it’s a more reliable academic writing tool than other AI text generators. Essay Genius uses its massive academic writing database to create authentic text for your assignments. 

One of the notable features of this tool is its ability to do comprehensive research. Most AI tools have rudimentary research abilities that aren’t enough for writing college essays. You can also use the paraphrasing tools to avoid plagiarism detection. 

Price: $12-$15/month

• Creates in-depth academic-level content instead of generic AI texts
• Can conduct comprehensive research to create authentic essays
• Excellent grammar and vocabulary suggestions
• Has a background of educators and linguists
• Unlimited pre-written essays and monthly 1000 generations for upgraded accounts
• Isn’t affordable for the majority of students 
• Some of the text might lack the nuances of human writing

3. Good-ai.com

Good AI helps students generate high-quality college-grade essays in a matter of seconds. The developers claim it to be the No.1 Essay Outline generator in the world. And the best thing is you don’t need to pay any registration or sign-up fees. Just provide

The AI tool draws its inspiration from millions of top-quality essays and articles. Users can set the tone and type of essay they want. Good AI can also provide you with references for the information it presents. 

Want to blend your originality with the automation of artificial intelligence? Good AI’s Autocomplete feature can help with that. 

Write your essay’s first one or two paragraphs and let Good AI complete the rest. This can help you easily deal with any originality issues regarding the writing. 

Price: Free

• It’s a free AI tool with premium-level features
• Generates unique and engaging 1500-word essays within seconds
• Provides comparatively authentic info with proper citations
• Has a user-friendly interface
• You still need to edit, proofread, and cross-check the info before submission 
• Requires a few attempts at setting the tone and type of the essay

4. TutorBin 

TutorBin’s study tools offer an essay generator, rewriter, paraphrase, and grammar checker. For less than a dollar/week, you can generate seven unique 1000-word essays. You can go for the more expensive plans if your requirement is higher. 

The platform’s AI assistance can help create a personalized student learning experience. It can analyze a student’s learning patterns and adapt the content accordingly. 

TutorBin had been a trusted platform for guiding students long before AI came along. The AI tool can draw from its base of tutoring experience and easily identify weak points in a student’s learning and writing. Thus providing the opportunity for improvement. 

Price 

• $3.99/month (generate 30 essays 2000 words each) 
• $0.99/week (essay rewriter) 
• Can provide essay writing solutions for a wide range of complex subjects 
• You can bring in human experts to work alongside the AI tool
• Fast and responsive 24/7 customer service
• The platform follows a strict no-plagiarism policy 

Cons  

• You might find that the platform works slower than average generative AI tools 

You can input scattered class notes or a few sentences, and TinyWow will generate high-quality essays in seconds. The tool offers three levels of essay creation – high school, college, and grad school. 

Apart from generating texts, assignments sometimes require working with images and PDFs. TinyWow can be of excellent service in that case. The AI tool was specifically designed to perform various basic digital tasks in addition to creating content. 

Students with small budgets can use the platform’s free plan. You don’t have to register or install anything. 

Price: $5.99/month

• Manage text, PDFs, images, videos, and other essay-related tasks from a single interface
• Enjoy several digital services without any installation or registration
• Comparatively low-priced premium plan
• Compatible with most of the common devices and browsers 
• Perform file conversions at high speed while maintaining quality
• Not a suitable AI essay writer for highly technical topics
• Users on free plans are often bombarded with ads

Rytr is an AI writing assistant trained in all the major languages. It can help you create essays in more than 30+ languages. You can also browse from the 20+ tones to make the essay sound perfect to the academic audience. 

The free plan allows you to create 5000 characters each month. You can get unlimited characters and many helpful features if you buy the premium plan. 

Rytr can be a great tool when multiple students work on the same project. It offers Collaboration tools to help you manage all your tasks and partners from one interface. You can also use “Project Management” to organize and track the assignment’s progress. 

Price: $15/month for premium plan. 

• Suggests creative ideas and helps you overcome writer’s block
• Different tones and templates to make your essay more unique and original
• Offers features that refine and polish your content
• Encourages collaboration between partners. 
• Helps you maintain discipline in the essay-writing process. 
• Makes the editing process easy and creative. 
• The free plan might create generic content on rare topics 
• The starter pack is comparatively more expensive than similar AI writers

8. ProWritingAid 

ProWriting Aid is the tool of choice when you are submitting to a highly selective academic audience. It can catch and improve those minor flaws in your assignment which leads to the rejection of even the most well-researched papers. 

Educator and software engineer Chris Banks developed ProWritingAid in 2012. Over the last decade, it has steadily grown into a trusted writing tool for writers of all categories. 

However, the tool comes from the mind of an educator and helping students with their assignments was always its priority. 

After generating an essay with ProWritingAid, you can ask the assistant to evaluate the piece. 

It will analyze the writing and create reports about the various aspects of the writing. These include readability, word choice, overall structure, etc. You can use these suggestions to improve the essay further. 

Price: $20/month (starting)

• The tool was designed keeping academic writing in mind. 
• Provide in-depth analysis to improve the essay
• Users can connect with a vibrant community of professional writers
• Integrates seamlessly with a variety of operating systems and apps
• Costly plans might not be affordable for everyone 
• Beginners can be easily overwhelmed by too many suggestions and insights from the tool

9. Cramly AI 

Students can craft unique essays using Cramly’s Content Genie and Paper Outlines. The Discussion Board helps you with suggestions and streamlines the research process. Thus yielding faster and more efficient results than unplanned Google searches. 

Cramly is a company that aims to help students get the most out of their education. They developed an AI assistant to cut down all the monotonous tasks of writing an essay. 

The minds behind Cramly AI are a group of Stanford graduates experienced in education and technology.

Price: 

• $9.99/month 
• $59.88/year
• Helps you write well by giving suggestions in real time 
• Generates lengthy quality content in seconds 
• You can create sophisticated text thanks to the tool’s rich vocabulary
• Provides special tips to create engaging essays. 
• Cheap and affordable annual plan 
• The options for setting tones and templates are limited 
• You must crosscheck the information and facts when writing on highly technical topics

10. Reword AI 

Reword AI is a well-known tool for human-centric writing. The developers, AI Power Lab, designed the tool keeping in mind all niches. This includes blogging, marketing, copywriting, social media posting, and academic writing. 

You might use Reword AI as a secondary tool for creating a college essay. For instance, use a more academic-focused tool to create the first draft of your essay. Afterward, use Reword AI to create the intro outro and make the writing overall more engaging. 

As the name suggests, the tool is well-reputed in its rephrasing abilities. Your essay might talk about the same things that everyone else does. However, creatively altering the sentence structure and paras can make it stand out.  

• Formal, simple, creative, academic, etc. writing modes
• Excellent feedback and suggestions on the created content.
• The tool prioritizes human-centric writing
• Free plans offer 500 words per day 
• Lacks domain-specific knowledge and terminology
• Fairly well-known tool and, therefore, a higher chance of AI detection by teachers who have used this writer

How Do You Use AI To Write Essays 

Sure, AI makes essay writing easier for you. However, it only performs as well as you use it. After all, you are still the main writer. The AI tool is only an assistant. 

Two people using the same tool will produce different results depending on their strategy. Here are a few ways to use AI to write better essays faster.

Generate Ideas    

Coming up with a unique idea from scratch can be quite difficult. You might end up wasting too much time wondering what to write about.

You can use AI essay writers to come up with ideas in mostly two ways. Most generative models simply require you to enter a keyword or topic. The AI assistant can help you by suggesting a list of ideas. You can explore them and select one to go forward.

Another way to get essay ideas is to chat with the AI tool. It would be like discussing essay ideas with a well-informed, knowledgeable friend who never gets tired.  

Creating Outlines 

Once you decide what to write about, it’s time to construct an outline. Otherwise, you won’t know where you are heading after beginning the essay. 

The AI assistant can do a great job at creating an outline for you. It can review the millions of samples available in its database and develop something different from those. That way, you can plan the structure of a unique essay in the shortest possible time. 

Conducting Research 

One of the most significant services AI can provide is being the perfect research tool. There are two reasons why AI research is better than normal Google or Bing search. 

Firstly, a regular search engine can’t answer your questions directly. You have to strategically provide them with a keyword. Meanwhile, AI can understand the user’s intent from the prompt and conduct the research accordingly. 

Secondly, normal search engine results are blogs and articles relevant to your keywords. You must still open that webpage, read the article, and extract the info yourself. That requires a lot of time and effort. 

In contrast, AI research can process hundreds of relevant web articles and scientific papers in seconds. It would then extract and present the precise info before you, along with proper citations. Thus, AI helps you conduct far more intense and rich research than ever humanely possible. 

Creating Text Bodies 

A writing is as good as the number of editing it went through. Most of the great articles and essays you read are their writer’s third or fourth draft. AI can help reduce time and effort by generating the primary drafts. So, you, the writer, will only edit the final draft. 

You might also use AI assistance to improve an essay you have already written. AI essay writers have excellent paraphrasing tools. 

Plus, you don’t have to spend time correcting grammar and spelling typos. The best thing is you can paraphrase and edit your text as many times as you want until it reads impeccably. 

5 Tips To Pass AI Detector For College Essays 

You might be thinking, okay, I can churn out a college essay with an AI tool. After all, it’s not that complicated. But how do I get away with it? 

The admission officers and course professors still expect you do the work on your own. And it’s not easy to fool them since they regularly review hundreds of student writings. You will face immediate rejection if an educator is convinced that your essay is AI-written.

Well, don’t worry. We got your back. Here are five tips to make your AI-crafted essay as good or even better than human writing. 

1. Understand AI Detection Methods 

AI detection tools came to the market soon after AI writers. Admission officers or teachers will upload your file to these tools and check the score. They will start to get suspicious if the tool detects more than 20 percent. AI.  

So, a good strategy is to perform the test yourself. You can find many free AI detection tools on the web. Upload your essay to them and check the score before submission. The essay requires retouching if you notice more than twenty percent AI writing. 

Other than AI tools there are some other symptoms that indicate AI writing. For instance, a teacher might consider your essay written if the text is repetitive, lacks transition, too generic and incoherent. 

2. Personalize the Text 

You can add a few relevant personal opinions, stories, or examples to your text and instantly make it more human-like. Focus more on the intro and outro since these parts make the most impact on readers. 

Humor and personal insights can do wonders. Every person has a unique and original perspective on the world. Bring that to your writing and no one would ever say it’s AI-content. 

3. Check Plagiarism 

When AI writes something for you, it draws from the millions of texts it has been trained on. While generating thousands of words in mere minutes, it might sometimes not alter original sentences from those texts. As a result, your essay will show plagiarism on detectors. 

You don’t want your essay to have more than 15%-20% plagiarism . Some institutions are more strict. They would deem your essay unoriginal (aka AI generated) if the text shows more than 10% AI. So, run your essay through an online Plag Checker and rewrite the marked sentences. 

4. Appoint a Human Editor 

Do all these seem like too much work? Well, you can hire a human editor to do them on your behalf. It would cost a fraction of what you pay someone to write 1000 words than to edit it. You can find an editor on freelance marketplaces like Upwork or Fiverr. 

5. Site Sources 

Proper citation tells your professors that you have done your fair share of research on a topic. Even if your writing has a bit of a robotic tone, citations can help clear the teachers’ suspicion about your AI use. Plus, it provides support to the arguments in your essay. 

Should Students Use AI To Write Their Essays: Advantages and Disadvantages

So, let’s talk about the ethical side of this whole affair. Of course, educators would want you to write your college essays the old-fashioned way. From that perspective, writing essays with AI is not exactly honest. 

However, that is only true when you blindly generate an essay with AI and submit it as it is. Those who develop a content strategy and follow improvement techniques are still doing the writer’s creative work. In their case, AI is only an assistant. 

And what’s so wrong about using modern technology to craft better and more informative essays in a shorter time? From that point of view, even Google searches are kind of cheating. People should instead go back to dusty libraries and waste their time extracting simple info from books. 

Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using AI to write your essays. Consider them to make your own decision- 

Advantages 

• Reduce stress and save time on writing 
• Do better research with less effort. 
• Make more primary drafts to create the best final result. 

Disadvantage 

• Some students might not dedicate any time to studying the topics as AI can write their essays for them. 
• Students might lose their natural writing and research skills.
• AI detection can result in application rejection or failing a course. 

Final Words :

Artificially Intelligent assistant is probably the greatest scientific innovation in recent times. There’s no point in not taking advantage of this to reduce time and effort and perform better than before. So, all students must be familiar with AI essay writers to become better versions of themselves. 

However, it’s important to not be overwhelmed by technology. There are cars, but people still walk and run to keep those muscles working. Similarly, you should always keep your writing and researching skills sharp. Remember, AI is just an extremely resourceful assistant and nothing more. 

Top 13 AI Homework Helper For Students (2024)

How to Transfer Colleges Seamlessly in 2024

Related Articles

How to Study Effectively: Best Strategies to Maximize Your Study Time

The Best Online Degree Programs: Some Of Our Favorite Accredited Schools

The Best Online Colleges for Adult Learners: Accredited and Ready for You

Latest articles.

Future-Proof Your Career: Best Online Degree Programs for 2024

How to Choose the Right Degree Program: Top Tips for Success

The Best Online Master’s Degree Programs for 2024: Top-Rated Picks

3324 E Ray Rd #905 (PO Box 905) Higley, AZ 85236

PH +1 (650) 429-8971

© 2024 Back2college.com

The College Essay Is Dead

Nobody is prepared for how AI will transform academia.

Suppose you are a professor of pedagogy, and you assign an essay on learning styles. A student hands in an essay with the following opening paragraph:

The construct of “learning styles” is problematic because it fails to account for the processes through which learning styles are shaped. Some students might develop a particular learning style because they have had particular experiences. Others might develop a particular learning style by trying to accommodate to a learning environment that was not well suited to their learning needs. Ultimately, we need to understand the interactions among learning styles and environmental and personal factors, and how these shape how we learn and the kinds of learning we experience.

Pass or fail? A- or B+? And how would your grade change if you knew a human student hadn’t written it at all? Because Mike Sharples, a professor in the U.K., used GPT-3, a large language model from OpenAI that automatically generates text from a prompt, to write it. (The whole essay, which Sharples considered graduate-level, is available, complete with references, here .) Personally, I lean toward a B+. The passage reads like filler, but so do most student essays.

Sharples’s intent was to urge educators to “rethink teaching and assessment” in light of the technology, which he said “could become a gift for student cheats, or a powerful teaching assistant, or a tool for creativity.” Essay generation is neither theoretical nor futuristic at this point. In May, a student in New Zealand confessed to using AI to write their papers, justifying it as a tool like Grammarly or spell-check: ​​“I have the knowledge, I have the lived experience, I’m a good student, I go to all the tutorials and I go to all the lectures and I read everything we have to read but I kind of felt I was being penalised because I don’t write eloquently and I didn’t feel that was right,” they told a student paper in Christchurch. They don’t feel like they’re cheating, because the student guidelines at their university state only that you’re not allowed to get somebody else to do your work for you. GPT-3 isn’t “somebody else”—it’s a program.

The world of generative AI is progressing furiously. Last week, OpenAI released an advanced chatbot named ChatGPT that has spawned a new wave of marveling and hand-wringing , plus an upgrade to GPT-3 that allows for complex rhyming poetry; Google previewed new applications last month that will allow people to describe concepts in text and see them rendered as images; and the creative-AI firm Jasper received a $1.5 billion valuation in October. It still takes a little initiative for a kid to find a text generator, but not for long.

The essay, in particular the undergraduate essay, has been the center of humanistic pedagogy for generations. It is the way we teach children how to research, think, and write. That entire tradition is about to be disrupted from the ground up. Kevin Bryan, an associate professor at the University of Toronto, tweeted in astonishment about OpenAI’s new chatbot last week: “You can no longer give take-home exams/homework … Even on specific questions that involve combining knowledge across domains, the OpenAI chat is frankly better than the average MBA at this point. It is frankly amazing.” Neither the engineers building the linguistic tech nor the educators who will encounter the resulting language are prepared for the fallout.

A chasm has existed between humanists and technologists for a long time. In the 1950s, C. P. Snow gave his famous lecture, later the essay “The Two Cultures,” describing the humanistic and scientific communities as tribes losing contact with each other. “Literary intellectuals at one pole—at the other scientists,” Snow wrote. “Between the two a gulf of mutual incomprehension—sometimes (particularly among the young) hostility and dislike, but most of all lack of understanding. They have a curious distorted image of each other.” Snow’s argument was a plea for a kind of intellectual cosmopolitanism: Literary people were missing the essential insights of the laws of thermodynamics, and scientific people were ignoring the glories of Shakespeare and Dickens.

The rupture that Snow identified has only deepened. In the modern tech world, the value of a humanistic education shows up in evidence of its absence. Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of the crypto exchange FTX who recently lost his $16 billion fortune in a few days , is a famously proud illiterate. “I would never read a book,” he once told an interviewer . “I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that.” Elon Musk and Twitter are another excellent case in point. It’s painful and extraordinary to watch the ham-fisted way a brilliant engineering mind like Musk deals with even relatively simple literary concepts such as parody and satire. He obviously has never thought about them before. He probably didn’t imagine there was much to think about.

The extraordinary ignorance on questions of society and history displayed by the men and women reshaping society and history has been the defining feature of the social-media era. Apparently, Mark Zuckerberg has read a great deal about Caesar Augustus , but I wish he’d read about the regulation of the pamphlet press in 17th-century Europe. It might have spared America the annihilation of social trust .

These failures don’t derive from mean-spiritedness or even greed, but from a willful obliviousness. The engineers do not recognize that humanistic questions—like, say, hermeneutics or the historical contingency of freedom of speech or the genealogy of morality—are real questions with real consequences. Everybody is entitled to their opinion about politics and culture, it’s true, but an opinion is different from a grounded understanding. The most direct path to catastrophe is to treat complex problems as if they’re obvious to everyone. You can lose billions of dollars pretty quickly that way.

As the technologists have ignored humanistic questions to their peril, the humanists have greeted the technological revolutions of the past 50 years by committing soft suicide. As of 2017, the number of English majors had nearly halved since the 1990s. History enrollments have declined by 45 percent since 2007 alone. Needless to say, humanists’ understanding of technology is partial at best. The state of digital humanities is always several categories of obsolescence behind, which is inevitable. (Nobody expects them to teach via Instagram Stories.) But more crucially, the humanities have not fundamentally changed their approach in decades, despite technology altering the entire world around them. They are still exploding meta-narratives like it’s 1979, an exercise in self-defeat.

Read: The humanities are in crisis

Contemporary academia engages, more or less permanently, in self-critique on any and every front it can imagine. In a tech-centered world, language matters, voice and style matter, the study of eloquence matters, history matters, ethical systems matter. But the situation requires humanists to explain why they matter, not constantly undermine their own intellectual foundations. The humanities promise students a journey to an irrelevant, self-consuming future; then they wonder why their enrollments are collapsing. Is it any surprise that nearly half of humanities graduates regret their choice of major ?

The case for the value of humanities in a technologically determined world has been made before. Steve Jobs always credited a significant part of Apple’s success to his time as a dropout hanger-on at Reed College, where he fooled around with Shakespeare and modern dance, along with the famous calligraphy class that provided the aesthetic basis for the Mac’s design. “A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem,” Jobs said . “The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.” Apple is a humanistic tech company. It’s also the largest company in the world.

Despite the clear value of a humanistic education, its decline continues. Over the past 10 years, STEM has triumphed, and the humanities have collapsed . The number of students enrolled in computer science is now nearly the same as the number of students enrolled in all of the humanities combined.

And now there’s GPT-3. Natural-language processing presents the academic humanities with a whole series of unprecedented problems. Practical matters are at stake: Humanities departments judge their undergraduate students on the basis of their essays. They give Ph.D.s on the basis of a dissertation’s composition. What happens when both processes can be significantly automated? Going by my experience as a former Shakespeare professor, I figure it will take 10 years for academia to face this new reality: two years for the students to figure out the tech, three more years for the professors to recognize that students are using the tech, and then five years for university administrators to decide what, if anything, to do about it. Teachers are already some of the most overworked, underpaid people in the world. They are already dealing with a humanities in crisis. And now this. I feel for them.

And yet, despite the drastic divide of the moment, natural-language processing is going to force engineers and humanists together. They are going to need each other despite everything. Computer scientists will require basic, systematic education in general humanism: The philosophy of language, sociology, history, and ethics are not amusing questions of theoretical speculation anymore. They will be essential in determining the ethical and creative use of chatbots, to take only an obvious example.

The humanists will need to understand natural-language processing because it’s the future of language, but also because there is more than just the possibility of disruption here. Natural-language processing can throw light on a huge number of scholarly problems. It is going to clarify matters of attribution and literary dating that no system ever devised will approach; the parameters in large language models are much more sophisticated than the current systems used to determine which plays Shakespeare wrote, for example . It may even allow for certain types of restorations, filling the gaps in damaged texts by means of text-prediction models. It will reformulate questions of literary style and philology; if you can teach a machine to write like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, that machine must be able to inform you, in some way, about how Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote.

The connection between humanism and technology will require people and institutions with a breadth of vision and a commitment to interests that transcend their field. Before that space for collaboration can exist, both sides will have to take the most difficult leaps for highly educated people: Understand that they need the other side, and admit their basic ignorance. But that’s always been the beginning of wisdom, no matter what technological era we happen to inhabit.

About the Author

More Stories

The Secret That Dr. Ruth Knew

The Future of Writing Is a Lot Like Hip-Hop

Special Features

Vendor voice.

This article is more than 1 year old

University students recruit AI to write essays for them. Now what?

Teachers need to work harder to get students to write and think for themselves.

Feature As word of students using AI to automatically complete essays continues to spread, some lecturers are beginning to rethink how they should teach their pupils to write.

Writing is a difficult task to do well. The best novelists and poets write furiously, dedicating their lives to mastering their craft. The creative process of stringing together words to communicate thoughts is often viewed as something complex, mysterious, and unmistakably human. No wonder people are fascinated by machines that can write too.

Unlike humans, language models don't procrastinate and create content instantly with a little guidance. All you need to do is type a short description, or prompt, instructing the model on what it needs to produce, and it'll generate a text output in seconds. So it should come as no surprise students are now beginning use these tools to complete school work.

