For this mini-lesson, we’ll be taking a look at how different AI tools stack up against each other and which factors you might take into consideration when choosing which to use.
Watch/Read
Basic comparison of several AI tools (3-minute read)
How different AIs handle your privacy (2-minute read)
Note: All W&M students, faculty, and staff have access to an AI tool — Microsoft Copilot — through Microsoft 365, which many of us are already using for work email, calendar, etc. So that might be a pretty quick and seamless way to try out an AI tool. Just look for the Copilot icon in the Outlook sidebar.
Activity
Look over Nicole Hennig’s “Which Generative AI Tool for Your Task?” (5 minutes)
Discussion
Given what you’ve learned so far, which AI tool(s) do you think would be the “best” fit for your usual tasks and personal values? In 2-3 sentences, share your reasoning.
33 responses to “thing 6: Choosing the right AI tool”
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For my daily job responsibilites, I think Outlook’s Copilot would be helpful in managing emails; communication within our department; and scheduling. I also like that it can summarize long email threads!
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ChatGPT would probably be fine for what I would use it for. I use many different programs that all have their own syntax and configuration needs. ChatGPT seems like it would allow me to parse through hundreds of pages of documentation to look for the specific thing I need or show me sources for the best configurations for my situation. It will probably also be able to show me security considerations for those configurations.
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I found Nicole Hennig’s “Which Generative AI Tool for Your Task?” very useful indeed. Will be going back to it for reference.
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I am going to explore Claude and Perplexity as I have not worked with them before. For now I am relying heavily on Copilot as it is already integrated into the Microsoft environment and the risk for privacy concerns is low. I do like ChatGPT for private things and more creative tasks.
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Would like to know more about Perplexity. Is STLI going to offer something demonstrating various tools?
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I’m automatically inclined to lean more towards any version that is free over paid version even it is better quality. I used co-pilot on one task and was pleased with the results. It helped wrap my brain around how I would approach the larder problem.
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Based on my personal values, I’m unlikely to use AI for any communication task. AI summaries of search results that show their sources will be helpful for finding or confirming information.
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They all have some good things about them. Any would probably work for what I would use AI for (develop lessons, in-class demos, etc.). I’ve used ChatGPT (free) like a Google search, and it’s fairly good. But I would not use it for professional writing because it gives incorrect sources. Claude is interesting, but maybe too extreme in being cautious. I’d likely try Copilot because it’s already in Microsoft. I’ve heard that students use Perplexity quite a bit, and I would like to become familiar with that as well. Tough choice.
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I haven’t really used AI beyond Grammarly and occasionally ChatGPT when I’m bored. I haven’t really found a task that AI can do better/more efficiently. The only time I really needed AI was to transcribe an audio, and Copilot couldn’t recognize the file.
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Copilot seems the most likely one that I would use since it’s built in to the Microsoft systems we already use at work. I’m curious about Claude and Perplexity, and will explore them.
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I think I’ll use Copilot and ChatGPT like I have been doing so far. For research where I need cited sources, I’ll use the free Perplexity Pro earned by the university for the calendar year 2025. If you don’t already have it, sign up for it at https://perplexity.ai/backtoschool using your W&M email address.
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Organizing data and building efficiency into manipulations of data is important to me. I will likely experiment with Google Gemini and Claude. The data that I am typically working in is not large or excessively complicated. ChatGPT and Copilot might also work effectively. I’ve never used AI for generating tables and graphs from data.
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I think Copilot will be the most useful because of ease of access and its privacy settings. I don’t need to do anything intense like coding or generating images and videos, so I think the basic uses of the system will be sufficient and helpful. I am intrigued by Perplexity however, especially with the fact that it cites its sources.
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I appreciate that the tips in this were written by AI. Makes sense!
ChatGPT has been “learning” me and has been the most useful so far. I prefer it because it is not linked with my university account and I can use it for personal things like meal planning as well. ChatGPT has been helpful when I am struggling to find a place to start on something. I can give it a prompt (the voice to text is helpful with this as well) and it can draft something for me. This gives me a starting point and helps me get over “writer’s block”.
