The chart in the next box describes select AI tools and their best capabilities. The next pages provide more information on each of the select AI tools described in the chart. The chart addresses capababilites based off of free tier versions. UND provides licensing to Scite. For more tools, see the GenAI Tool Tracking List. If you would like more assistance on choosing a tool or learning which tool is best for your task or your disipline, please contact your librarian.
| Research Task | ChatGPT | Gemini | Claude | Scite | Scispace | Consensus | NotebookLM |
| Getting background Information | Excellent--although only when using Deep Research mode. | Good--but Gemini is optimized for consumer information. | Excellent--Claude can give excellent background information. | Best--Scite can introduce research on almost any topic. | Excellent--Scispace can give background information on almost any topic. | Good--Consensus can give background information, but is not its strength. | Not suited--NotebookLM does not search academic literature. |
| Finding academic sources | Excellent--although only when using Deep Research mode. | Not suited--Gemini does not search Google Scholar effectively. | Excellent--although only in Claude's Research mode. | Best when searching in STEM research; Scite is not suited for the humanities. | Excellent, and Scispace has good humanities coverage. | Good–Consensus "Deep" mode is good for broad topics. | Not suited--NotebookLM does not search academic databases. |
| Summarizing articles | Excellent--ChatGPT is very good at summarizing articles. | Excellent--Gemini can handle even book-length texts. | Excellent--Claude is very good at summarizing articles. | Not suited--Scite does not have summaries of all its articles. | Not suited--SciSpace does not have summaries of all its articles. | Not suited--Consensus does not have summaries of all its articles. | Best--NotebookLM can compare up to 30 books or articles at once. |
| Extracting references | Excellent–ChatGPT can extract references from articles to export to Zotero. | Excellent–Gemini can extract references from articles to export to Zotero. | Excellent–Claude can extract references from articles to export to Zotero. | Not suited-–Scite can only export references for articles in its database. | Not suited-–SciSpace can only export references for articles in its database. | Not suited-–Consensus can only export references for articles in its database. | Not suited--NotebookLM is not a good tool to extract references. |
| Code generation | Good–ChatGPT is a good tool for coding but requires coding experience. | Good–Gemini is a good tool for coding but requires coding experience. | Best–Claude is the best tool for inexperienced coders. | Not suited–Scite does not generate code. | Not suited–SciSpace does not generate code. | Not suited–Consensus does not generate code. | Not suited–NotebookLM does not generate code. |
| Image analysis | Good–although o4-mini-high, on the ChatGPT Plus tier, would be Best | Good–Gemini can inspect and extract information from images | Good–Claude can inspect and extract information from images | Not suited–Scite cannot analyze images | Not suited–SciSpace cannot analyze images | Not suited–Consensus cannot analyze images | Not suited–NotebookLM cannot analyze images |