Students are the perfect users: They need to write often, in large volumes, and are internet savvy. There are many AI-writing products to choose from that are easy to use and pretty cheap too. All of them lure new users with free trials, promising to make them better writers.

Monthly subscriptions for the most popular platform, Jasper, costs $40 per month to generate 35,000 words. Others, like Writesonic or Sudowrite, are cheaper at $10 per month for 30,000 words. Students who think they can use these products and get away with doing zero work, however, will probably be disappointed.

And then there's ChatGPT ...

Although AI can generate text with perfect spelling, great grammar and syntax, the content often isn't that good beyond a few paragraphs. The writing becomes less coherent over time with no logical train of thought to follow. Language models fail to get their facts right – meaning quotes, dates, and ideas are likely false. Students will have to inspect the writing closely and correct mistakes for their work to be convincing.

Prof: AI-assisted essays 'not good'

Scott Graham, associate professor at the Department of Rhetoric & Writing at the University of Texas at Austin, tasked his pupils with writing a 2,200-word essay about a campus-wide issue using AI. Students were free to lightly edit and format their work with the only rule being that most of the essay had to be automatically generated by software.

In an opinion article on Inside Higher Ed, Graham said the AI-assisted essays were "not good," noting that the best of the bunch would have earned a C or C-minus grade. To score higher, students would have had to rewrite more of the essay using their own words to improve it, or craft increasingly narrower and specific prompts to get back more useful content.

"You're not going to be able to push a button or submit a short prompt and generate a ready-to-go essay," he told The Register .

The limits of machine-written text forces humans to carefully read and edit copy. Some people may consider using these tools as cheating, but Graham believes they can help people get better at writing.

Don't waste all your effort on the first draft....

"I think if students can do well with AI writing, it's not actually all that different from them doing well with their own writing. The main skills I teach and assess mostly happen after the initial drafting," he said.

"I think that's where people become really talented writers; it's in the revision and the editing process. So I'm optimistic about [AI] because I think that it will provide a framework for us to be able to teach that revision and editing better.

"Some students have a lot of trouble sometimes generating that first draft. If all the effort goes into getting them to generate that first draft, and then they hit the deadline, that's what they will submit. They don't get a chance to revise, they don't get a chance to edit. If we can use those systems to speed write the first draft, it might really be helpful," he opined.

Whether students can use these tools to get away with doing less work will depend on the assignment. A biochemistry student claimed on Reddit they got an A when they used an AI model to write "five good and bad things about biotech" in an assignment, Vice reported .

AI is more likely to excel at producing simple, generic text across common templates or styles.

Listicles, informal blog posts, or news articles will be easier to imitate than niche academic papers or literary masterpieces. Teachers will need to be thoughtful about the essay questions they set and make sure students' knowledge are really being tested, if they don't want them to cut corners.

Ask a silly question, you'll get a silly answer

"I do think it's important for us to start thinking about the ways that [AI] is changing writing and how we respond to that in our assignments -- that includes some collaboration with AI," Annette Vee, associate professor of English and director of the Composition Program at the University of Pittsburgh, told us.

"The onus now is on writing teachers to figure out how to get to the same kinds of goals that we've always had about using writing to learn. That includes students engaging with ideas, teaching them how to formulate thoughts, how to communicate clearly or creatively. I think all of those things can be done with AI systems, but they'll be done differently."

The line between using AI as a collaborative tool or a way to cheat, however, is blurry. None of the academics teaching writing who spoke to The Register thought students should be banned from using AI software. "Writing is fundamentally shaped by technology," Vee said.

"Students use spell check and grammar check. If I got a paper where a student didn't use these, it stands out. But it used to be, 50 years ago, writing teachers would complain that students didn't know how to spell so they would teach spelling. Now they don't."

Most teachers, however, told us they would support regulating the use of AI-writing software in education. Anna Mills, who teaches students how to write at a community college in the Bay Area, is part of a small group of academics beginning to rally teachers and professional organizations like the Modern Language Association into thinking about introducing new academic rules.

Critical thinking skills

Mills said she could see why students might be tempted to use AI to write their essays, and simply asking teachers to come up with more compelling assessments is not a convincing solution.

Just $10 to create an AI chatbot of a dead loved one

"We need policies. These tools are already pretty good now, and they're only going to get better. We need clear guidance on what's acceptable use and what's not. Where is the line between using it to automatically generate email responses and something that violates academic integrity?" she asked The Register .

"Writing is just not outputs. Writing and revising is a process that develops our thinking. If you skip that, you're going to be skipping that practice which students need.

"It's too tempting to use it as a crutch, skip the thinking, and skip the frustrating moments of writing. Some of that is part of the process of going deeper and wrestling with ideas. There is a risk of learning loss if students become dependent and don't develop the writing skills they need."

Mills was particularly concerned about AI reducing the need for people to think for themselves, considering language models carry forward biases in their training data. "Companies have decided what to feed it and we don't know. Now, they are being used to generate all sorts of things from novels to academic papers, and they could influence our thoughts or even modify them. That is an immense power, and it's very dangerous."

Lauren Goodlad, professor of English and Comparative Literature at Rutgers University, agreed. If they parrot what AI comes up with, students may end up more likely to associate Muslims with terrorism or mention conspiracy theories, for example.

Computers are alredy interfering and changing the ways we write. Goodlad referred to one incident when Gmail suggested she change the word "importunate" to "impatient" in an email she wrote.

"It's hard to teach students how to use their own writing as a way to develop their critical thinking and as a way to express knowledge. They very badly need the practice of articulating their thoughts in writing and machines can rob them of this. If people really do end up using these things all the way through school, if that were to happen it could be a real loss not just for the writing quality but for the thinking quality of a whole generation," she said.

Rules and regulation

Academic policies tackling AI-assisted writing will be difficult to implement. Opinions are divided on whether sentences generated by machines count as plagiarism or not. There is also the problem of being able to detect writing produced by these tools accurately. Some teachers are alarmed at AI's growing technical capabilities, whilst others believe its overhyped. Some are embracing the technology more than others.

Marc Watkins, lecturer, and Stephen Monroe, chair and assistant professor of writing and rhetoric, are working on building an AI writing pilot programme with the University of Mississippi's Academic Innovations Group. "As teachers, we are experimenting, not panicking," Monroe told The Register .

"We want to empower our students as writers and thinkers. AI will play a role… This is a time of exciting and frenzied development, but educators move more slowly and deliberately… AI will be able to assist writers at every stage, but students and teachers will need tools that are thoughtfully calibrated."

• Human-replacing AI startups reach $1bn unicorn status
• GPT-3 'prompt injection' attack causes bad bot manners
• FauxPilot: It's like GitHub Copilot but doesn't phone home to Microsoft
• AI chatbot trained on posts from web sewer 4chan behaved badly – just like human members

Teachers are getting together and beginning to think about these tools, Watkins added. "Before we have any policy about the use of language models, we need to have sustained conversations with students, faculty, and administration about what this technology means for teaching and learning."

"But academia doesn't move at the pace of Big Tech. We're taking our time and slowly exploring. I don't think faculty need to be frightened. It's possible that these tools will have a positive impact on student learning and advancing equity, so let's approach AI assistants cautiously, but with an open mind."

Regardless of what policies universities may decide to implement in the future, AI presents academia with an opportunity to improve education now. Teachers will need to adapt to the technology if they want to remain relevant, and incentivise students to learn and think on their own with or without assistance from computers. ®

• Machine Learning

Narrower topics

• Deep Learning
• Large Language Model
• Neural Networks
• Tensor Processing Unit

Broader topics

• Self-driving Car

Send us news

Other stories you might like

Ai-pushing adobe says ai-shy office workers will love ai if it saves them time, the future of ai/ml depends on the reality of today – and it's not pretty, have we stopped to think about what llms actually model, the ultimate dual-use tool for cybersecurity.

Canadian artist wants Anthropic AI lawsuit corrected

Ai firms propose 'personhood credentials' … to fight ai, ai bills can blow out by 1000 percent: gartner, defense ai models 'a risk to life' alleges spurned tech firm, dell's all-in bet on ai pays off in latest earnings, brit teachers are getting ai sidekicks to help with marking and lesson plans, buying a pc for local ai these are the specs that actually matter, if every pc is going to be an ai pc, they better be as good at all the things trad pcs can do.

• Advertise with us

Our Websites

• The Next Platform
• Blocks and Files

Your Privacy

• Cookies Policy
• Privacy Policy
• Ts & Cs

Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024

The Impact of AI on Academic Writing: Challenges and Solutions for Students

Where technology and education merge, the development has brought in artificial intelligence-allowed advancement in recent years. The development of AI-generated essays and further sophisticated writing tools confirms for students resources previously unthought of ten years ago. Yet, with many benefits come significant challenges for educators and equally important questions about academic integrity. In the following article, we'll look at how AI is changing academic writing, the challenges it creates, and how students and educators navigate the multifaceted landscape.

The Rise of AI-Generated Essays

Artificially intelligent essays are no longer a subject of science fiction but a rapidly developing reality in schools and other educational institutions. Advanced language models equip essay writers to draft coherent, relevantly structured, targeted prompt-specified, or subject-oriented essays in the blink of an eye.

Access to these technologies has seen the usage of AI writing tools increase rapidly among students. Most of these tools are online and, as such, free or cheap, hence within reach for most students. The convenience and efficiency accorded by access to AI writing tools make them very attractive for students who wish to produce quick essay drafts, correct grammatical errors, or even finish whole assignments.

The benefits of extensive use of AI in academic writing do not rule out its adverse effects. The more students use such tools, the greater the concern over the authenticity and originality of the student's work.

Challenges Faced by Teachers and Educators

With the rise of AI in academic writing comes a whole set of challenges for educators tasked with upholding the integrity of the learning process. Of all these challenges, the biggest relates to the issue of detection. Traditional plagiarism detection software is created to identify copied material from existing sources. It may not be able to locate AI-generated content, which, by its very nature, is original and not plagiarized from other works.

This is compounded by the fact that AI essays can be tailor-made for prompts and writing styles, making them much harder to recognize. It may thus be hard for educators to separate the work that comes from a student from that which the AI generates, especially when the content is well-written and free of obvious errors.

This generally positive development goes along with the challenge of academic integrity. Real learning and skill acquisition might be undervalued over time if students become increasingly dependent on AI while doing homework.

What Does This Mean for Students

Therefore, using AI in academic writing has critical academic and ethical consequences for students. AI writing tools help generate ideas and improve grammar but may develop a dependency level that limits the development of writing skills. Writing involves more than the generation of text; it is a form of critical thinking, creativity, and knowing exactly how to communicate ideas with clarity and force. These skills are priceless in leading a student to academic success and in communication at both professional and personal levels.

Further, the implications of using AI for assignments reach far from the confines of the classroom. Most academic institutions have stern policies regarding plagiarism and academic dishonesty; using AI to generate assignments without giving due credit clearly violates such policies. Students guilty of submitting AI-generated work at their own risk face severe penalties, including failing grades, suspension, or expulsion.

Another crucial aspect is the ethics of using AI to write academic work. Students should be aware of the value of original work and understand that while AI tools can support essay writing, they shouldn't ignore the effort and learning from writing an essay themselves.

What Role Do AI Detection Tools Play?

As AI-generated content is becoming more and more prevalent, the development of tools for AI detection has gradually become an essential element in sustaining and maintaining academic integrity. These tools identify patterns, inconsistencies, or anomalies in written content that may signal the presence of AI. While the exact algorithms and techniques of these tools are typically proprietary, overall, these tools perform to differentiate between human-written and AI-generated text.

These AI detection tools help educators establish originality in students' work. They ensure the learning process remains authentic, and any work done by a student is his or her own and not copied from anywhere else. It's about trust within the educational system and one way to sustain high standards of academic integrity.

These AI detection tools help students remember that the work they submit should be original. Because students know their work could be subjected to AI detection, they are encouraged to dig deeper into a writing assignment and take ownership of it. Students can use these tools to self-check their work before submission, ensuring they meet the requirements for academic honesty.

How to Balance Technology With Education

The use of AI in academic writing raises some very interesting questions regarding the use of technology in education. As AI tools increase in sophistication and begin to see wider use, it's critical that a balance be struck between leveraging such capabilities and ensuring students develop the critical thinking and writing skills crucial for their future success.

Such is where educators play an important role, guiding students to responsibly use such AI tools: how to use such tools as an aid and not a replacement for effort, such as generating ideas, improving grammar, or structuring essays, while the actual content and analysis in the paper should be from the student.

None less important is the development of technological literacy parallel to traditional academic skills. In a world in which AI is increasingly being integrated into more and more aspects of life, the task of teaching students how to responsibly interact with this technology becomes a high point of imperative. This includes knowing limitations where AI is involved, being able to value original thought, and applying technology to enhance rather than replace learning.

Academic Writing in the Future

As AI continues to evolve, the world of academic writing will likely be very different. Essay assignments have dominated education for a very long time; it is about time that they were modified to coexist with AI. This may require moving the emphasis away from the product that is an essay and onto the process of writing. Instructors may pay more attention to drafts, revisions, and the process of evolving ideas rather than just the completed essay.

Moreover, the future of academic writing would introduce new forms of assessment that draw much more heavily upon critical thinking and problem-solving than rote memorization of knowledge. For example, assignments in which students must critically use AI tools, evaluate their outputs, and provide their analysis may become the norm. Such assignments would help students not only develop their writing skills but also critically think about the role of AI in doing such work.

The use of AI in academic writing is inevitable; however, it does not have to be at the expense of actual learning. Adopting these changes and devising new approaches to assessing students' work is the way for educators to ensure that the next generation will be technologically smart and academically proficient.

Tips for Students

In the age of AI, students must be mindful and act responsibly with their writing tools. Here is a practical way to wade through academic writing in light of this new landscape:

• AI for Brainstorming: AI writing tools can be super helpful in generating ideas and organizing your thoughts. Use them to start the writing process, but always ensure that the final content reflects your thinking and analysis.
• Develop Your Skills: Writing is one of those skills that improves with practice. While AI might assist you in certain instances of writing, it is essential you place more emphasis on developing your skills. This would mean honing grammar and styles and building up arguments.
• Know the Ethics: Be informed about the ethical standing of using AI on your assignments. Always strive for originality and properly acknowledge any help the AI tool provides. When in doubt, use an AI detector to make sure your work is up to scratch.
• Get Feedback: While AI tools can improve your writing, they are not a replacement for human insight. Seek feedback from teachers, peers, or tutors to refine your work and identify areas needing improvement.
• Engage in Critical Thinking: Use the AI tool and its output critically. Consider challenging it, drawing comparisons against your ideas, and using the technology to enhance instead of replace your learning.
• Stay informed: Remain current with news and information regarding both AI and academic writing. A basic understanding of how these tools are evolving will assist you in making responsible choices about how or if to use them in your work.

With these considerations in mind, students can understand and work out the kinks of academic writing in this AI age while honing their own skills. Another aspect is balancing the use of technology with more traditional learning so the next generation of students will be both technologically sophisticated and academically proficient. The future of academic writing will continually be one of adaptation, but if done right, it can be an even more enhanced and interactive learning environment.

Sign up for more like this.

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

current events conversation

What Students Are Saying About Learning to Write in the Age of A.I.

Does being able to write still matter when chatbots can do it for us? Teenagers weigh in on an essay from Opinion.

By The Learning Network

With artificial intelligence programs like ChatGPT that can generate prose for us, how much should we care about learning to write — and write well?

In “ Our Semicolons, Ourselves ,” the Opinion contributor Frank Bruni argues that, for a multitude of reasons, communicating effectively is a skill we should still take seriously. “Good writing burnishes your message,” he writes. “It burnishes the messenger, too.”

We asked teenagers what they thought: Does learning to be a good writer still matter in the age of A.I.? Or will the technology someday replace the need for people to learn how to put pen to paper and fingers to keyboard?

Take a look at their conversation below, which explores the benefits of learning to express oneself, the promise and perils of chatbots, and what it means to be a writer.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the conversation on our writing prompts this week, including students from Glenbard North High School in Carol Stream, Ill.; Hinsdale Central High School in Hinsdale, Ill. and New Rochelle High School in New Rochelle, N.Y .

Please note: Student comments have been lightly edited for length, but otherwise appear as they were originally submitted.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

• About the LSE Impact Blog
• Comments Policy
• Popular Posts
• Recent Posts
• Subscribe to the Impact Blog
• Write for us
• LSE comment

Mike Sharples

May 17th, 2022, new ai tools that can write student essays require educators to rethink teaching and assessment.

38 comments | 313 shares

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

AI tools are available today that can write compelling university level essays. Taking an example of sample essay produced by the GPT-3 transformer, Mike Sharples discusses the implications of this technology for higher education and argues that they should be used to enhance pedagogy, rather than accelerating an ongoing arms race between increasingly sophisticated fraudsters and fraud detectors.

  With all the focus in artificial intelligence and education on AI personalised learning and tutoring systems , one AI technology has slipped by unnoticed. It could become a gift for student cheats, or a powerful teaching assistant, or a tool for creativity. It’s called a Transformer, it acts as a universal language tool and it is set to disrupt education. Here’s how.

Take a minute to read this graduate student essay on the controversial topic of “learning styles”. If this were your student, how would you assess the essay? What mark would you give? What are its strengths and weaknesses?

Learning Styles

The construct of “learning styles” is problematic because it fails to account for the processes through which learning styles are shaped. Some students might develop a particular learning style because they have had particular experiences. Others might develop a particular learning style by trying to accommodate to a learning environment that was not well suited to their learning needs. Ultimately, we need to understand the interactions among learning styles and environmental and personal factors, and how these shape how we learn and the kinds of learning we experience.

Learning styles and learning modes

In the 1970s, learning styles became an important feature of educational practice. In the 1990s, “learning modalities” became a major focus of learning style research. This is the idea that we process information in different ways. For example, some individuals may be auditory learners, benefiting from listening to lectures and using recorded materials. Others may be visual learners, who gain from using visual materials such as textbooks, handouts, and computer graphics. Still others may be kinesthetic learners, who benefit from learning by movement and doing. Numerous experiments have been conducted to test this idea, and a number of different classifications of learning modalities have been proposed.

In a review of this research, Dunn and Dunn (1997) found that the evidence does not support the idea that people have a particular learning mode that is dominant or that they process information in a particular way. In their study, the authors found that when students were given a particular instructional treatment, they could be classified in a particular learning modality category. But when they were given a different instructional treatment, they were classified in a different category. In a follow-up study in which they gave students a number of instructional treatments, Dunn and Dunn found that students could be placed in a particular category in some treatments, but not others.

Dunn and Dunn also found that the results varied by age. Older students generally fit the results of more than one modality, whereas younger students were more likely to fit the results of just one modality. This led them to conclude that style preferences are learned over the course of development. This is consistent with the idea that people are flexible in responding to the way they are taught.

Dunn, R., & Dunn, K. (1997). Learning styles: Research and practice. Journal of Research in Education, 7(2), 139-151.

The entire “student essay” was written by a Transformer AI program, GPT-3 . I gave it the prompt “The construct of ‘learning styles’ is problematic because” and it produced the rest, including headings and references. Plagiarism software will not detect essays written by Transformers, because the text is generated, not copied. A Google search of the essay shows that each sentence is original.

Note its reference for “Dunn and Dunn (1997)”. There is a journal of Research in Education, but no issue 7(2) in 1997. Dunn and Dunn did publish on learning styles, but not in that journal. GPT-3 has fashioned a plausible-looking but fake reference. It has also invented a fictitious research study from Dunn and Dunn to critique learning styles.

Anyone can sign up for an account with the GPT-3 Transformer then go to its “Playground”, type the opening words of an assignment, press Submit and let it do the rest. A student can now generate an entire essay or assignment in seconds, at a cost of around 1 US cent. Other companies and universities are developing Transformer systems that write in multiple languages and learn as they go.

Some Transformers, such as GPT-3, can filter bad language. But they are essentially amoral. They don’t know what they have written – they can’t reflect on their output. Can a powerful but amoral text generator be used for good in education? Here are some suggestions.

Just as a student can generate an essay in seconds, so a teacher can assess it. Add “Here is a short assessment of this student essay:” to the end of the text and GPT-3 writes a review.

The essay discusses the idea of learning styles, and how they may be developed over time. It cites research by Dunn and Dunn which suggests that learning styles are not fixed, and that people can learn in different ways depending on the situation.

The essay is well-organized and flows smoothly. It makes a clear argument and supports it with evidence from research.

One potential criticism is that the essay does not discuss the implications of learning styles research, or how this research can be used to improve learning. However, this is not necessarily a flaw, as the essay is only meant to be a brief overview of the topic.

It does a reasonable job. The program transforms surface text into a review but it doesn’t get to the essay’s meaning, nor does it find the fake reference or the made-up research study.

Students will employ AI to write assignments. Teachers will use AI to assess them. Nobody learns, nobody gains. If ever there were a time to rethink assessment, it’s now. Instead of educators trying to outwit AI Transformers, let’s harness them for learning.

If Transformer AI systems have a lasting influence on education, maybe that will come from educators and policy makers having to rethink how to assess students

First, Transformers can quickly show students different ways to express ideas and structure assignments. A teacher can run a classroom exercise to generate a few assignments on a topic, then get students to critique them and write their own better versions.

Second, AI Transformers can be creativity tools. Each student writes a short story with an AI. The student writes the first paragraph, AI continues with the second, and so on. It’s a good way to explore possibilities and overcome writer’s block.

Third, teachers can explore the ethics and limits of AI . How does it feel to interact with an expert wordsmith that has no morals and no experience of the world? Does a “deep neural network” have a mind, or is it just a big data processor?

Finally, as educators, if we are setting students assignments that can be answered by AI Transformers, are we really helping students learn? There are many better ways to assess for learning : constructive feedback, peer assessment, teachback. If Transformer AI systems have a lasting influence on education, maybe that will come from educators and policy makers having to rethink how to assess students, away from setting assignments that machines can answer, towards assessment for learning.

For more on AI Transformers and computers as story generators, see Mike Sharples and Rafael Pérez y Pérez, Story Machines: How Computers Have Become Creative Writers , to be published by Routledge in July 2022.

The content generated on this blog is for information purposes only. This Article gives the views and opinions of the authors and does not reflect the views and opinions of the Impact of Social Science blog (the blog), nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.  Please review our  comments policy  if you have any concerns on posting a comment below.

