Updates on 10 Popular AI Tools for Educators
This article is republished. It was originally published on my Substack newsletter, “Tom’s Takes: AI Tools & Views.”
I spend a fair bit of time tracking the introduction of new AI tools that might benefit teachers and students. Often, these tools are well-publicized in AI newsletters, tech magazines, and the like. While major players like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic often dominate these publications, many vital updates from edtech developers go unnoticed.
So, I thought I’d step back this week and list some of the most significant developments in 10 AI tools popular with educators. Yes, the big AI giants are included, but I think you’ll find under-the-radar developments throughout.
I originally intended to cover 20+ tools, but many edtech tools do not offer a newsletter, blog, or provide regular client communication. And AI giants like Google, which do communicate regularly, often do so through various channels. In short, constructing the list was more time-consuming than I thought.
In any event, here are the updates:
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1. ChatGPT (OpenAI) ChatGPT (as you’re likely well aware) is an AI language model developed by OpenAI, designed to generate human-like responses to prompts. In educational settings, it can assist in answering questions, providing explanations, facilitating interactive learning, and much more.
Recent Updates:
ChatGPT Edu Deployment:
Estonia's National Integration: OpenAI is collaborating with Estonia to integrate ChatGPT Edu into the national education system, providing access to AI tools for 20,000 students and 3,000 teachers starting September 2025.
OpenAI recently introduced "Deep Research," a specialized AI capability within ChatGPT designed to perform in-depth, multi-step research using data from the public web.
This week, OpenAI expanded access to Deep Research to all paying ChatGPT users, including Plus, Team, Edu, and Enterprise subscribers, with varying query limits per month.
Enhanced Educational Features:
GPT-4o Integration: ChatGPT Edu now includes GPT-4o, offering improved language capabilities and support for over 50 languages.
Advanced Tools: Incorporation of data analysis, web browsing, and document summarization features to aid in research and learning.
2. Google (for Education) Google for Education offers a suite of tools and services tailored for educational environments, including Google Classroom, Docs, Meet, and more. Many of these tools are AI-enhanced and are available to educational institutions through various subscription plans, providing distinct levels of access to various Google tools. Google also develops AI “learning” tools that do not fit directly under the Google for Education umbrella.
Recent Updates:
AI Integration Initiatives:
NotebookLM: Additions to Google’s popular NotebookLM include interactive Audio Overviews and distinct panels. In addition, NotebookLM Plus is a premium version of NotebookLM with higher limits to support classes and organizations of any size.
Conversational YouTube: A November update introduced real-time question-asking capabilities, enabling users to pose queries via chat without pausing playback. It is available in Google Classroom.
Google Vids Access: Educators can access Google Vids, Google’s easy-to-use video creation app, in Gemini Workspace.
Google announced last week that Gemini Deep Research is coming to Google Workspace tiers that have Gemini Advanced.
AI Resource Expansion: Google provides resources, tools, and real-world examples to help educators integrate AI into teaching and learning experiences.
3. MagicSchool MagicSchool is a popular AI-driven platform with roughly 4 million subscribers. The platform specializes in automating administrative tasks such as lesson planning, activity creation, quiz generation, parent communication, and report card comments.
Recent Updates:
Tools, Resources, and Guardrails:
New Enterprise Features: MagicSchool has launched its largest new suite of features in Enterprise like custom Enterprise tools, RAG-based tools, and new student room insights.
Updated Resource Library: The MagicSchool resource library now includes ready-made slides, free certification courses, and lesson plans to introduce MagicStudent to your classes.
Create Custom Tools: Educators can create and share their own custom tools and save them to their dashboard.
Claude Integration: MagicSchool integrates Anthropic’s Claude AI framework to enhance “security, accuracy, and educational alignment.”
4. Canva for Education Canva is a popular graphic design platform that enables educators and students to create visually engaging learning materials with ease.
Recent Updates:
AI Certification & Design Tools:
AI Certificate: Canva launched a free AI in the Classroom Certification to help teachers integrate AI into learning
Dream Lab: Canva recently introduced new Dream Lab featuring Leonardo.ai image generation.
Disney Characters: Back in November, Canva introduced Disney character templates for classroom and personal use.
