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Artificial Intelligence (AI)

A topical overview of AI in research and education

Generative AI Tools Comparison

Feature	Copilot	Perplexity	ChatGPT	Claude
Base Technology	GPT-4 with Bing integration	Mixture of expert models	OpenAI's GPT models (GPT-4o, GPT-4o mini)	Claude 3.7 Sonnet, a LLM reasoning model
Information Accuracy	Real-time but can be inaccurate	Excels in accuracy, real-time	Depends on pre-trained knowledge, limited web access	Depends on pre-trained knowledge
Interaction Style	Creative, balanced, precise styles	Structured responses	Natural conversations	Conversational, thoughtful, helpful
Specialized Features	• DALL-E 3 integration • Microsoft ecosystem integration	• Advanced article summarization • Various writing modes	• Custom instructions • Web browsing (paid) • Image generation	• Create and work with artifacts for code, documents, and visualizations (charts) • Assist with complex reasoning tasks • Work across multiple languages • Generate creative content (not images) • Provide thoughtful responses to philosophical questions
Limitations	• 5 responses per conversation • 4000 characters per prompt	Lacks image generation capability	Free version has knowledge cut-off	• Free version has knowledge cut-off • Cannot run code outside of specific sandbox environments • Restrictions around certain harmful content • Cannot generate images based on text
Price	Free to UC Merced users $30/month for Microsoft 365 Copilot $20/month for Copilot Pro	Free plan available Professional plan: $20/month	Free plan available Plus: $20/month	Free plan available $20 pro plan; Max plans have tiered pricing
Best For	General-purpose AI with web search	Research and information retrieval Also works for news and financial updates	Versatile conversations and content generation	Thoughtful humanistic conversations

See also:

Using Generative AI
by Bronwen Maxson Last Updated Mar 6, 2025 328 views this year

Microsoft Copilot

Microsoft Copilot
How to Use

Microsoft Copilot
Copilot is an advanced conversational AI model based on the GPT-4 architecture. It is designed to assist users with a wide range of tasks, from synthesizing information and offering support to completing productivity-related activities.

Perplexity

Perplexity
How to Use

Perplexity
Perplexity AI is an AI-powered search engine that combines the capabilities of large language models with real-time web searching to provide comprehensive, up-to-date answers to user queries.
Perplexity is available as a web app, mobile app, and Chrome extension.
Standard plan: free forever. Pro plan: $20 per month or $200 per year.
Purdue community earns free access to Perplexity Pro for one year

ChatGPT

ChatGPT
How to Use

ChatGPT
ChatGPT is an AI language model by OpenAI that generates human-like text based on input. It's used for conversations, answering questions, and tasks like writing or research across various fields.
ChatGPT is available on mobile or desktop.
Free version; ChatGPT Plus: $20 per month

Introducing GPT-4o
Prompt Engineering
This guide shares strategies and tactics for getting better results from large language models (sometimes referred to as GPT models) like GPT-4o.
What can you do with GPT-4?

Google Gemini

Google Gemini
How to Use

Google Gemini
Gemini is a large language model developed by Google AI. It is capable of generating human-quality text in response to a wide range of prompts and questions.

Claude

Claude
How to Use

Claude AI
Claude is large language model (LLM) technology trained on a diverse corpus of text data. Claude 3.7 Sonnet is a reasoning model, having the capability for extended thinking which improves response quality for complex questions

Intro to Claude (Anthropic)

Last Updated: May 22, 2025 4:00 PM
URL: https://libguides.ucmerced.edu/artificial-intelligence
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Subjects: Computer Science

Tags: Faculty