Image Credit: Adapted from Openclipart .

About the author

Mike Sharples is Emeritus Professor of Educational Technology at The Open University, UK. His research involves human-centred design of new technologies and environments for learning. His recent books are Practical Pedagogy: 40 New Ways to Teach and Learn, and Story Machines: How Computers Have Become Creative Writers, published by Routledge.

38 Comments

Many thanks Mike, a really interesting and thought-provoking piece. I wonder if you’d be able to share the settings you used on GPT-3 to generate the essay above? I’ve not been able to reproduce anything close using the same prompt, which I’m sure is due to my lack of knowledge about the technology. Thanks.

Glad you like the piece.

I used the standard settings with the Davinci GPT-3 engine, apart from setting “maximum length” to 2000. It generated the text as shown, up to “they are taught.”. I then appended “References” and GPT-3 added the reference, as shown.

Thanks so much Mike! Really interesting. I wouldn’t expect to get the same result as you – I guess that’s the whole point. GPT-3 should be “creating” an original answer for anyone who puts in the same prompt (and students are unlikely to use the same prompt anyway).

Some of the first attempts gave me a pretty underwhelming attempt at an essay that might just pass for something a 14-year old could write, but nothing at UG or PG level. So I carried on playing around.

I’ve since reset all settings and have set maximum length to 2000 as per your query, and am getting the following:

“The concept of ‘learning styles’ is problematic because it is based on the idea that there is a single way to learn that is optimal for each individual. However, research has shown that there is no evidence to support the existence of learning styles. Furthermore, the idea of learning styles can actually be harmful, as it can lead students to believe that they cannot learn in any other way than their preferred style. This can lead to students feeling discouraged and unmotivated when they are faced with material that they find difficult to learn using their preferred style.”

Even some tweaking of settings doesn’t seem to encourage GPT-3 to give me any more than this. I wonder how much it might depend on my previous use of Playground, and whether I can “train” GPT-3 to give me “better” responses in future?

I’ll be really interested to see if anyone else tries this and what they get. Thanks so much for getting me thinking about this Mike!

The latest version of GPT-3 has been trained to accept instructions, such as “Write a student essay on the topic of ‘A critique of learning styles'”. I was using an earlier version trained for text continuation. You could either try with the earlier version (it should still be available on the OpenAI Playground), or try giving the be version a direct instruction.

Thank you so much Mike for the insight. It is interesting to realise that any entry repeated even with the same text same wording generates a different response.

Hi Mike – This is truly fascinating (and of course scary). I particularly liked your idea of using GPT-3 as a tool to teach students creative writing and critiquing academic writing. I created an account in GPT-3 and I must be doing something wrong because I am not able to get beyond the tutorials. I’ll keep trying.

You need to go to the API, then Playground.

Thanks Mike. That worked.

• Pingback: AI writing has entered a new dimension, and it’s going to change education – The Spinoff – ID Hub For Technology

Hi Mike, I really like the way you’ve repositioned the debate.

I was inspired to have a go this morning, with a primary education creative writing focus.

My (partially) successful results are: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-6940252465426571265-0u-M?utm_source=linkedin_share&utm_medium=member_desktop_web

Thanks Mike, how do we know this post wasnt written with AI? And responses on the comments generated by bots?

This has already gone mainstream. YouMakr.com is a tool which helps students with their writing assignment and has already gone viral in many countries globally. They are on track for a billion $ valuation

Thank you for this! I think you’ve really helped frame an important discussion about using LLM transformers to help students learn. However, I am curious about what sort of essays or writing in general we as educators could assign that a GPT-3 could not eventually answer?

I think Google’s LaMDA transformer contains nearly ten fold the amount of data engineers used with GPT-3, even causing the bizarre Google employee episode where he tried to convince folks that it had become sentient (it isn’t, of course). However, as transformers develop and progress I don’t really know what sort of assignments we can come up with that only a human could write.

Even SudoWrite’s algorithm can do a fairly decent job of mimicking phrases and moments of empathy, so I assume that transformers will be able to tackle creative writing one day.

Maybe the key is to continually engage students through co-writing with AI and let them practice critical thinking, self assessment, and reflection by emphasizing that an AI, when used effectively, can help an immature writer’s process or even a mature writer who suffers from decision fatigue.

Inspiring stuff Mike and your perspectives that move away form the sensationalist approach of the negative connotations of AI in education, are refreshing to see. I have taken a look at the tools you used and tried them out for myself. The one thing I am not able to represent is the length of the piece you were able to get the AI to produce. I seem only able to get one paragraph from the tool.

• Pingback: Assessment, feedback and their digital futures – Teaching Matters blog

We are doing some exploratory research on views related to AI writing tools in education. Please share your thoughts and consider sending it onward.

We are using a tool called Polis, where you can vote on individual statements about the topic, see a visualisation of where your position sits in relation to others who voted, and you can also add your own perspective for others to vote on.

https://pol.is/7ncmuk4ume

• Pingback: AI helped write this article. Can you tell which part? - Only News Network
• Pingback: AI writing is here, and it's worryingly good. Can writers and academia adapt? - loanemu
• Pingback: AI ayudó a escribir este artículo. ¿Puedes decir qué parte? - Inteligencia artificial
• Pingback: Will ChatGPT Kill the Student Essay? - Elite News
• Pingback: Will ChatGPT Kill the Student Essay? - The Atlantic

There’s a very simple way to control the abuse of “AI” to write student essays – the personal tutorial where the student has to read their essay out and be questioned on it. This has worked well in the past. Maybe it’s time to revive it.

In an attempt to cut down on plagiarism and purchased papers, I revised my assignments so that they were both scaffolded and required the use of assigned sources. When outside research is required, students must justify the reliability of the sources. Requiring regular annotated responses to the readings also gives me the ability to see when essays seem to be in line with student work. Based on my limited exploration of the app, that approach also seems to address the problems raised by the new technology.

The problem is that it requires a lot more grading on my part than the traditional exam-essay assessment approach, but I don’t see that very much anymore.

Suppose students were asked to integrate their own personal experiences with learning styles (or any topic of an assignment) and specific examples from different points in their life where they learned to learn as they do, how would AI handle that? Since our individual experiences are points on a distribution captured in research data, could application of research to understand experience help!

Mike, when I tried this on different topics with “citations” requested, it produced all fake citations. Plausible looking, but fake. A student doing that would likely fail! Or at the least be in for a grilling and a stern warning. So, I don’t think ChatGPT is much of a threat as a source of academic misconduct. Just ask for references and check them to catch chancers taken in by the hype.

• Pingback: 2022 In Review: Academic Writing | Impact of Social Sciences
• Pingback: Here we are again! | Honesty, honestly…
• Pingback: Hype, or the future of teaching and learning? 3 Limits to AI's ability to write students essays | Impact of Social Sciences
• Pingback: Bring back the blue book – Reflections in Education
• Pingback: Should we trust ChatGPT? - DEFI
• Pingback: A sociomaterial analysis of a learning space | Teaching and Learning Network of the Centre for Academic Language and Development
• Pingback: Finahost Online Solutions

Can we please stop calling Turnitin etc “Plagiarism software”!? Thanks David Callaghan

Excellent points and thank you Mike for bringing up the topic of AI tools that can write university level essays. I am fascinated by the potential impact this technology could have on higher education. I appreciate your argument that these tools should be used to enhance pedagogy, rather than accelerating cheating and fraud.

It’s interesting to see how the GPT-3 Transformer AI program was able to generate a compelling essay on the topic of “learning styles”. The essay provides a well-organized and evidence-based argument, despite being generated by an AI language model. I particularly like how it explores the idea that learning styles are not fixed, and can be influenced by personal and environmental factors.

Although there are concerns about how these AI tools could be misused for cheating, there is potential for them to be used as a powerful teaching assistant or tool for creativity. I hope that these tools will be used responsibly and ethically to enhance the learning experience, rather than undermine it.

• Pingback: Generative AI should mark the end of a failed war on student academic misconduct | Impact of Social Sciences
• Pingback: AI writing is right here, and it’s worryingly good. Can writers and … – Euronews - Welcome to anything's Up Blog
• Pingback: Special Issue Call: The Games People Play: Exploring Technology Enhanced Learning Scholarship & Generative Artificial Intelligence – Leigh Graves Wolf
• Pingback: Can you pass the Turing Test？ – The Box of Reflective Writing

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Related Posts

Death of the author? AI generated books and the production of scientific knowledge

May 9th, 2019.

tl;dr – AI and the acceleration of research communication

February 24th, 2022.

Higher Education Science Fictions – How fictional narratives can shape AI futures in the academy

November 5th, 2021.

Is openness in AI research always the answer?

July 30th, 2019.

Visit our sister blog LSE Review of Books

Students Using Ai to Write Essays? Here’s How to Manage the Use of Ai Among Students Effectively

Sylvia Nguyen

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into the realm of education invites rising concerns among educators about the issue of students using Ai to write essays, plagiarism and misuse of Ai in students’ school work. There is an increasing trend of students utilizing AI-powered tools to assist them in crafting essays and academic papers.

While this presents a host of benefits, such as improved writing efficiency and enhanced language skills, it also raises concerns about the ethical use of AI and the potential for academic dishonesty. Therefore, it is imperative for educators and institutions to develop effective strategies to manage the use of AI among students, ensuring its responsible implementation while nurturing their growth as independent thinkers and writers. Here we explore the tools and strategies to help educators manage usage of Ai among students more effectively. 

The Rising Issues Associated with Ai Usage Among Students Using AI

With the rapid increase of AI-powered solutions, our students are among the individuals most affected by this technology. While AI offers numerous benefits, it also presents three critical emerging issues that could spiral out of control if not addressed seriously.

1. Students Using Ai to Write Essays

Ever since ChatGPT came into existence, educators have been concerned about plagiarism. When used appropriately, AI can help students become more efficient in completing their assignments. It can even offer ideas and perspectives that they might not have thought of before saving them from the tedium of research and giving them time to think critically. However if students rely heavily on AI to do all the work for them, it undermines the integrity of the education system and leads to an increase in plagiarism and academic misconduct. This ultimately fostered intellectual complacency, and hampers students’ critical thinking and comprehension abilities.

2. Cheating

AI can also be misused to cheat during exams. And academic dishonesty, even before the advent of AI, has been a significant concern for educators. And the existence of AI has just made it worse.

To complicate the issue, existing AI detectors do not always go a perfect job in differentiating human content from Ai-generated content . So, this additional burden to prevent academic dishonesty with the use of AI tools has rested on our shoulders ever since. 

3. Misinformation

While AI chatbots like Bing AI and Google Bard have access to the internet and are able to provide users with up-to-date information, in the end of the day, AI is still not a validated source. This is because AI is trained using vast amount of data from the Internet and it is possible that some of these data do not come from validated and credible sources. And this is a worrying concern for educators because it will lead to misinformation and divert students from acquiring accurate knowledge and facts on a certain topic.

So, How Teachers Can Manage Ai Usage Among Students Effectively?

1. Don’t ban Ai, Instead Recommend Suitable Ai Tools to Students

Instead of banning Ai tools, teachers should provide students with recommendations and guidelines. This approach helps to foster a sense of encouragement among students, motivating them to adhere to the suggestions put forth by their teachers.

A remarkable example of implementing this approach is the recent case at the University of Sydney, where medical science students were assigned the task of requesting ChatGPT to write an essay for them. However, they were required to subsequently revise the essay, track their changes, and submit a final draft. This exercise went beyond mere information compilation and tested their capacity to exercise sound judgment as well.

We have researched almost all Ai tools suitable for educators and cherry-picked 5: 

• Duolingo : The language-learning app Duolingo offers classes in over 30 languages. It employs a combination of AI and linguistics to tailor lessons to each individual’s skill level and learning pace, providing a personalized learning experience.
• Pearson : As a global educational services provider headquartered in the UK, Pearson offers an extensive range of digital learning resources and embraces the latest technologies, including AI, to enhance the online learning process.
• Century Tech : Century Tech offers an AI-based solution that integrates student data with cognitive neuroscience to develop customized lesson plans tailored to individual students’ needs.
• Querium : A web-based education platform that delivers personalized study plans in the fields of science and mathematics, Querium ensures that students receive tailored guidance and support in these subjects.
• Edmentum : Serving as a premier online education provider for students in grades K-12, Edmentum offers products and services aimed at improving educational standards, enhancing student achievement, and increasing educator efficiency.

2. Best Ai Plagiarism Checkers for Teachers

At the current age and time, Ai plagiarism checkers may be teachers’ best companions in weeding out unoriginal and plagiarised student work. Here is a short list of 5 best Ai plagiarism checkers for teachers. We only picked the FREE ones 😉:

• Copyleaks : Copyleaks boasts a 99.12% accuracy in detecting AI-generated content. Copyleaks offers robust capabilities for identifying AI-generated text and also supports multiple languages. What’s best is that the tool also promises future compatibility with ChatGPT 4.
• GPTKit : Developed using a custom model trained on a dataset of over 1 million samples, the tool boasts an even higher accuracy of approximately 98% . This is amazing news for educators! GPTKit also generates comprehensive results and a report with information including the authenticity and reality rate of the content.
• GPTZero : GPTZero utilizes the same technology as ChatGPT but aims to identify AI-generated content. The tool is continuously being developed, and the team is currently working on a specialized solution for educators.
• AI Detector Pro : AI Detector Pro’s algorithm is trained on GPT-3, GPT-4, and Bard, allowing it to provide accurate and detailed report indicating the probability of content being AI-generated. The best part is, the tool also includes the source URL, allowing educators to identify the plagiarised source effortlessly.
• Winston AI : Winston AI is a AI content detection solution tailored for publishing and education. It claims that its algorithm provides far better results in avoiding false positives than Turnitin with its training model using large datasets and large language models.

We have tested and compiled a list of the best free AI detectors for teachers here .

With these plagiarism checkers, the issue of students using Ai to write essays can be better controlled. 

3. Establish Guidelines

On top of that, to guide students in the proper and ethical use of AI tools, it is essential to educate them that these tools are meant to support not replace their learning. It is crucial to emphasize that AI should not serve as the primary source or sole contributor to their work and studies. Instead, students should produce their work independently, while utilizing AI tools as supplementary resources for support and assistance.

Furthermore, teachers should also provide guidelines on the topics of plagiarism and misconduct, including the potential consequences associated with the misuse of AI in school work.

4. Prioritize Fact Check in Class

Similar to a reporter fact-checking before broadcasting news, learning also requires fact-checking to prevent students copying Ai-generated content without processing the information. For students, independently verifying information can be challenging without proper guidance. As educators, it is our responsibility to teach students how to scrutinize the accuracy and validity of the knowledge they come across on random websites.

The most effective method for fact-checking is to verify if the information has been reported in scholarly articles or statistical reports published by reputable data enterprises. In cases where students cannot locate relevant academic articles, teachers can recommend alternative sources such as reputable online publishers or newspapers to cross-verify the information. If the information appears consistently across various trusted online sources and newspapers, there is a higher likelihood that it has undergone rigorous verification.

5. Consider Adjusting Exam Methods

To deter improper usage and academic dishonesty, consider making adjustments to the structures of summative and final exams.

For instance:

• Reintroduce traditional pen and paper for essay writing or test completion, reducing the reliance on AI-generated content.
• Increase the number of in-person assessments and essays, minimizing the opportunity for students to use AI tools at home.
• Utilize audio response questions instead of written ones, encouraging students to express their understanding and thoughts verbally rather than relying on AI-generated text.

By implementing these measures at the right time and occasions, you can create a learning environment that discourages improper usage of AI and promotes academic integrity among students.

Final Thoughts

Artificial intelligence is advancing at a rapid pace, especially in the realm of education. As this technology continues to evolve, it is expected that more EdTech providers will develop technological solutions to tackle the rising challenges associated with the usage of Ai in education, including the common problem of students using ai to write essays. While we anticipate the emergence of these solutions, let us proactively prepare our students to embrace and adapt to AI, the technology that holds the key to our future. By empowering them with the knowledge and skills needed to navigate and leverage AI effectively, we can ensure that our students are well-equipped for the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

For the latest tips, trends and tools about AI in education, read our  A-Z guide to AI in education !

Further Readings:

9 Best Free AI Detectors for Teachers in 2023 (Recommended by Teachers & Professionals)

How Ai is used in Education & 10 Ways You Can Too

The Pros and Cons of AI in Education and How it Will Impact Teachers in 2023

The Role of AI in Higher Education: How AI is Reshaping the Future of Learning

How to use ChatGPT like a Pro: 100+ ChatGPT Examples for Teachers (With Prompts You Can Copy)

About Sylvia Nguyen

Try classpoint for free.

All-in-one teaching and student engagement in PowerPoint.

Supercharge your PowerPoint. Start today.

800,000+ people like you use ClassPoint to boost student engagement in PowerPoint presentations.

10 Best AI Essay Writers in 2024 (Compared)

Pricing: $39 per month Standout Features: AI-powered Writing Tool, Multilingual Content Generation, Integrated Plagiarism Checker

Pricing: $7.50 per month Standout Features: Rapid Content Creation, AI Text Completion, Built-in Document Editor

Pricing: $12 per month Standout Features: Comprehensive Writing Features, AI chatbot assistant, Multiple Format Export Options

For students, whether in high school or postgraduate degree, submitting the best work and putting in the effort for every task can be challenging. One of the common assignments you will have is essays. With a busy schedule and dozens of tasks in different subjects, essay writing can be time-consuming and tedious to do.

With the rise of AI essay writing tools, you don’t need to worry about time-consuming assignments, writer’s block, or busy schedules. AI essay writers can help in every step of your essay writing tasks. In this post, we will compare the best AI essay writers to help determine the most suitable one for your needs.

• 1 What is an AI Essay Writer
• 2 Benefits of Using an AI Essay Writer
• 3.1 1. Jasper
• 3.2 2. Rytr
• 3.3 3. Writesonic
• 3.4 4. Copy.ai
• 3.5 5. Article Forge
• 3.6 6. Textero.ai
• 3.7 7. MyEssayWriter.ai
• 3.8 8 . The Good AI
• 3.9 9. AI-Writer
• 3.10 10. Essay-Builder.AI
• 4.1 AI Essay Writer Feature Comparison
• 4.2 AI Essay Writer Price Comparison
• 5 What is The Best AI Essay Writer

What is an AI Essay Writer

An AI essay writer is a tool that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to create unique and human-like essays. As a student, you may sometimes feel pressured to complete assignments quickly. That is why utilizing the assistance of an AI writing tool can help streamline task execution, significantly saving time.

Most of these tools can generate whole essays from scratch, create an outline for essays, suggest topics, and detect grammatical errors and potential plagiarism. It can even provide citations for its information sources, allowing easy verification. These advanced features enhance and simplify the essay creation process, specifically for students juggling multiple tasks and essay assignments simultaneously.

Benefits of Using an AI Essay Writer

Here are some significant advantages of using an AI essay writer:

• Speed up the writing process by automatically drafting your essays
• Handle the time-consuming foundational work, enabling you to focus on the creative aspect of writing
• Provides grammatical accuracy and a refined writing style
• Overcome writer’s block by giving ideas on what to write next or complete what you started

While an AI essay writer helps speed up your writing task, it is essential to note that you should still use your critical thinking skills and review the content generated by these tools to ensure it meets your assignment’s criteria.

The Best AI Essay Writer

In this list of the best AI essay writers, we’ll go over the features and pricing of each and how they are suitable for different kinds of students.

The Best AI Essay Writer Listed In Order

• Article Forge
• MyEssayWriter.ai
• Essay-Builder.AI

🥇 The Best Overall AI Essay Writer

Jasper is an AI-powered writing tool that can generate different types of content, including blogs, product descriptions, web copies, and even essays. It also helps writers get through writer’s block and transform essays into different formats, tones, and languages, which is why it is also convenient. If you’re a student juggling many assignments and must focus on other tasks that need more attention, Jasper can help reduce your workload and save much-needed time.

You’ll see the ‘Create Content’ option on Jasper’s dashboard. Under this option, you can choose between a series of templates that guide you in generating your essay. Although there isn’t a specific essay template, you can use the Commands or One-Shot Blog Post template.

The Command template revolves around detail, requiring user inputs on commands, tone of voice, languages, and desired number of outputs. While the One-Shot Blog Post template requires the same information, it allows you to specify your intended audience. Interested in learning more about this tool? Check out our full review.

What We Like About Jasper

• Tonality: Jasper.ai maintains a natural tone that aligns with your desired style, all while ensuring error-free content.
• Quality Content Generation: You can rely on Jasper AI to create valuable, high-quality content, making it an excellent tool for content creation.
• User-Friendly Interface: The tool offers an easy-to-use interface, making it accessible even for beginners in AI writing tools.
• Unlimited Words: With every plan, you receive unlimited word credits. This lets you freely create content without stressing over word counts.

What Could Be Improved

• Price: Jasper’s pricing starts at $39 per user per month, which might be costly for specific individuals, such as high school or college students.
• Occasional Inaccuries: While Jasper produces original content, you might need to verify the accuracy and relevance of the generated content before submission, adding an extra step in the content creation process.

🥇 Why We Picked It

Jasper is our top AI essay tool because it is a powerful AI writing assistant that offers high-quality content generation, customizable tone and style, and seamless integration with various platforms. Its user-friendly interface and advanced language models make it a top choice for efficient and effective essay writing.

Who is Jasper Best For?

Jasper offers an excellent solution for master’s and doctoral students looking for a reliable tool to produce high-quality content. It provides diverse text creation options, which, although it may be a bit pricier than other essay-writing tools, present great value due to its vast array of features.

Community Reviews and Ratings

People appreciate Jasper AI as a highly effective tool facilitating content creation. It is the preferred choice for many due to its unparalleled efficiency and quality in generating content.

You can get started with a free 7-day trial, after which you must upgrade to paid plans starting at $39/user/month

🥈 The Best AI Essay Writer For Budget-Conscious Users

Rytr is an all-in-one AI writing platform that helps you create high-quality essays in a few seconds with minimal cost. With this tool, you can generate content by providing your tone, use case, section topic, and preferred creativity, and then Rytr will automatically create the content for you.