5. Khanmigo (Khan Academy) Khanmigo is an AI-powered tutor developed by Khan Academy, designed to provide personalized learning assistance to students across various subjects.
Recent Updates:
Exposure & Expansion:
60 Minutes Feature: In December, Sal Khan and Khanmigo were features on 60 Minutes. During the broadcast Anderson Cooper demod the Writing Coach, the Khan Academy’s AI-writing platform.
Khanmigo and Blooket collaboration: Blooket already offers an extensive library of pre-made question sets, but this new integration allows teachers to create quizzes using Khanmigo to tailor content to fit their classroom needs.
ELA resources: Khanmigo has introduced new resources to its standards-aligned middle school and high school English Language Arts (ELA) courses.
TEKS guides: Khanmigo has created TEKS-aligned unit study guides.
Lesson Hook: Khanmigo’s Lesson Hook tool is designed to help you quickly create engaging, curiosity-piquing activities that draw your students into the lesson
Khanmigo offers Canvas integration, allowing teachers to embed Khanmigo-generated assignments directly into course modules with auto-grading capabilities.
6. Brisk Teaching Brisk’s Chrome extension has become a go-to for 500,000 U.S. educators through its seamless Google Workspace integration.
Recent Updates:
Brisk Boost: Brish Teaching raised 6.9M in funding last fall and introduced “Brisk Boost,” activities designed to create student-friendly activities with customized AI chatbots.
Upload Photos: As of this week you can now upload photos to Brisk.
Brisk & Book Creator: You can watch a webinar video highlighting the integration of Brisk Teaching and Book creator, complete with real-world examples and demonstrations.
7. Perplexity Perplexity is an AI-powered search engine designed to provide concise and accurate answers to user queries, supporting research and learning.
Recent Updates:
Perplexity Enterprise Pro. Perplexity aims to make Perplexity Enterprise Pro available to students ages 13 and up and has begun rolling out Perplexity Enterprise Pro to several schools.
Deep Research: Perplexity recently introduced Deep Research, a tool that retrieves, organizes, and synthesizes research-backed insights.
Comet: Perplexity is launching a new web browser called “Comet.” The company has started a sign-up list.
8. Wolfram Alpha Wolfram Alpha is an AI-infused computational knowledge engine that offers data analysis, answers factual questions, and resolves mathematical issues.
Recent Updates:
Version 14.2: Released in January, Version 14.2 introduces a conversational AI interface that guides students through problem-solving steps in natural language, mimicking human tutoring.
Notebook Assistant: Wolfram Alpha’s Notebook Assistant creates instant custom expert answers to your Wolfram Language questions, large or small.
Tabular: New in Version 14.2, Tabular provides a streamlined and efficient way to handle tables of data laid out in rows and columns.
Events: February saw/sees several Wolfram Alpha webinars, including High-Impact Data Visualization (02/28)
9.Gamma
Gamma is an AI-powered platform that enables users to create dynamic and interactive presentations, enhancing student engagement through multimedia content.
Recent Updates:
Social Media Formats You can now create social media posts in Gamma.
Image Models: Gamma supports 10 AI image models, and you can easily choose your preferred model, such as Leonardo, Ideogram, or Flux.
Pictographic.io: Gamma now includes a robust database of illustrations from Pictographic.io.
Edit a Card with AI: This new feature will help you improve your writing, generate better images, and even suggest different layouts.
Flux: A new model called Flux that's better at generating photorealistic people and pictures with text in them.
More languages: The Gamma AI generator supports more languages, including the most common Indian languages, multiple variants of Japanese, more variants of Spanish and Portuguese, and other common world languages like Malay
10. Kahoot
Kahoot! is a popular gamified quiz platform in which the user’s goal is to select the right answer to a question as quickly as possible. Kahoot! is available in over 200 countries and includes around 1.6 billion users.
Hello Kitty: Kahoot! has announced a collaboration with Hello Kitty and other Sanrio characters to provide free educational learning games that support the development of children.
TeachKind: TeachKind, PETA's humane education division, is on Kahoot!
TED@Work: Kahoot! has extended a collaboration with TED to offer workplace learning content through TED@Work.