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I really like that Copilot uses organizational settings. That makes me more confident about using it, and that I won’t accidentally share data that I should not and it won’t be logged outside the W&M ecosystem. It also feels like the easiest one for me to check behind and verify accuracy at the moment. It seems like this is also a very evolving area so its something to periodically check and see what’s changed!
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I use ChatGPT for general purposes. I’ve been using it for awhile, so it knows a lot about me, which I find beneficial. When I want very thoughtful wording, I use Claude. If I’m working with several (up to 50) documents that I need to write a report about or summarize, then I use Google’s NotebookLM.
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I am no yet inclined to pay for AI, so I will likely use Copilot and Perplexity. The screen shot feature in Copilot might be handy for generating alt text for figures in my lecture PowerPoints to rising meet accessibility expectations.
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I have found that I use ChatGPT and Copilot the most. I tend to favor ChatGPT. I mostly use it to search & summarize information and generate ideas. I also have used the share button to share my search results with co-workers.
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I’ve used Gemini for help with code, especially troubleshooting accessibility issues. But it will sometimes give wrong answers (it tells me, “Sorry. I’m still learning.”). My personal task manager has several AI models built in, and labels them according to their strengths, so that is helpful. I mostly use them for outlining and planning.
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I would be comfortable using Copilot for my daily work tasks. I still don’t feel comfortable using Gen AI for research tasks. I guess I’m old school 🙂 How does grammar tools like Grammarly fit into this conversation?
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I would love to use AI effectively for data analysis. I have been experimenting this summer with Copilot in Excel, but success has been limited. I am currently feeling out (and appreciate the help from this series!), if the issue is my interaction with the tool, or limitations of it.
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ChatGPT has been excellent at problem solving. I liked the Perplexity pages, and I plan to try to create of those. Notebook LM is great for creating notes in Markdown or LaTeX, and ChatGPT does a great job at typesetting as well.
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Honestly, I’m new to the AI technology and have been using Chat GPT. But I did try Copilot today and am going to try some of the others to see which one I am most comfortable.
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My main uses of AI so far have been on specific coding tasks, and I appreciate Claude being able to generate and annotate good-enough R code. I also gravitated toward it due to the privacy and cautious elements built into it, though these are of less concern since with R code I can generally see if it works or not (rather than information). I’m curious about perplexity due to its transparent sourcing.
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To date, I have been using ChatGPT, but based on the reading, I think that I will also try Claude. The privacy and caution are appealing to me in a brainstorming and research tool.
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I always want a footnote, so Perplexity seems like a good fit aside from the whole collecting data thing. In that case, Claude would probably be a better fit for me and my work.
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Daily work activities, I use ChatGPT as I find the results to be more substantive and creative tone than CoPilot for writing emails, briefs, and work guides. The article introduced me to Claude, which I’ll test out and compare to ChatGPT.
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My use is quite limited at the moment so I think I’ll continue with ChatGPT and spend some time on CoPilot since we already have it available.
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I use copilot when working with MS products, otherwise I use ChatGPT. I have just started working in creating images, with mixed success. They still look too robotic for me and don’t give the right feel.
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This is illuminating. I am planning on exploring ChatGPT, as we now have access to a better version. I am particularly interested in seeing how it can help me to learn using Python.
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I have been using Copilot, since it it built into Microsoft 365. I’ve found it’s suggestions about grammar to be helpful (though not something I always go by.) I want to explore Claude. I like the idea of careful, clear and safe!
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I didn’t realize there were so many options, but I’m intrigued enough to give more of them a try. I primarily use CoPilot because it’s been vetted by IT and I’ve familiarized myself with it more than ChatGPT. I’m especially interested in Claude for its citing capabilities!
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Chat GPT is definitely the most helpful by far – our team has the team subscription. The most important function for me is that it enables us to design our own GPT and let us train our own data/format. I uploaded a lot of data to the cloud and designed our own version of GPT so that when I asked for something, the gpt can just quickly find the info from the large pool of data.
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