Once Rytr generates your essay, you can use the ‘Continue Ryting’ feature to elaborate the content further, even if you are not completely satisfied with the initial output.

You can also use the built-in document editor to check for plagiarism in your essay. If your essay assignment requires a specific level of creativity, Rytr allows you to adjust this to meet your needs. You also have the control to specify how many essay variants Rytr should generate, allowing you to compare and choose the most appropriate version. Dive into our comprehensive review here to learn more about Rytr.

What We Like About Rytr

• Ease of Use: The tool’s interface is clean and intuitive, allowing you to navigate and generate text effortlessly, even without prior experience.
• Affordability: Rytr can be considered one of the most affordable AI writing tools compared to its competitors, offering various pricing plans to suit different needs.
• Free version Available: You can try the free plan to test the tool before deciding on a paid subscription. This way, you can evaluate its suitability.
• Plagiarism Checker: The built-in plagiarism checker in Rytr actively ensures that original content is generated free from copied material.
• Repetitiveness: At times, Rytr may struggle with repetitiveness in generating long-form content, which can require additional editing and tweaking.

🥈 Why We Picked It

Rytr comes in as a strong contender due to its AI writing assistant. This tool assists you in creating top-notch essays, articles, and content promptly and effectively, ultimately saving you time and energy. Moreover, it can help you make your essays more engaging with diverse writing styles and an integrated plagiarism detector.

Who is Rytr Best For?

Rytr is an excellent tool for students seeking a budget solution for their essay-writing needs. Despite being budget-friendly, it offers critical features suitable for essay creation. Among these are automatic text generation and a built-in plagiarism checker. Moreover, it even supports writing in over 30 languages, making it an efficient, versatile tool for quick content creation.

Rytr is praised for its ease of use, variety of templates, time-saving nature, and ability to generate high-quality content effortlessly.

Free with paid plans starting at $7.50 monthly

3. Writesonic

🥉the best free ai writer.

Writesonic is a comprehensive content writing tool that allows you to create, edit, paraphrase, and summarize different types of content – including essays. With a built-in spell, grammar, and plagiarism checker, you can edit revisions directly from the tool before finalizing and submitting your work.

However, you are given a generous 50 generations per day, and then after consuming that, you need to upgrade to their paid plans to continue using Writesonic.

The Sonic Editor feature of Writesonic operates similarly to ChatGPT. Users input their desired prompt or instructions, and then it will generate your essays automatically. Although it’s not designed solely for writing, it can generate unique essays.

Once content is generated, you can produce additional text if unsatisfied. If the initial output meets your requirements, its built-in editor lets you polish and perfect your writing, optimizing grammar, spelling, and formatting. The platform also allows downloading the completed essay in various formats, including HTML, Word, and PDF.  Check out our in-depth review of Writesonic here .

What We Like About Writesonic

• Multiple Languages Supported: With support for content generation in 25 languages, Writesonic is a versatile tool for users worldwide.
• Content Personalization: You can adjust the tone of your content from enthusiastic and formal to humorous and theatrical, enabling you to create customized content.
• Generous Free Plan: Unlike other platforms, you can generate up to 50 standard feature items without a word limit.
• Advanced AI Models: You benefit from the advanced AI technology that Writesonic employs, which includes GPT-3.5, GPT-4, and exclusive algorithms. This ensures the quick and efficient generation of top-notch content.
• Confusing Price Structure: Writesonic’s pricing structure can be a bit confusing. Although there are paid plans starting at $12 per month, this plan only allows you to use its Chatbot, Chatsonic. To access templates and other advanced features, you must upgrade to the Individual Plan, which costs $16.67 monthly.
• Credits-based Usage: Writesonic divides its features into Standard and Advanced categories. Standard features include the chatbot, rewriter, photo generator, templates, etc. Advanced features include a fact checker, plagiarism and citation checker, SEO features, and more. With the paid plans, you can use standard features unlimited times, but credits limit advanced features.

🥉Why We Picked It

Our next favorite AI essay tool is Writesonic, thanks to its impressive natural language processing capabilities, user-friendly interface, and varied writing styles. It serves as an efficient tool for crafting outstanding essays.

Who is Writesonic Best For?

Writesonic is an excellent tool for bloggers and students seeking greater customization and control over their content. The platform’s free version alone boasts over 100 AI templates. Notable features include the Sonic Editor, resembling Google’s intuitive editor, and the Chatsonic feature, which is adept at tackling any essay assignment requirements.

Writesonic users appreciate its user-friendly interface, AI-generated content speed, quality, and versatility in content creation, such as blog posts, ads, and articles.

Free plan available, with paid plans starting at $12 monthly

Get Writesonic

Copy.ai is an AI-powered writing tool that allows you to generate high-quality content, including essays and research papers. Like other chatbots, you only need to input the instructions or detailed prompts you want Copy.ai to generate, and then immediately, the AI will provide you with the results.

The Chat by Copy.ai feature can automatically generate essays like Writesonic and ChatGPT. You only need to input detailed prompts or instructions based on the essay you want to write.

Furthermore, with the Browse Prompts option, you will find built-in prompts for different types of content. While there are no specific essay prompts, you can create custom ones.

Additionally, you can leverage the Infobase feature to help you write essays by generating content based on the text file you upload. You can ask Copy.ai to generate an essay about the uploaded file or create a summary. If you frequently do essay writing tasks, you may want to consider upgrading to a paid plan for unlimited word generation. Alternatively, the free plan would be sufficient if your writing needs are more moderate and don’t exceed 2,000 words.

What We Like About Copy.ai

• Efficiency: Copy.ai can quickly produce text that resembles human writing, assisting you in crafting headlines, email subject lines, and introductions within moments.
• Ease of Use: The platform provides pre-built templates and a user-friendly interface, allowing you to generate content quickly and efficiently.
• Language Support: It supports multiple languages like Chinese, Spanish, French, Japanese, and Portuguese, accommodating users from different regions and linguistic backgrounds.
• Free Plan: You can test the platform and use up to 2,000 words every month for free with Copy.ai’s plan, which has no expiration date.
• Long-Form Content Support: You’ll find that Copy.ai mainly concentrates on creating short-form content such as headlines, ad copies, and descriptions. It can’t produce long-form content directly.
• Inaccuracy: You may need to fact-check the generated content, particularly for history-related essays, as Copy.ai may occasionally produce incorrect information, primarily related to specific details like event dates.

Who is Copy.ai Best For?

Copy.ai stands out as an ideal tool for high school students. This service helps students kickstart their assignments, notably essay writing. However, it’s important to note that while Copy.ai can produce text efficiently, it doesn’t provide sources or citations, which advanced students typically require.

Users appreciate Copy.ai’s ability to save time and accelerate content creation by quickly generating high-quality copy, offering an intuitive interface, various templates, and customization options for different content needs.

Free option with paid plans starting at $36 monthly

Get Copy.ai

5. Article Forge

Article Forge is an AI-powered writer that helps write 1,500+ word content automatically. From blog posts to essays, Article Forge can deliver unique and high-quality content about your topic with just a single click. Moreover, Article Forge can generate content in one click by adding keywords and length.

Using Article Forge to create essays is a straightforward process. Input your chosen keyword or essay topic, along with the specifics of your instructions. Plus, you can choose from one of seven languages for your generated essay.

In addition to its primary functions, the tool lets you customize your essays. You have the choice to include or exclude images and videos. There’s even an option for the tool to bypass AI detection in the generated content. Once the essay is generated, you can export it as text or PDF, among other options.

What We Like About Article Forge

• Speed: Article Forge can generate content in as little as 60 seconds, significantly faster than human writers, who may take days and some AI content writers to produce similar content.
• Bulk Content Options: The tool can generate multiple unique articles simultaneously based on the keywords provided.
• Detection-free Content: Article Forge asserts its ability to create content that can avoid detection, assuring you of the uniqueness of the generated material.
• Inclusion of Videos/Images: Article Forge enhances audience engagement with visual content in the generated essays by sourcing relevant photos and videos related to the keywords.
• No Free Plans: Article Forge provides only paid plans, which are not ideal for casual and users on a limited budget, albeit it offers a 5-day free trial.
• Fluff Content Generation: The tool may generate essays with irrelevant or unnecessary content sections, requiring additional time and effort to refine the output.

Who is Article Forge Best For?

Article Forge shines as a top selection for graduate and doctoral students needing a writing tool capable of rapidly generating a large amount of content. It comes equipped with a Bulk Generator feature, wherein each keyword you provide gives birth to a fresh, unique essay.

Customers appreciate Article Forge for its simplicity in creating complete articles and for the natural flow of content, thanks to the hard work of the AI team. They value the ongoing efforts to improve and update features.

5-day free trial , plans start at $13 monthly for 25K words and one user after that.

Get Article Forge

6. Textero.ai

Textero.ai is an AI assistant that generates academic text, including essays and research papers. Aside from generating essays, Textero.ai can rewrite and summarize your other texts. While it does not offer a paraphrasing feature, it is still great for academic essays on different subjects.

Textero.ai’s Essay Generator is specifically designed to write your essays automatically. It is as simple as adding your title, detailed description or instructions,  style format, and word count. Once the result is generated, the built-in editor allows you to edit the text’s formatting. You can highlight specific parts of the essay and ask the tool to simplify, expand, shorten, or paraphrase. The tool also offers an option to check the sources of your essay to verify the information.

If you want to categorize your essays based on your subjects, go directly to the Tasks option. Afterward, choose your topic and add the title, description, pages, sources, and style format. College students can find options for both minor and major subjects. You can’t directly edit the generated essay in Textero.ai. Instead, you’ll have to download or open it in Google Docs.

What We Like About Textero.ai

• Automatic Citations: Textero.ai guarantees the creation of unique essays and provides accurate citations in APA and MLA formats to adhere to academic standards.
• Customization and Personalization: You can customize your paper using adjustable settings on Textero.ai. This allows you to input specific details to create the paper you want.
• Grammar and Style: The tool uses advanced algorithms to ensure your content is perfect, with consistent grammar, tone, and flexible writing styles.
• Occasional Inaccuracies: Some users have reported that Textero AI may provide inaccurate or irrelevant references, which may need manual verification.
• Limited Free Version: The limit of 3,000 words per month in the free version might not meet your regular needs, leading you to consider upgrading to the unlimited paid version.

Who is Textero.ai Best For?

Textero.ai is a fantastic fit for college students in diverse fields who need a complementary tool for essay writing. Although it might not offer the same features as more comprehensive platforms, it does serve students who require essays of up to 3000 words well. If simplicity with high-quality output is your aim, then Textero.ai fits the bill perfectly.

Users appreciate Textero.ai’s ability to generate unique content efficiently, offer writing assistance and idea generation, provide references, and improve writing skills. It’s praised for being user-friendly, time-saving, and offering a free trial.

Free option with premium plan for $16.99 monthly

Get Textero.ai

7. MyEssayWriter.ai

MyEssayWriter.ai is an AI-powered essay-writing tool that automatically generates and customizes essays. Whether you are a freshman in college, a busy postgraduate, or even a high-school student, MyEssayWriter.ai is designed to cater to your specific needs, making essay writing a breeze. MyEssayWriter.ai is a tool that gives value to it because it is free for everyone and includes a wide range of features. Plus, with its ability to write essays for different academic levels, MyEssayWriter.ai is undoubtedly one of the tools you’ll love using.

MyEssayWriter.ai is designed to automatically generate your essay based on parameters such as topic, academic level, type of essay, word count, and number of pages. Furthermore, you can provide additional instructions to tailor the essay to meet your requirements.

MyEssayWriter.ai generates your essay and enables you to review and refine it with grammar and plagiarism checks. Additionally, you can instruct the tool to make your content sound more human-like to avoid AI detection.

What We Like About MyEssayWriter.ai

• Ease of Use: The tools’ user-friendly interface simplifies your writing process, making it easier to create content without dealing with technical complexities.
• Citation Generator: You can quickly generate citations for your essays in multiple styles with just a click with MyEssayWriter.ai.
• Additional Templates: Apart from Essay Generation, MyEssayWriter.ai has plenty of templates that can assist in writing better essays, such as a thesis statement generator, bibliography generator, readability analyzer, and more.
• Output: You might find MyEssayWriter’s content somewhat generic and repetitive sometimes. Editing it manually can enhance its engagement and credibility.

Who is MyEssayWriter.ai Best For?

MyEssayWriter.ai offers valuable utility, especially for students pursuing master’s or doctoral degrees who need high-quality material such as articles and thesis statements. This tool boasts compelling features designed to accommodate diverse user requirements. Even better, access to MyEssayWriter.ai is entirely free, allowing users to obtain top-tier results without any financial burden.

People appreciate MyEssayWriter.AI’s versatility in adapting to various writing styles, ability to produce well-researched and relevant content, and user-friendly interface with customizable options for a personalized writing experience.

You can get started for free. Paid plans start at $9.99 monthly

Get MyEssayWriter.ai

8 . The Good AI

The Good AI is an AI-powered essay writer designed to streamline your writing process by automatically generating essays. Whether you’re working on a persuasive essay or a narrative piece, The Good AI can tailor your content to match the appropriate tone and style. The essay outliner feature can automatically generate an outline after you’ve added your title and type of essay.

The Good AI essay writer has an intuitive interface, which is best for beginners. When generating an essay using this tool, you must choose whether you need a whole essay, an outline, or help from AI to complete your initial draft.

When using the AI Writer feature, you need to input the title of your essay, the number of words, and the type of essay. If you subscribe to their premium plan, there is an additional option: add an essay tone and include references.

What We Like About The Good AI

• Auto-complete: The Good AI’s auto-complete feature suggests words, phrases, and sentences that fit your writing context. This helps you beat writer’s block and saves time.
• Simple User Interface: The editing interface of The Good AI is user-friendly and intuitive. You can navigate and use the tool easily without requiring too much thought.
• Affordability: Priced at $5 per month, The Good AI’s Premium Plan lets you access all features. This includes AI Auto-Complete and the Document Editing tool.
• Limited Free Plan: The free version of The Good AI limits you to 100 words per essay and lacks the AI Auto-Complete feature, which can restrict your experience if you choose the free plan.

Who is The Good AI Best For?

Are you looking for a solid solution for your basic essay needs? The Good AI has got you covered. Especially suitable for primary and secondary students who don’t need extensive essays, this platform can churn out up to 1500 words with their premium plan. Aside from that, it boasts a user-friendly interface that beginners can navigate with ease.

Free option with a premium plan for $5 monthly

Get The Good AI

9. AI-Writer

AI-Writer is an AI-powered text generator that helps you create different types of content, whether blog posts, sales copy, or essays. The generated text was guaranteed to be unique, original, fresh, and relevant. You can also verify manually the list of citations and sources to ensure accuracy and quality content.

If there is content you need to republish, the AI writer can reword it to make it look fresh and updated. As writers, we don’t just experience writer’s block; we sometimes get out of hand with our next topic to write about. The AI-Writer’s Topic Discoverer feature lets you quickly determine what you will write about next.

The Research and Write feature will quickly generate essays when you provide your title or topic and specify how many words you want to produce. This way, you can quickly create strong essay content, which is valuable for students and writers under tight deadlines. Once the results are generated, they also display a handy list of citations, allowing you to verify the information in your essay.

Furthermore, you can also use the Reword and Enhance feature to revise your essay draft if there are edits you need to work on. AI-Writer works magic with just the title and content, enhancing and rewording your draft for a polished, final product.

What We Like About AI-Writer

• Easy to Use: AI-Writer boasts a user-friendly design, ensuring it’s accessible to users with different technical skill levels.
• Citations: AI-Writer provides cited sources in its generated content, ensuring credibility and assisting in fact-checking.
• Subtopic Discovery: AI-Writer also helps you to conceive innovative topic ideas by analyzing current content, thus supporting the process of content ideation.
• Robotic Tone in Longer Content: Longer essays generated by AI-Writer may sometimes sound robotic, necessitating manual editing for a more natural flow.
• No Free Plan: AI-Writer doesn’t provide a free plan; it just has a seven-day trial, after which you must upgrade to its paid plans.

Who is AI-Writer Best For?

AI-Writer is an ideal tool for students who require citations for their written work. The advantage of this system lies in its ability to display information sources on its interface’s right side, thus facilitating verification. AI-Writer presents a comprehensive list of MLA-formatted citations at the end of every content generated.

A week’s free trial and then a basic plan starting at $24 monthly

Get AI-Writer

10. Essay-Builder.AI

Essay-Builder.AI is a free AI essay writer that helps students generate essays in seconds. You only need to choose your essay type and number of words, which will automatically create the essay for you. It also ensures that the generated content is grammatically correct and plagiarism-free. It considers the user’s input, like keywords and preferred essay length, to create a more personalized essay. Essay-Builder.AI ensures that the essay you generate is logical, grammatically correct, and plagiarism-free.

One good thing about Essay Builder AI is it has a user-friendly interface, which is suitable for lower-level students because you only need to input your topic, number of words, and essay type. You can generate your essays with just a few clicks, saving you much time.

What We Like About Essay Builder AI

• User-Friendly Interface: With a simple three-step process, Essay-Builder.AI offers an easy-to-use platform for generating essays.
• Plagiarism-Free Essays: The tool claims to provide well-structured essays free from plagiarism, ensuring originality in the work submitted.
• Settings: Available in the premium version, its settings enable you to improve your essays further by letting you pre-define essay type, citation formats, academic level, and tonality.
• English-only Generation: The platform seems only to support generating articles in English, which might be a bummer for students looking to write essays in various languages.

Who is Essay Builder AI Best For?

AI Essay Builder is invaluable for learners, particularly those grappling with essay and research paper crafting. It offers unlimited essay and academic citation access for a nominal monthly fee. It can even fine-tune the produced text based on your education level or desired essay tone.

A free version is available, and an unlimited plan for $5 monthly

Get Essay-Builder.AI

Comparing The Best AI Essay Writer

Choosing the best AI essay writer that meets the specific requirements of your assignment might be daunting, especially with many options available in the market.

AI Essay Writer Feature Comparison

Check out our top three favorite AI essay writers in the table below. We’ve compared their key features to help you choose the most suitable for your assignments.

AI Essay Writer Price Comparison

When choosing a tool for your educational needs, you ought to carefully balance cost and quality. To streamline your decision-making process, we’ve evaluated the price points of various AI essay writers.

What is The Best AI Essay Writer

Jasper is best for students who want high-quality content and don’t mind paying for a subscription. You can also have the option to try the platform for free so you can decide if it will give you the value needed for your money. With its robust features for content generation, you will surely get value for your money.

If you want an AI essay writer who quickly generates content with a low-cost monthly plan, Rytr is the better option. If you only need moderate demands for your essay writing tasks, Rytr is a great tool already. Rytr can generate 10,000-character essays monthly with 40+ use cases in its free plan and a built-in plagiarism checker.

Writesonic is also an excellent tool for an essay writer with a Google Docs-like editor to edit your content. With its free trial, you can try all the features to determine if upgrading to the paid plan is worth your bucks. It offers 100+ AI templates, browser extensions, and Chatsonic or the ChatGPT-like chatbot.

Featured image illustration by eamesBot / Shutterstock

Explore Our Top Picks

Here are our favorites! 👇

Get Jasper Today!

With so many great options available, it can be hard to pick one. find out why jasper is our favorite. 👇.

By Clarissa Licuan

Clarissa is a blogger and language teacher based in the Philippines. She enjoys expressing her ideas and connecting with others through her insights. Outside of writing and teaching, she often spends time exploring the local mountains and beaches.

Explore Divi, The Most Popular WordPress Theme In The World And The Ultimate Page Builder

Check Out These Related Posts

• How to Build a Non-Profit Website in 2024 (Quick & Easy)

Posted on August 31, 2024 in Business

Are you seeking cost-effective resources to create a website without needing expensive professional services? Non-profit organizations often operate on tight budgets, so you need to be careful with your approach. Creating a non-profit website is crucial in establishing an online presence for your...

Best AI Tools for Content Creation in 2024 (Expert Picks)

Posted on August 9, 2024 in Business

Yes, AI tools can simplify content creation, but they should not be used to generate shareable content without human review. Relying on AI for publish-ready content harms your brand and is equal to wasting its potential. Instead, AI is best used as an assistant to enhance human output by automating...

5 Best Open-Source Website Builders in 2024 (Top New Picks)

Updated on August 27, 2024 in Business

Are you struggling with a budget when building a website for your small business? Check out our list of the best open-source website builders in 2024. By opting for open-source solutions, one can save on licensing fees and invest the saved funds in other critical areas of the project. Open-source...

Leave A Reply Cancel reply

• Recent Posts
• New Divi Starter Site for Business Coaches (Quick Install)
• Divi Product Highlight: Divi Search Helper
• New Divi Starter Site for Creative Directors (Quick Install)
• Divi Product Highlight: Divi Assistant
• Divi Resources
• Theme Releases
• Tips & Tricks

974,872 Customers Are Already Building Amazing Websites With Divi. Join The Most Empowered WordPress Community On The Web

We offer a 30 Day Money Back Guarantee, so joining is Risk-Free!

Divi Features

• All Features Explore Divi
• Divi Modules
• Divi Layouts
• Quick Sites Brand New!
• No-Code Builder
• Ecommerce Websites
• Theme Builder
• Marketing Platform
• Speed & Performance
• Premium Support
• Divi Marketplace
• Divi Hosting
• Extra Theme
• Bloom Plugin
• Monarch Plugin
• Plans & Pricing Get Divi Today
• Documentation
• Help Articles & FAQ
• 24/7 Support
• Developer Docs
• System Status
• Product Updates
• Best Plugins
• Best Hosting
• Divi Meetups
• Divi Facebook Group
• Divi Examples
• Divi Integrations
• Divi Reviews
• Community Forum
• Affiliate Program
• Terms of Service
• Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2024 Elegant Themes ®

The Ultimate Guide to AI Essay Writing

Table of contents

Laura Jane Bradbury

There are several aspects of essay writing that many students can struggle with. In particular, seven common problems make it more stressful than it needs to be. From staying within the word limit, to formulating a thesis statement and creating an engaging hook.

As a writer, I'm used to working with article briefs similar to student assignments. We both must follow word counts, avoid plagiarism in our research, and create powerful introductions that grab our readers' attention.

Here are six tips to help make the essay writing process easier.

