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For more information on how I can support your school or college with strategic, safe, practical AI implementation, reach out via [email protected] or connect via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darren-coxon/

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The models I recommend

Popular Frontier Models

ChatGPT - chatgpt.com - still probably the most useful and versatile model, with a decent free tier. If you’re concerned by data protection, make sure you turn off the ‘Improve the model for everyone’ in Settings, to avoid your data being used.

Google Gemini - gemini.google.com - Google’s AI model - now inside Workspace, which makes it very useful. Outside Workspace it will use your data to train the model.

Claude - claude.ai - great for writing - cleaner than ChatGPT. Also includes ‘Artifacts’, which package the output into a shareable format such as HTML. Can be limited in use, especially in the free tier. Does not use your data.

Google AI Studio - ai.dev - multimodal model (’reads’ text, audio, image, and video). One of my favourites. The Pro 2.5 model in AI Studio is the same as the $20 a month Google Gemini Pro model. Gives some of the most comprehensive output of all models. Will use your data for model training.

Open Source Models

Grok - grok.com - this is X’s AI model. Grok 4 is one of the most powerful available. You can turn off data harvesting on this model. Features like file upload and reasoning are available limited in free, and unlimited in paid versions.

Mistral - chat.mistral.ai - le Chat is a pretty decent and versatile French model worth checking out. They claim they have the best image reader of all.

“Wrapper” apps for education

Gamma - gamma.app - AI-powered presentations (200 free AI credits with this link)

Quizizz – quizizz.com – online quizzes with AI

Magic School - magicschool.ai - Lots of tools for teachers and students. You can create ‘rooms’ and add AI tools for students to use.

Research-focused models

Perplexity - perplexity.ai - AI research tool. Paid version enables you to create shareable ‘pages’. Turn off data harvesting to ensure your input is not being used to train their AI model.

Google NotebookLM - notebooklm.google.com - train the AI on your documents. Like all Google models, this one is 18+, so fine for your own planning. Has a cool audio overview ‘podcast’ feature.

Image and music AI

Recraft - recraft.ai - text-to-image generator with 50 free credits per day and desktop publishing capabilities. Sign up on desktop with this link to get an additional 200 credits. Then share your own referral link with colleagues and students so you gain additional credits.