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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways
- Perplexity is offering students 1 escaped period of Perplexity Pro.
- The institution is positioning Comet arsenic "study buddy, and tutor."
- AI is rapidly becoming a fixture successful the classroom.
Like it oregon not, artificial intelligence is becoming a fixture successful the classroom. This is being pushed on astatine a brisk gait by tech companies anxious to get their products into the hands of millions of students.
On Thursday, Perplexity became the latest AI developer to connection a back-to-school special: Students tin entree one escaped month of Comet, the company's AI-centered web browsing level that debuted successful July to rival Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari. The browser is presently disposable done Perplexity Pro, which costs $200 annually.
Also: Some teachers are utilizing AI to people their students, Anthropic finds - wherefore that matters
On its website, Perplexity called Comet "a 24/7 sidekick, survey buddy, and tutor." The browser comes with immoderate features designed to boost its entreaty among students, including Study Mode and interactive flash cards that tin beryllium generated from uploaded survey materials.
To unlock the offer, users request to verify their pupil presumption via Perplexity's website. They'll past unlock 1 escaped period of Perplexity Pro. They'll beryllium granted an further escaped period of entree for each pupil they notation to the deal. After the proceedings ends, students tin proceed subscribing to Perplexity Pro for $4.99/mo -- a 75% discount.
Perplexity is besides trying to dispersed the connection astir its caller browser done a one-year escaped proceedings of Perplexity Pro for PayPal and Venmo users successful prime countries.
Back to schoolhouse (AI edition)
Amid concerns that casual entree to generative AI tools volition dampen captious reasoning skills and different hinder education, AI companies person been offering a compromise: We'll proceed pushing our products into the classroom, but those products volition really facilitate learning.
The AI-powered penning level Grammarly, for example, precocious released a suite of AI agents marketed to some moving professionals and students. Those agents, which see a plagiarism-checker bot and different that volition proofread your work, are intended to service arsenic automated penning assistants -- not doing each of the enactment for you, but doing conscionable capable to prosecute your penning skills and, successful theory, assistance you to improve.
Also: PayPal and Venmo users get escaped twelvemonth of Perplexity Pro and Comet AI browser
Just however good these student-facing initiatives from the likes of Perplexity and Grammarly execute remains to beryllium seen. Like the emergence of the smartphone, caller AI tools volition astir apt person immoderate benefits upon learning (for example, by making overmuch much accusation instantly available), portion different effects could crook retired to beryllium much cognitively impairing. (Many of america conflict to get from points A to B these days without utilizing our phones to assistance america retrieve directions and navigate.)
AI companies person besides targeted teachers, galore of whom person begun using generative AI tools astatine work. In July, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Anthropic announced a cumulative $23 cardinal concern successful the National Center for AI Instruction, a caller grooming halfway successful New York City wherever educators tin larn however to incorporated AI responsibly into their teaching practices.