Write better essays with AI > Write better essays with AI >

1. Create a stronger thesis statement using AI

A thesis statement helps you stay on-track with your essay’s overall aim. It’s a brief statement that summarizes what your essay is about and what readers can expect. For example, are you exploring different ideas, making an argument, explaining something in detail? 

Follow these steps to write a strong thesis statement: 

• Identify and research your essay topic — find a particular angle that interests you.
• Ask a research question that encourages you to explore your topic in more detail. 
• Use your initial thoughts or theories to answer your question. This will be your working thesis. 
• Research your question and working thesis. Look through trustworthy sources to evaluate your thesis’ strengths and weaknesses.
• Refine your thesis. Your research may have altered your opinion or created a new angle.

Wordtune’s AI capabilities can refine your statement through eliminating unnecessary words.

Read the full article: How to Write a Better Thesis Statement Using AI 

2. apply “smart hacks” to boost your word count.

In addition to being too long, essays can also be too short. I know how frustrating it is when you have explained everything you wanted to, but are still 200 words under the word count.

Before you add filler words or rewrite the same content in different sections of your essay, apply these smart hacks to your copy:

• Add examples: Examples can illustrate a point and make it easier to understand. They’re particularly useful for explaining complex academic and technical information.
• Use quotes and references: Find valuable quotes and references that can support your essay’s argument.
• Extend your introduction and conclusion: This is where you can add free flowing paragraphs without needing to validate sentences with references, sources, and quotes. Consider adding detail on what inspired you to explore your topic, or reiterate the key takeaway from your essay. You can also share personal experiences and research findings to introduce or close your topic where appropriate.
• Use an AI writing tool: AI tools such as Wordtune can generate text. While reading through your essay, you may find that some paragraphs or points could be expanded. Paste your words into Wordtune Editor, and click “Continue Writing” under “Spices'' for ideas on additional text you can include.

Read the full article: 10 Ways to Increase Your Essay Word Count (AI Included)

3. hook your readers in your opening sentence.

The pressure to deliver a unique and attention-grabbing hook can make your opening sentence the hardest to craft.

Before brainstorming, ensure you have performed in-depth research and that you understand your essay’s tone and audience. 

Your research may uncover facts and arguments that can guide your hook, such as a shocking statistic or discovery. In addition, your intended audience will impact the tone you should use and how you should introduce readers to your essay. For instance, sharing a joke or a light-hearted anecdote will likely be too casual for a serious argumentative essay.

Some of the most-effective ways to create an enticing hook include:

• Shocking statistics : These are facts that will surprise your readers.
• Bold claim : This is a claim that your readers don’t necessarily already accept as fact, or that they may not even have heard of. 
• Storytelling/anecdote: Stories can help your readers connect with your topic and you as the author.
• Questions: Asking a question can spark curiosity. An interesting question can encourage people to read your essay to find out the answer.
• Description: This is a unique and specific description of something (a person, event, time period, etc.) that relates to the argument you’re making in your essay.

Read the full article: Essay Hook Examples That Grab Attention (Formula For Better Grades)  

4. look at examples of explanatory essays.

When in doubt, examples can be your best friend. Especially if you are writing an explanatory essay, as there are many different subtypes. 

Explanatory essays examine a topic or situation in detail. You as the author provide evidence and facts to explain why something happened, why something works, or what something is. The essay must have an objective perspective, and the facts must speak for themselves.

The different types of explanatory essays include:

• How-tos: Step-by-step instructions on how to do something.
• Problem and solution: Explaining a problem and providing a solution.
• Chronology: Detailing something’s history or backstory in chronological order.
• Cause-and-effect analysis: Examining a phenomenon to explain what caused it and what it influenced.

Because of the various explanatory sub-types, it helps to look at different examples to decide which style works best for your subject. Looking at examples also gives you an idea of how to structure your essay and present your arguments effectively.

Read the full article: 7+ Explanatory Essay Examples That Get the Best Grades  

5. use ai to avoid plagiarism.

While there are several ways to avoid plagiarism, including expressing your research and findings in your own words and citing your sources, Wordtune can also help you. The AI technology produces text not written anywhere else on the internet — see for yourself by copying Wordtune’s generated text into search engines such as Google. 

Accidental plagiarism can make your work look less credible and unprofessional. In addition to making your research look underdeveloped, not referencing your sources correctly can suggest you’re trying to pass off other people’s ideas as your own. With the right tools, however, you can avoid this critical essay mistake.

Read the full article: 9 Steps to Avoid Plagiarism As a Student (Including Using AI)

6. break persuasive essays into manageable chunks.

Persuasive essays use research and logic to persuade the reader of your opinion on a particular subject. In some ways, this article is persuasive because I use research and examples to persuade (or at least encourage) you to practice these essay writing methods. 

If writing an argument intimidates you, this five-step list will break your essay into manageable chunks, making it easier to write.

• Identify a topic or issue that is arguable from more than one position . You must form an opinion and not argue a simple fact. Find a topic that has multiple theories and no conclusive evidence, such as “Is animal testing ethical?” or “Should students still study Shakespeare?”
• Use research to create your thesis (follow the steps mentioned earlier).
• Find evidence to back up your thesis . Double-check sources for credibility and try to spot missing information that could impact your argument.
• Address opposing ideas others may hold . Use search engines such as Google to research opposite arguments. For instance, if I believe animal testing is not ethical, I can research “Why animal testing is ethical” to find other theories. To respecfully show different opinions, first acknowledge the opposing view and evidence. Then, share your argument and provide logical evidence as to why your argument is the correct one.
• Create a convincing conclusion . Rather than repeating what you’ve already said, draw from the arguments you’ve made and point out how they logically prove your thesis.

Read the full article: How to Write a Persuasive Essay (This Convinced My Professor!)  

A successful essay formula.

Essays contain a lot of ingredients. From deciding on the right hook, to staying in line with the word count. But with the right tools — such as AI — and the use of smart hacks, you can create an effective formula that will make the essay writing process much easier.

Share This Article:

8 Tips for E-commerce Copywriting Success (with Examples!)

The Brand Strategy Deck You Need to Drive Social Media Results + 5 Examples

Grammarly Alternatives: Which Writing Assistant is the Best Choice for You?

Looking for fresh content, thank you your submission has been received.

AI Essay Writer

Enhance your writing with our AI essay writer. Easily generate, reword, and improve your essays for free. Perfect for students, teachers, researchers, and professionals.

Get 2,000 Free Credit Every Month

Get started today and get 2,000 free credit every month.

What is an Essay Writer Tool?

An Essay Writer Tool is an advanced online utility designed to help students and professionals generate high-quality essays. This tool uses AI algorithms to create essays that are coherent, well-structured, and tailored to the user’s specific requirements.

Why Use an Essay Writer Tool?

Using an Essay Writer Tool has several benefits:

• Enhances Writing Quality: The tool helps generate essays with clear and concise content, improving the overall quality of your writing.
• Saves Time: Quickly generates essays with a single click, saving time compared to manual writing.
• Boosts Creativity: Provides new ideas and perspectives, enhancing creative writing.
• Ensures Originality: Helps avoid plagiarism by offering unique essay content.

Key Features of WriterBuddy’s AI Essay Writer

Ai-powered essay generation.

Utilizes advanced AI algorithms to create human-like essays, ensuring high-quality and coherent text.

Plagiarism-Free Content

Includes a built-in plagiarism checker to ensure original content, avoiding any duplication.

User-Friendly Interface

Features a simple and intuitive design that requires no sign-up, allowing for immediate use.

Multiple Writing Modes

Offers various modes such as Standard, Creative, Fluency, and Shorten to meet different needs and preferences.

Multi-Lingual Support

Supports multiple languages, making it accessible for a global audience.

Ensure Accuracy

Maintains the original meaning and context of the input while accurately generating essays.

Speed Up Your Work

Enables quick essay generation with a single click, saving time compared to manual writing.

Prioritize Readability

Produces essays that are clear and easily understandable.

Versatile Usage

Ideal for various content types, including academic papers, essays, and more.

Free Access

All features are available for free, with no hidden costs or ad interruptions.

How to Use WriterBuddy’s Online Essay Writer

• Input Your Text: 

Paste your topic or upload a file into the input box.

• Select Writing Mode: 

Choose from multiple modes such as Standard, Creative, Fluency, or Shorten.

• Get Instant Results: 

Click the submit button and receive your generated essay within seconds.

• Download or Copy Your Text: 

Easily download the text in various formats or copy it to use elsewhere.

Who Can Benefit from WriterBuddy’s Essay Writer Tool?

AI essay writers help students generate well-structured essays, improving clarity and enhancing their writing skills. It allows them to produce high-quality work efficiently.

Teachers can use essay writers to create clear and concise lesson materials, making complex concepts easier for students to understand. It helps in preparing diverse educational content that is engaging and informative.

Researchers

Researchers benefit from AI essay writers by generating content that simplifies complex ideas, making their research more accessible and understandable to a broader audience. This tool ensures that research papers are clear and effectively communicate their findings.

Journalists

Journalists can quickly and easily generate essays to avoid repetitive language and enhance the readability of their content. An essay writer helps maintain a fresh and engaging tone, ensuring that news stories and articles captivate their readers.

Copywriters

By using an essay writer tool, copywriters can efficiently generate content to create compelling and engaging material for various campaigns and projects. It aids in maintaining a consistent brand voice and improves the overall quality of marketing copy.

Bloggers can use writing tools to generate content, improving the readability and engagement of their posts, ensuring the original message is maintained while making the content more appealing to their audience. This helps in keeping the blog content fresh and unique.

Writers can adapt their content for different contexts or audiences, ensuring their material is versatile and polished. Whether for books, articles, or other literary work, an essay writer helps maintain a high standard of writing.

Marketers can rapidly generate essays and content for multiple platforms, ensuring it resonates with different target audiences and maintains consistency across various media channels. This tool helps in tailoring messages for specific campaigns and improving the effectiveness of marketing strategies.

Academics can use essay writers to enhance the clarity and precision of their scholarly articles and papers. This ensures that their academic contributions are well-articulated and easily understood by peers and students alike.

Business Professionals

Business professionals can benefit from essay writers by generating reports, proposals, and other documents. This helps in presenting ideas more clearly and professionally, improving communication within the business environment.

Content Creators

Content creators can leverage essay writers to produce high-quality, original content for various media, including videos, podcasts, and social media posts. This tool helps maintain creativity and originality in their work, making it more engaging for their audience.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between an essay writer and an essay generator.

An essay writer creates essays from scratch based on user input, while an essay generator provides structured templates and content ideas to assist in writing. Both tools aim to enhance writing quality but serve different purposes.

How does AI generate essays?

AI essay writers use natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to analyze input topics and generate coherent, well-structured essays. These tools mimic human writing patterns to produce high-quality content.

Is using an AI essay writer tool considered cheating?

Using an AI essay writer tool should not be considered cheating, provided that you properly disclose and cite the original sources of your generated content. Always follow your institution’s policies regarding the use of AI tools.

Can AI essay writers handle complex topics?

Yes, AI essay writers can handle complex topics by breaking down intricate ideas into understandable sections and generating well-structured essays that effectively communicate the main points.

How can I ensure the originality of AI-generated essays?

AI essay writers include plagiarism checkers to ensure the generated content is original. Additionally, you can use other plagiarism detection tools to verify the uniqueness of your essay.

Are AI essay writers suitable for professional writing?

Yes, AI essay writers are suitable for professional writing, including business reports, marketing copy, and academic papers. They help ensure clarity, coherence, and originality in your writing.

Can AI essay writers support multiple languages?

Yes, AI essay writers support multiple languages, making them accessible for users worldwide. This feature allows for accurate writing across different linguistic contexts.

How do AI essay writers improve writing skills?

AI essay writers provide alternative ways to express ideas, enhance vocabulary, and suggest better sentence structures. By using these tools, users can learn and adopt improved writing techniques.

What are the benefits of using a free essay writer tool?

A free essay writer tool offers all the essential features without any cost, making it accessible for everyone. It helps users generate high-quality essays, save time, and improve their writing skills without financial constraints.

Stop Stressing, Start Writing

Join over 540,000+ happy users writing smarter with WriterBuddy. Try WriterBuddy for Free!

Advanced AI writing tool trained to write better content faster.

• AI Writing Tools
• Rewording Tool
• Paraphrasing Tool
• Text Summarizer
• Essay Writer
• Essay Rewriter
• Sentence Rephraser
• Sentence Rewriter Tool
• Paragraph Rewrite
• Paragraph Generator

Student Resources

• Plagiarism Checker
• AI Content Detector
• Grammar Checker
• Punctuation Checker
• Spell Checker
• Thesis Generator
• Essay Checker
• Word Counter
• Character Counter

Citation Tools

• Citation Generator
• APA Citation
• MLA Citation
• Citation Checker
• Brand Style Guide
• Affiliate Program

Copyright © 2024 WriterBuddy. All rights reserved.

AI Essay Writer

To use AI Essay Writer simply add your topic in the input box with essay length and click on the "Write Essay" button.

Essay Topic

• Descriptive
• Comparative

Extra Features

Add Reference

Generating essays on harmful, dangerous or illegal topics not allowed, we tried our best to prevent these topics,if you find any essay topic that is generating any of these types of content, email us at aiessaywriter.com contact us

How to use AI Essay Writer?

AI Essay Writer make it easy for you to write a effective and informative essay in seconds. The whole writing process takes a few seconds to complete. All you need to do is provide your topic or prompt of your essay.

Essay Topic: Type or paste the essay topic you need to write about. It can be anything. It can be a short descriptive topic or a long narrative topic.

Type of Essay: Choose the type of essay, such as argumentative, expository, narrative, or descriptive, to clarify our essay generator of your need.

Essay Length: Select your essay length to define how many words you want to generate according to your requirements.

Features of our Essay Maker ✍️

Our free essay maker has many useful unique features that set it apart from other essay writers and make it an excellent choice for students.

Free for Students

Our essay maker is free for students to help them enhance their learning and writing experience to write competitive essays in their academic career.

No Sign-up Required

AI Essay Writer will not ask you for any Sign up or registration to write an essay, you just need to add your topic and start generating essays online.

AI for Essay Writing

AI Essay Writer trained with advanced state-of-the-art technology to write unique, well-structured, and coherent essays with no plagiarism issues.

Our essay typer is programmed with a special feature called "Bypass AI". Using this feature will help you remove AI detection and provide value to human readers.

Provides References

Our essay typer offers an option that you can select to get references and citations at the end of the essay with the provided information.

Types of Essays

This feature can help you generate different types of essays such as argumentative, expository, narrative, descriptive, etc., so that you can choose the type according to your requirements.

Why our Essay Generator?

Our essay generator uses advanced machine learning algorithms, especially deep learning models to understand and generate essays the way humans write.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it okay to use ai for essays.

YES! It is perfectly okay to use AI for essays as long as you don't violate any guidelines. If there are no restrictions on using AI for essay writing, you can use it without any problems.

Is there an AI that writes essays?

AI Essay Writer uses modern NLP algorithms to provide valuable information to humans and turn it into an AI that writes essays for you in seconds.

How do you write an AI essay without getting caught?

To avoid having your essay getting caught as AI, be sure to add some content of your own and also use our “Bypass AI” feature to make the AI undetectable.

How students can write essays online for free?

Our essay maker is 100% free for students to help them improve their writing skills more effectively and to engage them more deeply with their subjects.

Advanced AI Essay Writer

20,000 AI-powered essays generated daily

Write unique, high-quality essays in seconds

Instantly generate any essay type.

Get your content after just few words , or go step by step.

Full control of each step

Check the references

Edit your references using popular reference types like APA or MLA

How Smodin makes Essay Writing Easy

Generate different types of essays with smodin, instantly find sources for any sentence.

Our AI research tool in the essay editor interface makes it easy to find a source or fact check any piece of text on the web. It will find you the most relevant or related piece of information and the source it came from. You can quickly add that reference to your document references with just a click of a button. We also provide other modes for research such as “find support statistics”, “find supporting arguments”, “find useful information”, and other research methods to make finding the information you need a breeze. Make essay writing and research easy with our AI research assistant.

Easily Cite References

Our essay generator makes citing references in MLA and APA styles for web sources and references an easy task. The essay writer works by first identifying the primary elements in each source, such as the author, title, publication date, and URL, and then organizing them in the correct format required by the chosen citation style. This ensures that the references are accurate, complete, and consistent. The product provides helpful tools to generate citations and bibliographies in the appropriate style, making it easier for you to document your sources and avoid plagiarism. Whether you’re a student or a professional writer, our essay generator saves you time and effort in the citation process, allowing you to focus on the content of your work.

Produce Better Essays than ChatGPT

Our essay generator is designed to produce the best possible essays, with several tools available to assist in improving the essay, such as editing outlines, title improvements, tips and tricks, length control, and AI-assisted research. Unlike ChatGPT, our AI writer can find sources and assist in researching for the essay, which ensures that the essay is backed by credible and relevant information. Our essay generator offers editing assistance and outlines to improve the structure and flow of the essay. This feature is especially useful for students who may struggle with essay organization and require guidance on how to present their ideas coherently. Another advantage of our AI essay writer over ChatGPT is that it is designed explicitly for essay writing, ensuring that the output is of high quality and meets the expectations of the instructor or professor. While ChatGPT may be able to generate essays, there is no guarantee that the content will be relevant, accurate or meet the requirements of the assignment.

Easily Avoid Plagiarism

Our AI generated essays are 100% unique and plagiarism free. Worried about AI detection? Worry no more, use our AI Detection Remover to remove any AI Plagiarism produced from the essay generator.

Testimonials

Millions of users love Smodin's AI Writing Features

Smodin.io is an exceptional app that offers a range of outstanding features designed to help users with their research and content creation needs. One of the app's most impressive features is the Article 2.0, which generates high-quality articles and provides references for further study. The app's ChatIn feature and Research Paper generator are also incredibly unique, allowing users to conduct thorough research on the internet and find genuine paraphrased papers. One of the most impressive aspects of Smodin.io is its customer service team. The team is highly responsive, always available to help, and goes the extra mile to understand users' issues and offer solutions. This level of commitment to customer satisfaction is commendable and sets Smodin.io apart from its competitors. Another notable feature of Smodin.io is its continuous improvement. Every time you use the app, you'll notice new features that have been added based on feedback and recommendations. This level of attention to user feedback is remarkable, and it shows the app's developers' commitment to ensuring that Smodin.io remains the best in the market. I highly recommend Smodin.io to anyone looking for a reliable and efficient research and content creation tool.

I like this app. This app is useful mainly for student

Nice product

© 2024 Smodin LLC

ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth used by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies .

That growth has propelled OpenAI itself into becoming one of the most-hyped companies in recent memory. And its latest partnership with Apple for its upcoming generative AI offering, Apple Intelligence, has given the company another significant bump in the AI race.

2024 also saw the release of GPT-4o, OpenAI’s new flagship omni model for ChatGPT. GPT-4o is now the default free model, complete with voice and vision capabilities. But after demoing GPT-4o, OpenAI paused one of its voices , Sky, after allegations that it was mimicking Scarlett Johansson’s voice in “Her.”

OpenAI is facing internal drama, including the sizable exit of co-founder and longtime chief scientist Ilya Sutskever as the company dissolved its Superalignment team. OpenAI is also facing a lawsuit from Alden Global Capital-owned newspapers , including the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune, for alleged copyright infringement, following a similar suit filed by The New York Times last year.

Here’s a timeline of ChatGPT product updates and releases, starting with the latest, which we’ve been updating throughout the year. And if you have any other questions, check out our ChatGPT FAQ here.

Timeline of the most recent ChatGPT updates

September 2024, august 2024, february 2024, january 2024.

• ChatGPT FAQs

OpenAI reaches 1 million paid users of its corporate offerings

OpenAI announced it has surpassed 1 million paid users for its versions of ChatGPT intended for businesses, including ChatGPT Team, ChatGPT Enterprise and its educational offering, ChatGPT Edu. The company said that nearly half of OpenAI’s corporate users are based in the US.

Volkswagen rolls out its ChatGPT assistant to the US

Volkswagen is taking its ChatGPT voice assistant experiment to vehicles in the United States. Its ChatGPT-integrated Plus Speech voice assistant is an AI chatbot based on Cerence’s Chat Pro product and a LLM from OpenAI and will begin rolling out on September 6 with the 2025 Jetta and Jetta GLI models.

OpenAI inks content deal with Condé Nast

As part of the new deal, OpenAI will surface stories from Condé Nast properties like The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Bon Appétit and Wired in ChatGPT and SearchGPT. Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch implied that the “multi-year” deal will involve payment from OpenAI in some form and a Condé Nast spokesperson told TechCrunch that OpenAI will have permission to train on Condé Nast content.

We’re partnering with Condé Nast to deepen the integration of quality journalism into ChatGPT and our SearchGPT prototype. https://t.co/tiXqSOTNAl — OpenAI (@OpenAI) August 20, 2024

Our first impressions of ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode

TechCrunch’s Maxwell Zeff has been playing around with OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode, in what he describes as “the most convincing taste I’ve had of an AI-powered future yet.” Compared to Siri or Alexa, Advanced Voice Mode stands out with faster response times, unique answers and the ability to answer complex questions. But the feature falls short as an effective replacement for virtual assistants.

OpenAI shuts down election influence operation that used ChatGPT

OpenAI has banned a cluster of ChatGPT accounts linked to an Iranian influence operation that was generating content about the U.S. presidential election. OpenAI identified five website fronts presenting as both progressive and conservative news outlets that used ChatGPT to draft several long-form articles, though it doesn’t seem that it reached much of an audience.

OpenAI finds that GPT-4o does some weird stuff sometimes

OpenAI has found that GPT-4o, which powers the recently launched alpha of Advanced Voice Mode in ChatGPT, can behave in strange ways. In a new “red teaming” report, OpenAI reveals some of GPT-4o’s weirder quirks, like mimicking the voice of the person speaking to it or randomly shouting in the middle of a conversation.

ChatGPT’s mobile app reports its biggest month yet

After a big jump following the release of OpenAI’s new GPT-4o “omni” model, the mobile version of ChatGPT has now seen its biggest month of revenue yet. The app pulled in $28 million in net revenue from the App Store and Google Play in July, according to data provided by app intelligence firm Appfigures.

OpenAI could potentially catch students who cheat with ChatGPT

OpenAI has built a watermarking tool that could potentially catch students who cheat by using ChatGPT — but The Wall Street Journal reports that the company is debating whether to actually release it. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the company is researching tools that can detect writing from ChatGPT, but said it’s taking a “deliberate approach” to releasing it.

ChatGPT’s advanced Voice Mode starts rolling out to some users

OpenAI is giving users their first access to GPT-4o’s updated realistic audio responses. The alpha version is now available to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users, and the company says the feature will gradually roll out to all Plus users in the fall of 2024. The release follows controversy surrounding the voice’s similarity to Scarlett Johansson, leading OpenAI to delay its release.

We’re starting to roll out advanced Voice Mode to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users. Advanced Voice Mode offers more natural, real-time conversations, allows you to interrupt anytime, and senses and responds to your emotions. pic.twitter.com/64O94EhhXK — OpenAI (@OpenAI) July 30, 2024

OpenAI announces new search prototype, SearchGPT

OpenAI is testing SearchGPT, a new AI search experience to compete with Google. SearchGPT aims to elevate search queries with “timely answers” from across the internet, as well as the ability to ask follow-up questions. The temporary prototype is currently only available to a small group of users and its publisher partners, like The Atlantic, for testing and feedback.

We’re testing SearchGPT, a temporary prototype of new AI search features that give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources. We’re launching with a small group of users for feedback and plan to integrate the experience into ChatGPT. https://t.co/dRRnxXVlGh pic.twitter.com/iQpADXmllH — OpenAI (@OpenAI) July 25, 2024

OpenAI could lose $5 billion this year, report claims

A new report from The Information , based on undisclosed financial information, claims OpenAI could lose up to $5 billion due to how costly the business is to operate. The report also says the company could spend as much as $7 billion in 2024 to train and operate ChatGPT.

OpenAI unveils GPT-4o mini

OpenAI released its latest small AI model, GPT-4o mini . The company says GPT-4o mini, which is cheaper and faster than OpenAI’s current AI models, outperforms industry leading small AI models on reasoning tasks involving text and vision. GPT-4o mini will replace GPT-3.5 Turbo as the smallest model OpenAI offers. 

OpenAI partners with Los Alamos National Laboratory for bioscience research

OpenAI announced a partnership with the Los Alamos National Laboratory to study how AI can be employed by scientists in order to advance research in healthcare and bioscience. This follows other health-related research collaborations at OpenAI, including Moderna and Color Health.

OpenAI and Los Alamos National Laboratory announce partnership to study AI for bioscience research https://t.co/WV4XMZsHBA — OpenAI (@OpenAI) July 10, 2024

OpenAI makes CriticGPT to find mistakes in GPT-4

OpenAI announced it has trained a model off of GPT-4, dubbed CriticGPT , which aims to find errors in ChatGPT’s code output so they can make improvements and better help so-called human “AI trainers” rate the quality and accuracy of ChatGPT responses.

We’ve trained a model, CriticGPT, to catch bugs in GPT-4’s code. We’re starting to integrate such models into our RLHF alignment pipeline to help humans supervise AI on difficult tasks: https://t.co/5oQYfrpVBu — OpenAI (@OpenAI) June 27, 2024

OpenAI inks content deal with TIME

OpenAI and TIME announced a multi-year strategic partnership that brings the magazine’s content, both modern and archival, to ChatGPT. As part of the deal, TIME will also gain access to OpenAI’s technology in order to develop new audience-based products.

We’re partnering with TIME and its 101 years of archival content to enhance responses and provide links to stories on https://t.co/LgvmZUae9M : https://t.co/xHAYkYLxA9 — OpenAI (@OpenAI) June 27, 2024

OpenAI delays ChatGPT’s new Voice Mode

OpenAI planned to start rolling out its advanced Voice Mode feature to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users in late June, but it says lingering issues forced it to postpone the launch to July. OpenAI says Advanced Voice Mode might not launch for all ChatGPT Plus customers until the fall, depending on whether it meets certain internal safety and reliability checks.

ChatGPT releases app for Mac

ChatGPT for macOS is now available for all users . With the app, users can quickly call up ChatGPT by using the keyboard combination of Option + Space. The app allows users to upload files and other photos, as well as speak to ChatGPT from their desktop and search through their past conversations.

The ChatGPT desktop app for macOS is now available for all users. Get faster access to ChatGPT to chat about email, screenshots, and anything on your screen with the Option + Space shortcut: https://t.co/2rEx3PmMqg pic.twitter.com/x9sT8AnjDm — OpenAI (@OpenAI) June 25, 2024

Apple brings ChatGPT to its apps, including Siri

Apple announced at WWDC 2024 that it is bringing ChatGPT to Siri and other first-party apps and capabilities across its operating systems. The ChatGPT integrations, powered by GPT-4o, will arrive on iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia later this year, and will be free without the need to create a ChatGPT or OpenAI account. Features exclusive to paying ChatGPT users will also be available through Apple devices .

Apple is bringing ChatGPT to Siri and other first-party apps and capabilities across its operating systems #WWDC24 Read more: https://t.co/0NJipSNJoS pic.twitter.com/EjQdPBuyy4 — TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) June 10, 2024

House Oversight subcommittee invites Scarlett Johansson to testify about ‘Sky’ controversy

Scarlett Johansson has been invited to testify about the controversy surrounding OpenAI’s Sky voice at a hearing for the House Oversight Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation. In a letter, Rep. Nancy Mace said Johansson’s testimony could “provide a platform” for concerns around deepfakes.

ChatGPT experiences two outages in a single day

ChatGPT was down twice in one day: one multi-hour outage in the early hours of the morning Tuesday and another outage later in the day that is still ongoing. Anthropic’s Claude and Perplexity also experienced some issues.

You're not alone, ChatGPT is down once again. pic.twitter.com/Ydk2vNOOK6 — TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) June 4, 2024

The Atlantic and Vox Media ink content deals with OpenAI

The Atlantic and Vox Media have announced licensing and product partnerships with OpenAI . Both agreements allow OpenAI to use the publishers’ current content to generate responses in ChatGPT, which will feature citations to relevant articles. Vox Media says it will use OpenAI’s technology to build “audience-facing and internal applications,” while The Atlantic will build a new experimental product called Atlantic Labs .

I am delighted that @theatlantic now has a strategic content & product partnership with @openai . Our stories will be discoverable in their new products and we'll be working with them to figure out new ways that AI can help serious, independent media : https://t.co/nfSVXW9KpB — nxthompson (@nxthompson) May 29, 2024

OpenAI signs 100K PwC workers to ChatGPT’s enterprise tier

OpenAI announced a new deal with management consulting giant PwC . The company will become OpenAI’s biggest customer to date, covering 100,000 users, and will become OpenAI’s first partner for selling its enterprise offerings to other businesses.

OpenAI says it is training its GPT-4 successor

OpenAI announced in a blog post that it has recently begun training its next flagship model to succeed GPT-4. The news came in an announcement of its new safety and security committee, which is responsible for informing safety and security decisions across OpenAI’s products.

Former OpenAI director claims the board found out about ChatGPT on Twitter

On the The TED AI Show podcast, former OpenAI board member Helen Toner revealed that the board did not know about ChatGPT until its launch in November 2022. Toner also said that Sam Altman gave the board inaccurate information about the safety processes the company had in place and that he didn’t disclose his involvement in the OpenAI Startup Fund.

Sharing this, recorded a few weeks ago. Most of the episode is about AI policy more broadly, but this was my first longform interview since the OpenAI investigation closed, so we also talked a bit about November. Thanks to @bilawalsidhu for a fun conversation! https://t.co/h0PtK06T0K — Helen Toner (@hlntnr) May 28, 2024

ChatGPT’s mobile app revenue saw biggest spike yet following GPT-4o launch

The launch of GPT-4o has driven the company’s biggest-ever spike in revenue on mobile , despite the model being freely available on the web. Mobile users are being pushed to upgrade to its $19.99 monthly subscription, ChatGPT Plus, if they want to experiment with OpenAI’s most recent launch.

OpenAI to remove ChatGPT’s Scarlett Johansson-like voice

After demoing its new GPT-4o model last week, OpenAI announced it is pausing one of its voices , Sky, after users found that it sounded similar to Scarlett Johansson in “Her.”

OpenAI explained in a blog post that Sky’s voice is “not an imitation” of the actress and that AI voices should not intentionally mimic the voice of a celebrity. The blog post went on to explain how the company chose its voices: Breeze, Cove, Ember, Juniper and Sky.

We’ve heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT, especially Sky. We are working to pause the use of Sky while we address them. Read more about how we chose these voices: https://t.co/R8wwZjU36L — OpenAI (@OpenAI) May 20, 2024

ChatGPT lets you add files from Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive

OpenAI announced new updates for easier data analysis within ChatGPT . Users can now upload files directly from Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, interact with tables and charts, and export customized charts for presentations. The company says these improvements will be added to GPT-4o in the coming weeks.

We're rolling out interactive tables and charts along with the ability to add files directly from Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive into ChatGPT. Available to ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Enterprise users over the coming weeks. https://t.co/Fu2bgMChXt pic.twitter.com/M9AHLx5BKr — OpenAI (@OpenAI) May 16, 2024

OpenAI inks deal to train AI on Reddit data

OpenAI announced a partnership with Reddit that will give the company access to “real-time, structured and unique content” from the social network. Content from Reddit will be incorporated into ChatGPT, and the companies will work together to bring new AI-powered features to Reddit users and moderators.

We’re partnering with Reddit to bring its content to ChatGPT and new products: https://t.co/xHgBZ8ptOE — OpenAI (@OpenAI) May 16, 2024

OpenAI debuts GPT-4o “omni” model now powering ChatGPT

OpenAI’s spring update event saw the reveal of its new omni model, GPT-4o, which has a black hole-like interface , as well as voice and vision capabilities that feel eerily like something out of “Her.” GPT-4o is set to roll out “iteratively” across its developer and consumer-facing products over the next few weeks.

OpenAI demos real-time language translation with its latest GPT-4o model. pic.twitter.com/pXtHQ9mKGc — TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) May 13, 2024

OpenAI to build a tool that lets content creators opt out of AI training

The company announced it’s building a tool, Media Manager, that will allow creators to better control how their content is being used to train generative AI models — and give them an option to opt out. The goal is to have the new tool in place and ready to use by 2025.

OpenAI explores allowing AI porn

In a new peek behind the curtain of its AI’s secret instructions , OpenAI also released a new NSFW policy . Though it’s intended to start a conversation about how it might allow explicit images and text in its AI products, it raises questions about whether OpenAI — or any generative AI vendor — can be trusted to handle sensitive content ethically.

OpenAI and Stack Overflow announce partnership

In a new partnership, OpenAI will get access to developer platform Stack Overflow’s API and will get feedback from developers to improve the performance of their AI models. In return, OpenAI will include attributions to Stack Overflow in ChatGPT. However, the deal was not favorable to some Stack Overflow users — leading to some sabotaging their answer in protest .

U.S. newspapers file copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft

Alden Global Capital-owned newspapers, including the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, and the Denver Post, are suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement. The lawsuit alleges that the companies stole millions of copyrighted articles “without permission and without payment” to bolster ChatGPT and Copilot.

OpenAI inks content licensing deal with Financial Times

OpenAI has partnered with another news publisher in Europe, London’s Financial Times , that the company will be paying for content access. “Through the partnership, ChatGPT users will be able to see select attributed summaries, quotes and rich links to FT journalism in response to relevant queries,” the FT wrote in a press release.

OpenAI opens Tokyo hub, adds GPT-4 model optimized for Japanese

OpenAI is opening a new office in Tokyo and has plans for a GPT-4 model optimized specifically for the Japanese language. The move underscores how OpenAI will likely need to localize its technology to different languages as it expands.

Sam Altman pitches ChatGPT Enterprise to Fortune 500 companies

According to Reuters, OpenAI’s Sam Altman hosted hundreds of executives from Fortune 500 companies across several cities in April, pitching versions of its AI services intended for corporate use.

OpenAI releases “more direct, less verbose” version of GPT-4 Turbo

Premium ChatGPT users — customers paying for ChatGPT Plus, Team or Enterprise — can now use an updated and enhanced version of GPT-4 Turbo . The new model brings with it improvements in writing, math, logical reasoning and coding, OpenAI claims, as well as a more up-to-date knowledge base.

Our new GPT-4 Turbo is now available to paid ChatGPT users. We’ve improved capabilities in writing, math, logical reasoning, and coding. Source: https://t.co/fjoXDCOnPr pic.twitter.com/I4fg4aDq1T — OpenAI (@OpenAI) April 12, 2024

ChatGPT no longer requires an account — but there’s a catch

You can now use ChatGPT without signing up for an account , but it won’t be quite the same experience. You won’t be able to save or share chats, use custom instructions, or other features associated with a persistent account. This version of ChatGPT will have “slightly more restrictive content policies,” according to OpenAI. When TechCrunch asked for more details, however, the response was unclear:

“The signed out experience will benefit from the existing safety mitigations that are already built into the model, such as refusing to generate harmful content. In addition to these existing mitigations, we are also implementing additional safeguards specifically designed to address other forms of content that may be inappropriate for a signed out experience,” a spokesperson said.

OpenAI’s chatbot store is filling up with spam

TechCrunch found that the OpenAI’s GPT Store is flooded with bizarre, potentially copyright-infringing GPTs . A cursory search pulls up GPTs that claim to generate art in the style of Disney and Marvel properties, but serve as little more than funnels to third-party paid services and advertise themselves as being able to bypass AI content detection tools.

The New York Times responds to OpenAI’s claims that it “hacked” ChatGPT for its copyright lawsuit

In a court filing opposing OpenAI’s motion to dismiss The New York Times’ lawsuit alleging copyright infringement, the newspaper asserted that “OpenAI’s attention-grabbing claim that The Times ‘hacked’ its products is as irrelevant as it is false.” The New York Times also claimed that some users of ChatGPT used the tool to bypass its paywalls.

OpenAI VP doesn’t say whether artists should be paid for training data

At a SXSW 2024 panel, Peter Deng, OpenAI’s VP of consumer product dodged a question on whether artists whose work was used to train generative AI models should be compensated . While OpenAI lets artists “opt out” of and remove their work from the datasets that the company uses to train its image-generating models, some artists have described the tool as onerous.

A new report estimates that ChatGPT uses more than half a million kilowatt-hours of electricity per day

ChatGPT’s environmental impact appears to be massive. According to a report from The New Yorker , ChatGPT uses an estimated 17,000 times the amount of electricity than the average U.S. household to respond to roughly 200 million requests each day.

ChatGPT can now read its answers aloud

OpenAI released a new Read Aloud feature for the web version of ChatGPT as well as the iOS and Android apps. The feature allows ChatGPT to read its responses to queries in one of five voice options and can speak 37 languages, according to the company. Read aloud is available on both GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 models.

ChatGPT can now read responses to you. On iOS or Android, tap and hold the message and then tap “Read Aloud”. We’ve also started rolling on web – click the "Read Aloud" button below the message. pic.twitter.com/KevIkgAFbG — OpenAI (@OpenAI) March 4, 2024

OpenAI partners with Dublin City Council to use GPT-4 for tourism

As part of a new partnership with OpenAI, the Dublin City Council will use GPT-4 to craft personalized itineraries for travelers, including recommendations of unique and cultural destinations, in an effort to support tourism across Europe.

A law firm used ChatGPT to justify a six-figure bill for legal services

New York-based law firm Cuddy Law was criticized by a judge for using ChatGPT to calculate their hourly billing rate . The firm submitted a $113,500 bill to the court, which was then halved by District Judge Paul Engelmayer, who called the figure “well above” reasonable demands.

ChatGPT experienced a bizarre bug for several hours

ChatGPT users found that ChatGPT was giving nonsensical answers for several hours , prompting OpenAI to investigate the issue. Incidents varied from repetitive phrases to confusing and incorrect answers to queries. The issue was resolved by OpenAI the following morning.

Match Group announced deal with OpenAI with a press release co-written by ChatGPT

The dating app giant home to Tinder, Match and OkCupid announced an enterprise agreement with OpenAI in an enthusiastic press release written with the help of ChatGPT . The AI tech will be used to help employees with work-related tasks and come as part of Match’s $20 million-plus bet on AI in 2024.

ChatGPT will now remember — and forget — things you tell it to

As part of a test, OpenAI began rolling out new “memory” controls for a small portion of ChatGPT free and paid users, with a broader rollout to follow. The controls let you tell ChatGPT explicitly to remember something, see what it remembers or turn off its memory altogether. Note that deleting a chat from chat history won’t erase ChatGPT’s or a custom GPT’s memories — you must delete the memory itself.

We’re testing ChatGPT's ability to remember things you discuss to make future chats more helpful. This feature is being rolled out to a small portion of Free and Plus users, and it's easy to turn on or off. https://t.co/1Tv355oa7V pic.twitter.com/BsFinBSTbs — OpenAI (@OpenAI) February 13, 2024

OpenAI begins rolling out “Temporary Chat” feature

Initially limited to a small subset of free and subscription users, Temporary Chat lets you have a dialogue with a blank slate. With Temporary Chat, ChatGPT won’t be aware of previous conversations or access memories but will follow custom instructions if they’re enabled.

But, OpenAI says it may keep a copy of Temporary Chat conversations for up to 30 days for “safety reasons.”

Use temporary chat for conversations in which you don’t want to use memory or appear in history. pic.twitter.com/H1U82zoXyC — OpenAI (@OpenAI) February 13, 2024

ChatGPT users can now invoke GPTs directly in chats

Paid users of ChatGPT can now bring GPTs into a conversation by typing “@” and selecting a GPT from the list. The chosen GPT will have an understanding of the full conversation, and different GPTs can be “tagged in” for different use cases and needs.

You can now bring GPTs into any conversation in ChatGPT – simply type @ and select the GPT. This allows you to add relevant GPTs with the full context of the conversation. pic.twitter.com/Pjn5uIy9NF — OpenAI (@OpenAI) January 30, 2024

ChatGPT is reportedly leaking usernames and passwords from users’ private conversations

Screenshots provided to Ars Technica found that ChatGPT is potentially leaking unpublished research papers, login credentials and private information from its users. An OpenAI representative told Ars Technica that the company was investigating the report.

ChatGPT is violating Europe’s privacy laws, Italian DPA tells OpenAI

OpenAI has been told it’s suspected of violating European Union privacy , following a multi-month investigation of ChatGPT by Italy’s data protection authority. Details of the draft findings haven’t been disclosed, but in a response, OpenAI said: “We want our AI to learn about the world, not about private individuals.”

OpenAI partners with Common Sense Media to collaborate on AI guidelines

In an effort to win the trust of parents and policymakers, OpenAI announced it’s partnering with Common Sense Media to collaborate on AI guidelines and education materials for parents, educators and young adults. The organization works to identify and minimize tech harms to young people and previously flagged ChatGPT as lacking in transparency and privacy .

OpenAI responds to Congressional Black Caucus about lack of diversity on its board

After a letter from the Congressional Black Caucus questioned the lack of diversity in OpenAI’s board, the company responded . The response, signed by CEO Sam Altman and Chairman of the Board Bret Taylor, said building a complete and diverse board was one of the company’s top priorities and that it was working with an executive search firm to assist it in finding talent. 

OpenAI drops prices and fixes ‘lazy’ GPT-4 that refused to work

In a blog post , OpenAI announced price drops for GPT-3.5’s API, with input prices dropping to 50% and output by 25%, to $0.0005 per thousand tokens in, and $0.0015 per thousand tokens out. GPT-4 Turbo also got a new preview model for API use, which includes an interesting fix that aims to reduce “laziness” that users have experienced.

Expanding the platform for @OpenAIDevs : new generation of embedding models, updated GPT-4 Turbo, and lower pricing on GPT-3.5 Turbo. https://t.co/7wzCLwB1ax — OpenAI (@OpenAI) January 25, 2024

OpenAI bans developer of a bot impersonating a presidential candidate

OpenAI has suspended AI startup Delphi, which developed a bot impersonating Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) to help bolster his presidential campaign. The ban comes just weeks after OpenAI published a plan to combat election misinformation, which listed “chatbots impersonating candidates” as against its policy.

OpenAI announces partnership with Arizona State University

Beginning in February, Arizona State University will have full access to ChatGPT’s Enterprise tier , which the university plans to use to build a personalized AI tutor, develop AI avatars, bolster their prompt engineering course and more. It marks OpenAI’s first partnership with a higher education institution.

Winner of a literary prize reveals around 5% her novel was written by ChatGPT

After receiving the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for her novel The Tokyo Tower of Sympathy, author Rie Kudan admitted that around 5% of the book quoted ChatGPT-generated sentences “verbatim.” Interestingly enough, the novel revolves around a futuristic world with a pervasive presence of AI.

Sam Altman teases video capabilities for ChatGPT and the release of GPT-5

In a conversation with Bill Gates on the Unconfuse Me podcast, Sam Altman confirmed an upcoming release of GPT-5 that will be “fully multimodal with speech, image, code, and video support.” Altman said users can expect to see GPT-5 drop sometime in 2024.

OpenAI announces team to build ‘crowdsourced’ governance ideas into its models

OpenAI is forming a Collective Alignment team of researchers and engineers to create a system for collecting and “encoding” public input on its models’ behaviors into OpenAI products and services. This comes as a part of OpenAI’s public program to award grants to fund experiments in setting up a “democratic process” for determining the rules AI systems follow.

OpenAI unveils plan to combat election misinformation

In a blog post, OpenAI announced users will not be allowed to build applications for political campaigning and lobbying until the company works out how effective their tools are for “personalized persuasion.”

Users will also be banned from creating chatbots that impersonate candidates or government institutions, and from using OpenAI tools to misrepresent the voting process or otherwise discourage voting.

The company is also testing out a tool that detects DALL-E generated images and will incorporate access to real-time news, with attribution, in ChatGPT.

Snapshot of how we’re preparing for 2024’s worldwide elections: • Working to prevent abuse, including misleading deepfakes • Providing transparency on AI-generated content • Improving access to authoritative voting information https://t.co/qsysYy5l0L — OpenAI (@OpenAI) January 15, 2024

OpenAI changes policy to allow military applications

In an unannounced update to its usage policy , OpenAI removed language previously prohibiting the use of its products for the purposes of “military and warfare.” In an additional statement, OpenAI confirmed that the language was changed in order to accommodate military customers and projects that do not violate their ban on efforts to use their tools to “harm people, develop weapons, for communications surveillance, or to injure others or destroy property.”

ChatGPT subscription aimed at small teams debuts

Aptly called ChatGPT Team , the new plan provides a dedicated workspace for teams of up to 149 people using ChatGPT as well as admin tools for team management. In addition to gaining access to GPT-4, GPT-4 with Vision and DALL-E3, ChatGPT Team lets teams build and share GPTs for their business needs.

OpenAI’s GPT store officially launches

After some back and forth over the last few months, OpenAI’s GPT Store is finally here . The feature lives in a new tab in the ChatGPT web client, and includes a range of GPTs developed both by OpenAI’s partners and the wider dev community.

To access the GPT Store, users must be subscribed to one of OpenAI’s premium ChatGPT plans — ChatGPT Plus, ChatGPT Enterprise or the newly launched ChatGPT Team.

the GPT store is live! https://t.co/AKg1mjlvo2 fun speculation last night about which GPTs will be doing the best by the end of today. — Sam Altman (@sama) January 10, 2024

Developing AI models would be “impossible” without copyrighted materials, OpenAI claims

Following a proposed ban on using news publications and books to train AI chatbots in the U.K., OpenAI submitted a plea to the House of Lords communications and digital committee. OpenAI argued that it would be “impossible” to train AI models without using copyrighted materials, and that they believe copyright law “does not forbid training.”

OpenAI claims The New York Times’ copyright lawsuit is without merit

OpenAI published a public response to The New York Times’s lawsuit against them and Microsoft for allegedly violating copyright law, claiming that the case is without merit.

In the response , OpenAI reiterates its view that training AI models using publicly available data from the web is fair use. It also makes the case that regurgitation is less likely to occur with training data from a single source and places the onus on users to “act responsibly.”

We build AI to empower people, including journalists. Our position on the @nytimes lawsuit: • Training is fair use, but we provide an opt-out • "Regurgitation" is a rare bug we're driving to zero • The New York Times is not telling the full story https://t.co/S6fSaDsfKb — OpenAI (@OpenAI) January 8, 2024

OpenAI’s app store for GPTs planned to launch next week

After being delayed in December , OpenAI plans to launch its GPT Store sometime in the coming week, according to an email viewed by TechCrunch. OpenAI says developers building GPTs will have to review the company’s updated usage policies and GPT brand guidelines to ensure their GPTs are compliant before they’re eligible for listing in the GPT Store. OpenAI’s update notably didn’t include any information on the expected monetization opportunities for developers listing their apps on the storefront.

GPT Store launching next week – OpenAI pic.twitter.com/I6mkZKtgZG — Manish Singh (@refsrc) January 4, 2024

OpenAI moves to shrink regulatory risk in EU around data privacy

In an email, OpenAI detailed an incoming update to its terms, including changing the OpenAI entity providing services to EEA and Swiss residents to OpenAI Ireland Limited. The move appears to be intended to shrink its regulatory risk in the European Union, where the company has been under scrutiny over ChatGPT’s impact on people’s privacy.

What is ChatGPT? How does it work?

ChatGPT is a general-purpose chatbot that uses artificial intelligence to generate text after a user enters a prompt, developed by tech startup OpenAI . The chatbot uses GPT-4, a large language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like text.

When did ChatGPT get released?

November 30, 2022 is when ChatGPT was released for public use.

What is the latest version of ChatGPT?

Both the free version of ChatGPT and the paid ChatGPT Plus are regularly updated with new GPT models. The most recent model is GPT-4o .

Can I use ChatGPT for free?

There is a free version of ChatGPT that only requires a sign-in in addition to the paid version, ChatGPT Plus .

Who uses ChatGPT?

Anyone can use ChatGPT! More and more tech companies and search engines are utilizing the chatbot to automate text or quickly answer user questions/concerns.

What companies use ChatGPT?

Multiple enterprises utilize ChatGPT, although others may limit the use of the AI-powered tool .

Most recently, Microsoft announced at it’s 2023 Build conference that it is integrating it ChatGPT-based Bing experience into Windows 11. A Brooklyn-based 3D display startup Looking Glass utilizes ChatGPT to produce holograms you can communicate with by using ChatGPT.  And nonprofit organization Solana officially integrated the chatbot into its network with a ChatGPT plug-in geared toward end users to help onboard into the web3 space.

What does GPT mean in ChatGPT?

GPT stands for Generative Pre-Trained Transformer.

What is the difference between ChatGPT and a chatbot?

A chatbot can be any software/system that holds dialogue with you/a person but doesn’t necessarily have to be AI-powered. For example, there are chatbots that are rules-based in the sense that they’ll give canned responses to questions.

ChatGPT is AI-powered and utilizes LLM technology to generate text after a prompt.

Can ChatGPT write essays?

Can chatgpt commit libel.

Due to the nature of how these models work , they don’t know or care whether something is true, only that it looks true. That’s a problem when you’re using it to do your homework, sure, but when it accuses you of a crime you didn’t commit, that may well at this point be libel.

We will see how handling troubling statements produced by ChatGPT will play out over the next few months as tech and legal experts attempt to tackle the fastest moving target in the industry.

Does ChatGPT have an app?

Yes, there is a free ChatGPT mobile app for iOS and Android users.

What is the ChatGPT character limit?

It’s not documented anywhere that ChatGPT has a character limit. However, users have noted that there are some character limitations after around 500 words.

Does ChatGPT have an API?

Yes, it was released March 1, 2023.

What are some sample everyday uses for ChatGPT?

Everyday examples include programing, scripts, email replies, listicles, blog ideas, summarization, etc.

What are some advanced uses for ChatGPT?

Advanced use examples include debugging code, programming languages, scientific concepts, complex problem solving, etc.

How good is ChatGPT at writing code?

It depends on the nature of the program. While ChatGPT can write workable Python code, it can’t necessarily program an entire app’s worth of code. That’s because ChatGPT lacks context awareness — in other words, the generated code isn’t always appropriate for the specific context in which it’s being used.

Can you save a ChatGPT chat?

Yes. OpenAI allows users to save chats in the ChatGPT interface, stored in the sidebar of the screen. There are no built-in sharing features yet.

Are there alternatives to ChatGPT?

Yes. There are multiple AI-powered chatbot competitors such as Together , Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude , and developers are creating open source alternatives .

How does ChatGPT handle data privacy?

OpenAI has said that individuals in “certain jurisdictions” (such as the EU) can object to the processing of their personal information by its AI models by filling out  this form . This includes the ability to make requests for deletion of AI-generated references about you. Although OpenAI notes it may not grant every request since it must balance privacy requests against freedom of expression “in accordance with applicable laws”.

The web form for making a deletion of data about you request is entitled “ OpenAI Personal Data Removal Request ”.

In its privacy policy, the ChatGPT maker makes a passing acknowledgement of the objection requirements attached to relying on “legitimate interest” (LI), pointing users towards more information about requesting an opt out — when it writes: “See here  for instructions on how you can opt out of our use of your information to train our models.”

What controversies have surrounded ChatGPT?

Recently, Discord announced that it had integrated OpenAI’s technology into its bot named Clyde where two users tricked Clyde into providing them with instructions for making the illegal drug methamphetamine (meth) and the incendiary mixture napalm.

An Australian mayor has publicly announced he may sue OpenAI for defamation due to ChatGPT’s false claims that he had served time in prison for bribery. This would be the first defamation lawsuit against the text-generating service.

CNET found itself in the midst of controversy after Futurism reported the publication was publishing articles under a mysterious byline completely generated by AI. The private equity company that owns CNET, Red Ventures, was accused of using ChatGPT for SEO farming, even if the information was incorrect.

Several major school systems and colleges, including New York City Public Schools , have banned ChatGPT from their networks and devices. They claim that the AI impedes the learning process by promoting plagiarism and misinformation, a claim that not every educator agrees with .

There have also been cases of ChatGPT accusing individuals of false crimes .

Where can I find examples of ChatGPT prompts?

Several marketplaces host and provide ChatGPT prompts, either for free or for a nominal fee. One is PromptBase . Another is ChatX . More launch every day.

Can ChatGPT be detected?

Poorly. Several tools claim to detect ChatGPT-generated text, but in our tests , they’re inconsistent at best.

Are ChatGPT chats public?

No. But OpenAI recently disclosed a bug, since fixed, that exposed the titles of some users’ conversations to other people on the service.

What lawsuits are there surrounding ChatGPT?

None specifically targeting ChatGPT. But OpenAI is involved in at least one lawsuit that has implications for AI systems trained on publicly available data, which would touch on ChatGPT.

Are there issues regarding plagiarism with ChatGPT?

Yes. Text-generating AI models like ChatGPT have a tendency to regurgitate content from their training data.

More TechCrunch

Get the industry’s biggest tech news, techcrunch daily news.

Every weekday and Sunday, you can get the best of TechCrunch’s coverage.

Startups Weekly

Startups are the core of TechCrunch, so get our best coverage delivered weekly.

TechCrunch Fintech

The latest Fintech news and analysis, delivered every Tuesday.

TechCrunch Mobility

TechCrunch Mobility is your destination for transportation news and insight.

YC alum Odigos aims to help enterprises find errors and stamp out latency in their systems

Companies’ data architecture today looks nothing like it did 20 years ago, but monitoring and tracing tools haven’t followed suit, making it difficult for engineering teams to identify the root…

Miami-based AI bookkeeping startup finally has raised another big round: $200M in equity and debt

The SMB-focused bookkeeping, accounting and finance startup finally has raised $50 million in a Series B round of funding and secured a $150 million credit line, TechCrunch is the first…

Thousands of Avis car rental customers had personal data stolen in cyberattack

The car rental giant says personal information, credit card information, and driver’s license numbers were stolen in the August cyberattack.

Sonos delays set-top box after flawed app update

It’s been an infamous year for software updates gone wrong. But what’s the worst-case scenario for a buggy update? Sonos may be trying to find the answer as its mobile…

EV startup Ather seeks to raise $530 million in India IPO

Indian electric scooter manufacturer Ather Energy plans to raise about $370 million in an IPO.

Electro-hydraulic muscles help these robot legs stand straight on uneven terrain

Along with the ability to automatically adjust to the surface they’re traversing, the legs move faster and jump higher than their more standardized electric counterparts.

European VC Atomico closes $1.24B across two funds for early and growth-stage startups

Atomico has historically leaned toward earlier funding rounds while dipping into later stages where it made sense; now it’s setting itself up to focus just as much on the later…

The Try Guys say their subscription strategy is working

YouTube creators The Try Guys claim they’re on-track to reach profitability, with subscriptions to their three-month-old, ad-free service 2nd Try now accounting for 20% of the company’s revenue. Those numbers…

Apple Intelligence delays could impede iPhone 16 ‘supercycle’

When Apple unveiled its AI plans at WWDC in June, analysts suggested the feature could put the iPhone 16 on track for another “supercycle.” Like the addition of 5G before…

Elon Musk says Tesla has ‘no need’ to license xAI models

Elon Musk has denied a report that one of his companies, Tesla, has discussed sharing revenue with another of his companies, xAI, so that it can use the startup’s AI…

La French Tech gears up to go in a new direction

After weeks in political limbo, France now has a new prime minister, former EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. But parliament remains bitterly divided, generating uncertainty for many economic sectors —…

Bending Spoons plans to lay off 75% of WeTransfer staff after acquisition

Italy-based app company Bending Spoons, which owns Evernote and Meetup, is planning to lay off 75% of the staff of file transfer service WeTransfer, TechCrunch has learned. Bending Spoons acquired…

Meta Llama: Everything you need to know about the open generative AI model

Like other generative AI models, Llama can perform a range of different assistive tasks, like coding and answering basic math questions, as well as summarizing documents in eight languages.

Featured Article

Apple Event 2024: iPhone 16, Apple Intelligence and all the other expected ‘Glowtime’ reveals

Apple’s Glowtime iPhone event will include the iPhone 16, but may also feature new AirPods, a new Apple Watch and possibly even new Macs.

Sunamp’s thermal battery uses a chemical found in salt-and-vinegar potato chips

The startup has devised a durable way to store solar power as heat that can then be used for household heating or hot water.

The coolest startup in the Bay Area is a baseball team called the Oakland Ballers

This year, the B’s made their debut in the Pioneer League, a professional baseball organization that’s partnered with the MLB, but unlike the minor leagues, it’s not tied to any existing MLB teams.

Telegram reportedly ‘inundated’ with illegal and extremist activity

A New York Times analysis of more than 3.2 million Telegram messages from 16,000 channels found that the messaging platform has been “inundated” with illegal and extremist activity. Specifically, The Times…

Bluesky grows to 9M+ users

Bluesky keeps growing: The company announced that as of Friday morning, it had added 3 million new users, bringing its total user count to more than 9 million. In other…

Payroll startup Warp disavows ‘affiliate’ who posted about white superiority

Warp, a young payroll startup in New York, is in the spotlight following controversial posts from an account tied to the company. On Thursday, an account posting under the name…

Canva wants you to pay a lot more for its AI features

Canva is dramatically increasing prices for some customers. Canva Teams subscribers on older pricing plans will see a 300% increase for a five-person plan, jumping from $119.99 per year to…

Boeing’s Starliner performs flawless touchdown without on-board crew, program’s future remains uncertain

After months of delays and uncertainty, Boeing’s Starliner capsule has returned from the International Space Station, touching down in White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico, just after midnight on Saturday. …

Aptos CEO Mo Shaikh shares his journey to web3 and market opportunities in Asia and Middle East

TechCrunch sat down with Shaikh this week at the Korea Blockchain Week 2024 conference in Seoul to talk about Aptos’ expansion; its partnerships with major Asian web2 companies; and how…

Startups are getting fined, or sometimes banned, by individual states

The problem, experts say, is that each state has its own complex fees, tax, and business registration requirements.

For security, we have to stop picking up the phone

Today’s scams can be as simple as picking up a phone call. To avoid the next fraud, there are good reasons to let your calls run to voicemail.

How a viral AI image catapulted a Mexican startup to a major adidas contract

Antonio Nuño, Fatima Alvarez, and Enrique Rodriguez have been friends since they were five years old. As teenagers, they became volunteers helping indigenous communities — first in Mexico, then in other countries — and saw that many of the women were artisans.  The trio came to realize that these artists…

Second Byju’s auditor exits in a year amid bankruptcy proceedings

BDO, the auditor for Indian edtech startup Byju’s, has resigned with immediate effect, marking the second auditor departure for the embattled startup in about a year and further intensifying concerns…

Google to receive punishment for search monopoly by next August, says judge

A federal judge says he will deliver a punishment in Google’s antitrust case by August 2025, according to The New York Times, after ruling earlier this month that Google had…

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code…

The maiden voyage of Blue Origin’s massive new rocket won’t be for NASA

The world will have to wait a little longer to see Blue Origin’s massive New Glenn rocket fly for the first time. That rocket had been scheduled to launch two…

Watch live as Boeing and NASA attempt to bring empty Starliner back to Earth

After 93 days on orbit, Starliner is coming home.  The spacecraft is a “go” for undocking from the International Space Station at 6:04 p.m. EST, though it will be leaving…

Writing Generator AI

Your ai-powered writing assistant.

• Create engaging blog posts: Whether you're a professional blogger or just starting out, the Writing Generator AI can help you write engaging and informative blog posts.
• Write academic essays: The AI can help students write well-structured and coherent academic essays.
• Generate marketing content: Content creators can use the AI to generate persuasive and engaging marketing content.
• Write creative stories: The AI can also assist in writing creative stories, making it a handy tool for writers and authors.
• Produce professional reports: Professionals can use the AI to write comprehensive and well-structured reports.

New & Trending Tools

Get webpage text from url, ai web scraper, ai resume updater.

AI Paragraph Writer: Essay AI 4+

Ai article essay creation tool, erdinc gullu, designed for ipad.

• Offers In-App Purchases

Screenshots

Description.

AI Paragraph Writer: Essay AI - The Future of Article Writing in Your Hands! AI Essay Writer: Paragraph AI redefines the essay and article writing experience with AI technology. Whether you are a student or a professional, this app helps you achieve the highest level of your writing tasks. With advanced AI technology, creating impressive and informative content is now just a few clicks away! Main Features: • User-Friendly Interface: On the app’s homepage, simply enter your prompt in the text field and click the “Generate” button. Let AI Essay Writer do the rest! • Automatic Writing: Create detailed and original essays, articles, or personal roadmaps based on your input. Impress everyone with the quality of your writing! • PDF Download: Easily download your created content in PDF format to your device for use anytime, anywhere. • Time-Saving: Your time is valuable. Our AI quickly and efficiently generates the content you need in seconds. • Encourages Creativity: If you struggle with writing or need creative ideas, AI Essay Writer is the perfect solution for you. Your source of inspiration is here! User Experience: Our users’ feedback highlights the success and satisfaction of the app. Download AI Essay Writer now, experience it for yourself, and feel the difference in your writing tasks! Privacy and Security: Your personal data is important to us. AI Essay Writer ensures a secure writing experience by protecting user data. Support: Do you have any questions or feedback? Contact us: [email protected] Download and Try Now! Meet the future of writing with AI Essay Writer: Paragraph AI and feel the difference. Don’t just write, elevate your writing to the next level!

Version 1.0.5

Stability improvements and bug fixes.

App Privacy

The developer, ERDINC GULLU , indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .

Data Not Collected

The developer does not collect any data from this app.

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

Information

• Monthly Full Access $2.99
• Weekly Full Access $0.99
• App Support
• Privacy Policy

Family Sharing

Some in‑app purchases, including subscriptions, may be shareable with your family group when family sharing is enabled., more by this developer.

Make AI Video - Aivide

Realtime AI Draw: Live AI

AI Photo Translate

You Might Also Like

Edu Step Up

AI Essay Writer - Essay AI

Algebra Math Solver: Geometry

AllBaseConvert

Presentation Secondary School

Copyright © 2024 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.

• Career Advice

The Imperfect Tutor: Grading, Feedback and AI

Patricia Taylor has found using AI takes more time and creates more problems than not if instructors want students to get meaningful feedback on their work.

By  Patricia Taylor

You have / 5 articles left. Sign up for a free account or log in.

Inok/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Last spring, CNN published an article on teachers using generative AI to grade student writing. On social media, a few of my colleagues at other institutions instantly complained—before reading the article to see that at least one person quoted made the same point—that if students are using AI to write all their papers and teachers are using it to do all the grading, then we might as well just give up on our formal education system entirely.

They’re not wrong. Fortunately, most students aren’t only using AI, and most professors aren’t asking AI to do all their grading. But there’s more to this issue than the potential for an AI circle jerk, and it illustrates a core problem with how we’ve conceptualized writing and grading in higher education, one that we must grapple with as the new academic year begins again.

The article describes several professors who are using AI for grading and giving feedback, all of whom seem to be interested in figuring out how to do so ethically and in ways that support their educational mission. I had many of the same questions and have been engaging in many of the same conversations. Last year, I was a fellow at the University of Southern California’s Center for Generative AI and Society , focusing on the impact AI is having on education and writing instruction. My colleague Mark Marino, inspired by Jeremy Douglass’s “ perfect tutor ” exercise, worked with his students to write several bots ( CoachTutor and ReviewerNumber2 ) to teach about rubrics and how different prompts could result in different kinds of feedback. His initial thought was that CoachTutor gave very similar feedback to his own, and he offered the bots to the rest of us to try.

Most Popular

• A year after cuts, WV still bleeding faculty, administrators
• Internet Archive's court loss leaves higher ed in gray area
• Decades of enrollment declines for Black men at HBCUs

I used those bots as well as my own prompts in ClaudeAI and ChatGPT4 to explore the uses and limits of AI-generated feedback on student papers. What I found led me to a very different conclusion than that of the professors cited in the CNN article: While they saw AI as reducing the time it takes to grade effectively by allowing faculty members to focus on higher-level issues with content and ideas, I found using it creates more problems and takes longer if I want my students to get meaningful feedback rather than just an arbitrary number or letter grade.

Those cited in the article suggested that AI could take over grading certain elements of writing. For instance, a professor of business ethics suggested teachers can leave “structure, language use and grammar” to AI to score while teachers look for “novelty, creativity and depth of insight.”

That separation reflects a very common view of writing in which thought and structure, ideas and language, are distinct from each other. Professors use rubrics to separate those categories, assign points to each one and then add them up—but such a separation is largely arbitrary. The kind of surface-level structures and grammar issues that the AI can assess are also the ones the AI can edit in a student’s writing. But structure and grammar can intertwine with elements like creativity, depth and nuance. Many of my students develop the most interesting, creative ideas by thinking carefully and critically about the language that structures our thought on any given topic. My students can spend half an hour in class working over a single sentence with Richard Lanham’s paramedic method , not because excessive prepositional phrases and passive voice are that important or difficult to reduce, but because focusing on them often reveals deeper problems with the thinking that structured the sentence to begin with.

That is not a problem just with AI, of course. It’s a problem with our grading traditions. Analytic grading with points gives a sense of objectivity and consistency even when writing is far more complex. But if we can’t trust AI to assess novelty or depth of insight because it can’t actually think, we shouldn’t trust the AI to offer nuanced feedback on structure and grammar, either.

Generic in a Specific Way

The problems with assuming a divide between what AI can evaluate and what it can’t are reflected in the results I had when generating feedback on student work. I started by commenting on student papers without AI assistance so that I would not be biased by the results. (Indeed, one of my initial concerns about using AI for grading was that if faculty members are under a time crunch, they will be primed to see only what the AI notices and not what they might have focused on without the AI.) With student permission, I then ran the papers through several programs to ask for feedback.

When using Mark’s bots, I explained the prompt and my goal for the essay and asked for feedback using the built-in criteria. When using ClaudeAI or ChatGPT, I gave the AI the original prompt for the essay, some context of what the aim of the paper was, one of several different roles (a writing professor, a writing center tutor and so on), and asked specifically for feedback that would help a student with revision or improvement in their writing. The AI produced some pretty standard responses: It would ask for more examples and analysis, note the need for stronger transitions, and the like.

Unfortunately, those responses were generic in a very specific way. It became clear over the course of the experiment that the AI was giving variations on the same feedback regardless of the quality of the paper. It asked for more examples or statistics in papers that didn’t need them. It continually encouraged the five-paragraph essay structure—but, unfortunately, that went against what I wanted, since I (like so many other writing professors at the college level ) want students to develop arguments that go past the five-paragraph structure. When focusing on language and grammar issues, it flattened style and student voice.

Even when I rewrote the prompts to reflect my different expectations, the feedback didn’t change much. AI offered stronger writers conservative feedback rather than encouraging them to take risks with their language and ideas. It could not distinguish between a student who was not thinking at all about structure and, as I have generally learned to do, one who was trying but failing to create a different kind of structure to support a more interesting argument. The AI feedback was the same either way.

Editors' Picks

• Online Learning Is Not the Future
• Re: Your Recent Email to Your Professor
• New Sweet Briar Policy Bars Transgender Students

Ultimately, the AI responses were so formulaic and conservative that they reminded me of a clip from The Hunt for Red October , where Seaman Jones tells his captain that the computer has misidentified the Red October submarine because when it gets confused, it “runs home” to its initial training data on seismic events. Like the submarine computer, when the AI was presented with something out of the ordinary, it simply found the ordinary within it based on past data, with little ability to discern what might be both new and valuable. Perhaps the AIs were trained on too many five-paragraph essays.

That said, AI is not completely incapable of giving feedback on more complex issues. I could get some reasonable feedback if I prompted it to attend to a specific problem, like “This paper struggles with identifying the specific contribution it is making to the conversation, as well as distinguishing between the author’s ideas and the ideas of the sources the paper uses. How would a writing professor give feedback on these issues?”

Yet asking an AI to respond to an element of a text without alerting it to the fact that there was a problem was often insufficient. In one instance, I ran a student’s essay through multiple AI applications, first asking it to give feedback on the thesis and structure without saying that there was a problem: The body of the paper and the thesis didn’t line up very well. While many of the paragraphs had key terms that were related to the thesis in a general way, none of them actually addressed what was needed to support the central claim. And AI didn’t pick any of that up. It wasn’t until I specifically said, “There is a problem with the way the structure and content of the paper’s points support the thesis,” and asked, “What is that problem and how could it be fixed?” that the AI started to produce useful feedback, though it still needed a lot of guidance.

Upon hearing about this failure across the bots and chat programs, Mark Marino wrote a new bot ( MrThesis ) focusing specifically on thesis and support. It didn’t do much better than the initial bots until I again named the specific problem. In other words, an AI might be used to help fix problems in an individual piece of student writing, but it is less effective at identifying the existence of problems other than the most banal.

Skeptical Readers, Skeptical Questions

Over the course of this project, I was forced to spend more time trying to get the AI to produce meaningful feedback tailored to the actual paper than I did just writing the feedback on my initial pass through the paper. AI isn’t a time saver for professors if we are actually trying to give meaningful reactions to student papers that have complex issues. And its feedback on things like structure can actually do more harm than good if not carefully curated—curation that easily takes as much time as writing the feedback ourselves.

I do believe there are ways to use AI in the classroom for feedback, but they all require a pre-existing awareness of what the problem is. If professors are so crunched for time they need AI to make grading go faster, that reflects bigger issues with our employment and teaching, not the actual skill or accuracy of AI.

Last year, my students struggled with identifying counterarguments to their ideas. Students often lack the facility to think about new topics from other perspectives, because they haven’t fully developed subject matter expertise. So now I teach students to use AI to ask questions from other perspectives. For example, I have them choose paragraphs from their paper and ask, “What would a skeptical reader ask about the following paragraph?” or “What questions would an expert on X have about this paragraph?” After a semester of using such questions with AI, I heard my students echo them in their final peer-review sessions, taking on the role of a skeptical reader and asking their own skeptical questions—and that’s the kind of learning that I want!

But this is entirely different than the kind of evaluative feedback that comes in the form of a grade. Over the last two years of AI availability, it’s become clear that AI tools reflect back at users the biases of their data sets, programmers and users themselves. Even when we put “rules” in place to protect against known biases, it can easily backfire when moved just slightly outside an assumed context—as when Google’s Gemini produced a “diverse” group of four 1943 German soldiers, including one Black man and one Asian woman.

Using AI for grading papers will not only reflect back a lack of genuine critical thinking about student work but also years of biases about writing and writing instruction that have resulted in mechanized writing—biases that professors like me have spent a great deal of time and energy trying to dismantle. Those biases, or the problems with new rules to prevent biased results, just won’t be as visible as an AI-generated image staring us in the face.

Patricia Taylor is associate professor of teaching in the Dornsife Writing Program at the University of Southern California.

Free Speech Survey Signals Distrust and Disconnection

A recent report from FIRE shows that while protests over the Israel-Hamas war are driving campus conversations around

Share This Article

More from teaching.

Teaching English in a Chinese Way

Many academics criticize traditional lectures as being too passive and old-fashioned, but they actually help enhance

College as To-Do List

As learning management systems dominate, and students juggle competing priorities, Susan D.

The Secret to a Meaningful Start: Miss Your Mark

The first day of class sets the tone for the entire semester, writes David R.

• Become a Member
• Sign up for Newsletters
• Learning & Assessment
• Diversity & Equity
• Career Development
• Labor & Unionization
• Shared Governance
• Academic Freedom
• Books & Publishing
• Financial Aid
• Residential Life
• Free Speech
• Physical & Mental Health
• Race & Ethnicity
• Sex & Gender
• Socioeconomics
• Traditional-Age
• Adult & Post-Traditional
• Teaching & Learning
• Artificial Intelligence
• Digital Publishing
• Data Analytics
• Administrative Tech
• Alternative Credentials
• Financial Health
• Cost-Cutting
• Revenue Strategies
• Academic Programs
• Physical Campuses
• Mergers & Collaboration
• Fundraising
• Research Universities
• Regional Public Universities
• Community Colleges
• Private Nonprofit Colleges
• Minority-Serving Institutions
• Religious Colleges
• Women's Colleges
• Specialized Colleges
• For-Profit Colleges
• Executive Leadership
• Trustees & Regents
• State Oversight
• Accreditation
• Politics & Elections
• Supreme Court
• Student Aid Policy
• Science & Research Policy
• State Policy
• Colleges & Localities
• Employee Satisfaction
• Remote & Flexible Work
• Staff Issues
• Study Abroad
• International Students in U.S.
• U.S. Colleges in the World
• Intellectual Affairs
• Seeking a Faculty Job
• Advancing in the Faculty
• Seeking an Administrative Job
• Advancing as an Administrator
• Beyond Transfer
• Call to Action
• Confessions of a Community College Dean
• Higher Ed Gamma
• Higher Ed Policy
• Just Explain It to Me!
• Just Visiting
• Law, Policy—and IT?
• Leadership & StratEDgy
• Leadership in Higher Education
• Learning Innovation
• Online: Trending Now
• Resident Scholar
• University of Venus
• Student Voice
• Academic Life
• Health & Wellness
• The College Experience
• Life After College
• Academic Minute
• Weekly Wisdom
• Reports & Data
• Quick Takes
• Advertising & Marketing
• Consulting Services
• Data & Insights
• Hiring & Jobs
• Event Partnerships

4 /5 Articles remaining this month.

Sign up for a free account or log in.

• Sign Up, It’s FREE

Find anything you save across the site in your account

Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art

In 1953, Roald Dahl published “ The Great Automatic Grammatizator ,” a short story about an electrical engineer who secretly desires to be a writer. One day, after completing construction of the world’s fastest calculating machine, the engineer realizes that “English grammar is governed by rules that are almost mathematical in their strictness.” He constructs a fiction-writing machine that can produce a five-thousand-word short story in thirty seconds; a novel takes fifteen minutes and requires the operator to manipulate handles and foot pedals, as if he were driving a car or playing an organ, to regulate the levels of humor and pathos. The resulting novels are so popular that, within a year, half the fiction published in English is a product of the engineer’s invention.

Is there anything about art that makes us think it can’t be created by pushing a button, as in Dahl’s imagination? Right now, the fiction generated by large language models like ChatGPT is terrible, but one can imagine that such programs might improve in the future. How good could they get? Could they get better than humans at writing fiction—or making paintings or movies—in the same way that calculators are better at addition and subtraction?

Art is notoriously hard to define, and so are the differences between good art and bad art. But let me offer a generalization: art is something that results from making a lot of choices. This might be easiest to explain if we use fiction writing as an example. When you are writing fiction, you are—consciously or unconsciously—making a choice about almost every word you type; to oversimplify, we can imagine that a ten-thousand-word short story requires something on the order of ten thousand choices. When you give a generative-A.I. program a prompt, you are making very few choices; if you supply a hundred-word prompt, you have made on the order of a hundred choices.

If an A.I. generates a ten-thousand-word story based on your prompt, it has to fill in for all of the choices that you are not making. There are various ways it can do this. One is to take an average of the choices that other writers have made, as represented by text found on the Internet; that average is equivalent to the least interesting choices possible, which is why A.I.-generated text is often really bland. Another is to instruct the program to engage in style mimicry, emulating the choices made by a specific writer, which produces a highly derivative story. In neither case is it creating interesting art.

I think the same underlying principle applies to visual art, although it’s harder to quantify the choices that a painter might make. Real paintings bear the mark of an enormous number of decisions. By comparison, a person using a text-to-image program like DALL-E enters a prompt such as “A knight in a suit of armor fights a fire-breathing dragon,” and lets the program do the rest. (The newest version of DALL-E accepts prompts of up to four thousand characters—hundreds of words, but not enough to describe every detail of a scene.) Most of the choices in the resulting image have to be borrowed from similar paintings found online; the image might be exquisitely rendered, but the person entering the prompt can’t claim credit for that.

Some commentators imagine that image generators will affect visual culture as much as the advent of photography once did. Although this might seem superficially plausible, the idea that photography is similar to generative A.I. deserves closer examination. When photography was first developed, I suspect it didn’t seem like an artistic medium because it wasn’t apparent that there were a lot of choices to be made; you just set up the camera and start the exposure. But over time people realized that there were a vast number of things you could do with cameras, and the artistry lies in the many choices that a photographer makes. It might not always be easy to articulate what the choices are, but when you compare an amateur’s photos to a professional’s, you can see the difference. So then the question becomes: Is there a similar opportunity to make a vast number of choices using a text-to-image generator? I think the answer is no. An artist—whether working digitally or with paint—implicitly makes far more decisions during the process of making a painting than would fit into a text prompt of a few hundred words.

We can imagine a text-to-image generator that, over the course of many sessions, lets you enter tens of thousands of words into its text box to enable extremely fine-grained control over the image you’re producing; this would be something analogous to Photoshop with a purely textual interface. I’d say that a person could use such a program and still deserve to be called an artist. The film director Bennett Miller has used DALL-E 2 to generate some very striking images that have been exhibited at the Gagosian gallery; to create them, he crafted detailed text prompts and then instructed DALL-E to revise and manipulate the generated images again and again. He generated more than a hundred thousand images to arrive at the twenty images in the exhibit. But he has said that he hasn’t been able to obtain comparable results on later releases of DALL-E . I suspect this might be because Miller was using DALL-E for something it’s not intended to do; it’s as if he hacked Microsoft Paint to make it behave like Photoshop, but as soon as a new version of Paint was released, his hacks stopped working. OpenAI probably isn’t trying to build a product to serve users like Miller, because a product that requires a user to work for months to create an image isn’t appealing to a wide audience. The company wants to offer a product that generates images with little effort.

It’s harder to imagine a program that, over many sessions, helps you write a good novel. This hypothetical writing program might require you to enter a hundred thousand words of prompts in order for it to generate an entirely different hundred thousand words that make up the novel you’re envisioning. It’s not clear to me what such a program would look like. Theoretically, if such a program existed, the user could perhaps deserve to be called the author. But, again, I don’t think companies like OpenAI want to create versions of ChatGPT that require just as much effort from users as writing a novel from scratch. The selling point of generative A.I. is that these programs generate vastly more than you put into them, and that is precisely what prevents them from being effective tools for artists.

The companies promoting generative-A.I. programs claim that they will unleash creativity. In essence, they are saying that art can be all inspiration and no perspiration—but these things cannot be easily separated. I’m not saying that art has to involve tedium. What I’m saying is that art requires making choices at every scale; the countless small-scale choices made during implementation are just as important to the final product as the few large-scale choices made during the conception. It is a mistake to equate “large-scale” with “important” when it comes to the choices made when creating art; the interrelationship between the large scale and the small scale is where the artistry lies.

Believing that inspiration outweighs everything else is, I suspect, a sign that someone is unfamiliar with the medium. I contend that this is true even if one’s goal is to create entertainment rather than high art. People often underestimate the effort required to entertain; a thriller novel may not live up to Kafka’s ideal of a book—an “axe for the frozen sea within us”—but it can still be as finely crafted as a Swiss watch. And an effective thriller is more than its premise or its plot. I doubt you could replace every sentence in a thriller with one that is semantically equivalent and have the resulting novel be as entertaining. This means that its sentences—and the small-scale choices they represent—help to determine the thriller’s effectiveness.

Many novelists have had the experience of being approached by someone convinced that they have a great idea for a novel, which they are willing to share in exchange for a fifty-fifty split of the proceeds. Such a person inadvertently reveals that they think formulating sentences is a nuisance rather than a fundamental part of storytelling in prose. Generative A.I. appeals to people who think they can express themselves in a medium without actually working in that medium. But the creators of traditional novels, paintings, and films are drawn to those art forms because they see the unique expressive potential that each medium affords. It is their eagerness to take full advantage of those potentialities that makes their work satisfying, whether as entertainment or as art.

Of course, most pieces of writing, whether articles or reports or e-mails, do not come with the expectation that they embody thousands of choices. In such cases, is there any harm in automating the task? Let me offer another generalization: any writing that deserves your attention as a reader is the result of effort expended by the person who wrote it. Effort during the writing process doesn’t guarantee the end product is worth reading, but worthwhile work cannot be made without it. The type of attention you pay when reading a personal e-mail is different from the type you pay when reading a business report, but in both cases it is only warranted when the writer put some thought into it.

Recently, Google aired a commercial during the Paris Olympics for Gemini, its competitor to OpenAI’s GPT-4 . The ad shows a father using Gemini to compose a fan letter, which his daughter will send to an Olympic athlete who inspires her. Google pulled the commercial after widespread backlash from viewers; a media professor called it “one of the most disturbing commercials I’ve ever seen.” It’s notable that people reacted this way, even though artistic creativity wasn’t the attribute being supplanted. No one expects a child’s fan letter to an athlete to be extraordinary; if the young girl had written the letter herself, it would likely have been indistinguishable from countless others. The significance of a child’s fan letter—both to the child who writes it and to the athlete who receives it—comes from its being heartfelt rather than from its being eloquent.

Many of us have sent store-bought greeting cards, knowing that it will be clear to the recipient that we didn’t compose the words ourselves. We don’t copy the words from a Hallmark card in our own handwriting, because that would feel dishonest. The programmer Simon Willison has described the training for large language models as “money laundering for copyrighted data,” which I find a useful way to think about the appeal of generative-A.I. programs: they let you engage in something like plagiarism, but there’s no guilt associated with it because it’s not clear even to you that you’re copying.

Some have claimed that large language models are not laundering the texts they’re trained on but, rather, learning from them, in the same way that human writers learn from the books they’ve read. But a large language model is not a writer; it’s not even a user of language. Language is, by definition, a system of communication, and it requires an intention to communicate. Your phone’s auto-complete may offer good suggestions or bad ones, but in neither case is it trying to say anything to you or the person you’re texting. The fact that ChatGPT can generate coherent sentences invites us to imagine that it understands language in a way that your phone’s auto-complete does not, but it has no more intention to communicate.

It is very easy to get ChatGPT to emit a series of words such as “I am happy to see you.” There are many things we don’t understand about how large language models work, but one thing we can be sure of is that ChatGPT is not happy to see you. A dog can communicate that it is happy to see you, and so can a prelinguistic child, even though both lack the capability to use words. ChatGPT feels nothing and desires nothing, and this lack of intention is why ChatGPT is not actually using language. What makes the words “I’m happy to see you” a linguistic utterance is not that the sequence of text tokens that it is made up of are well formed; what makes it a linguistic utterance is the intention to communicate something.

Because language comes so easily to us, it’s easy to forget that it lies on top of these other experiences of subjective feeling and of wanting to communicate that feeling. We’re tempted to project those experiences onto a large language model when it emits coherent sentences, but to do so is to fall prey to mimicry; it’s the same phenomenon as when butterflies evolve large dark spots on their wings that can fool birds into thinking they’re predators with big eyes. There is a context in which the dark spots are sufficient; birds are less likely to eat a butterfly that has them, and the butterfly doesn’t really care why it’s not being eaten, as long as it gets to live. But there is a big difference between a butterfly and a predator that poses a threat to a bird.

A person using generative A.I. to help them write might claim that they are drawing inspiration from the texts the model was trained on, but I would again argue that this differs from what we usually mean when we say one writer draws inspiration from another. Consider a college student who turns in a paper that consists solely of a five-page quotation from a book, stating that this quotation conveys exactly what she wanted to say, better than she could say it herself. Even if the student is completely candid with the instructor about what she’s done, it’s not accurate to say that she is drawing inspiration from the book she’s citing. The fact that a large language model can reword the quotation enough that the source is unidentifiable doesn’t change the fundamental nature of what’s going on.

As the linguist Emily M. Bender has noted, teachers don’t ask students to write essays because the world needs more student essays. The point of writing essays is to strengthen students’ critical-thinking skills; in the same way that lifting weights is useful no matter what sport an athlete plays, writing essays develops skills necessary for whatever job a college student will eventually get. Using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you will never improve your cognitive fitness that way.

Not all writing needs to be creative, or heartfelt, or even particularly good; sometimes it simply needs to exist. Such writing might support other goals, such as attracting views for advertising or satisfying bureaucratic requirements. When people are required to produce such text, we can hardly blame them for using whatever tools are available to accelerate the process. But is the world better off with more documents that have had minimal effort expended on them? It would be unrealistic to claim that if we refuse to use large language models, then the requirements to create low-quality text will disappear. However, I think it is inevitable that the more we use large language models to fulfill those requirements, the greater those requirements will eventually become. We are entering an era where someone might use a large language model to generate a document out of a bulleted list, and send it to a person who will use a large language model to condense that document into a bulleted list. Can anyone seriously argue that this is an improvement?

It’s not impossible that one day we will have computer programs that can do anything a human being can do, but, contrary to the claims of the companies promoting A.I., that is not something we’ll see in the next few years. Even in domains that have absolutely nothing to do with creativity, current A.I. programs have profound limitations that give us legitimate reasons to question whether they deserve to be called intelligent at all.

The computer scientist François Chollet has proposed the following distinction: skill is how well you perform at a task, while intelligence is how efficiently you gain new skills. I think this reflects our intuitions about human beings pretty well. Most people can learn a new skill given sufficient practice, but the faster the person picks up the skill, the more intelligent we think the person is. What’s interesting about this definition is that—unlike I.Q. tests—it’s also applicable to nonhuman entities; when a dog learns a new trick quickly, we consider that a sign of intelligence.

In 2019, researchers conducted an experiment in which they taught rats how to drive. They put the rats in little plastic containers with three copper-wire bars; when the mice put their paws on one of these bars, the container would either go forward, or turn left or turn right. The rats could see a plate of food on the other side of the room and tried to get their vehicles to go toward it. The researchers trained the rats for five minutes at a time, and after twenty-four practice sessions, the rats had become proficient at driving. Twenty-four trials were enough to master a task that no rat had likely ever encountered before in the evolutionary history of the species. I think that’s a good demonstration of intelligence.

Now consider the current A.I. programs that are widely acclaimed for their performance. AlphaZero, a program developed by Google’s DeepMind, plays chess better than any human player, but during its training it played forty-four million games, far more than any human can play in a lifetime. For it to master a new game, it will have to undergo a similarly enormous amount of training. By Chollet’s definition, programs like AlphaZero are highly skilled, but they aren’t particularly intelligent, because they aren’t efficient at gaining new skills. It is currently impossible to write a computer program capable of learning even a simple task in only twenty-four trials, if the programmer is not given information about the task beforehand.

Self-driving cars trained on millions of miles of driving can still crash into an overturned trailer truck, because such things are not commonly found in their training data, whereas humans taking their first driving class will know to stop. More than our ability to solve algebraic equations, our ability to cope with unfamiliar situations is a fundamental part of why we consider humans intelligent. Computers will not be able to replace humans until they acquire that type of competence, and that is still a long way off; for the time being, we’re just looking for jobs that can be done with turbocharged auto-complete.

Despite years of hype, the ability of generative A.I. to dramatically increase economic productivity remains theoretical. (Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs released a report titled “Gen AI: Too Much Spend, Too Little Benefit?”) The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world.

Some individuals have defended large language models by saying that most of what human beings say or write isn’t particularly original. That is true, but it’s also irrelevant. When someone says “I’m sorry” to you, it doesn’t matter that other people have said sorry in the past; it doesn’t matter that “I’m sorry” is a string of text that is statistically unremarkable. If someone is being sincere, their apology is valuable and meaningful, even though apologies have previously been uttered. Likewise, when you tell someone that you’re happy to see them, you are saying something meaningful, even if it lacks novelty.

Something similar holds true for art. Whether you are creating a novel or a painting or a film, you are engaged in an act of communication between you and your audience. What you create doesn’t have to be utterly unlike every prior piece of art in human history to be valuable; the fact that you’re the one who is saying it, the fact that it derives from your unique life experience and arrives at a particular moment in the life of whoever is seeing your work, is what makes it new. We are all products of what has come before us, but it’s by living our lives in interaction with others that we bring meaning into the world. That is something that an auto-complete algorithm can never do, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. ♦

New Yorker Favorites

They thought that they’d found the perfect apartment. They weren’t alone .

The world’s oldest temple and the dawn of civilization .

What happened to the whale from “Free Willy.”

It was one of the oldest buildings left downtown. Why not try to save it ?

The religious right’s leading ghostwriter .

After high-school football stars were accused of rape, online vigilantes demanded that justice be served .

A comic strip by Alison Bechdel: the seven-minute semi-sadistic workout .

Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .