The University of Houston provides access to several approved generative AI platforms that support teaching, learning, research, productivity, creativity, and operational work across the university. These tools offer different capabilities, strengths, and experiences depending on the type of work being performed and the level of access available to users.

This page provides an overview of approved AI tools currently available to the UH community, including their primary use cases, strengths, limitations, and access information.

To help protect university data and maintain enterprise-level security and privacy protections, users should access approved AI platforms using their CougarNet credentials. Signing in with university-managed accounts helps ensure users are operating within university-approved environments and security controls.

Users should always review AI-generated content for accuracy, bias, privacy, and appropriateness before using it in academic, instructional, research, or operational settings.

Learn what kind of data is approved for use in each approved AI tool

Microsoft Copilot Chat (Basic)

copilot.microsoft.com | Choose the Right Copilot for You | Training

Microsoft Copilot Chat provides conversational AI assistance integrated into Microsoft’s web and productivity ecosystem. It can assist with drafting content, summarizing information, brainstorming ideas, and supporting general workplace productivity tasks.

Its strengths include accessibility, familiarity within the Microsoft environment, and support for common productivity workflows.

Access: Available to the UH students and employees

Microsoft 365 Copilot

copilot.microsoft.com | Choose the Right Copilot for You | Training

Microsoft 365 Copilot extends AI capabilities directly into Microsoft applications such as Outlook, Word, Excel, Teams, and PowerPoint. It is designed to support workplace productivity by helping users summarize meetings, draft documents, analyze spreadsheets, create presentations, and streamline communication workflows.

Its strengths include deep integration with Microsoft 365 data and productivity applications, making it especially effective for operational and administrative workflows. Its effectiveness depends heavily on organizational data quality, permissions, and user prompting practices.

Access: Available to licensed university employees for $220. To purchase, contact software@uh.edu.

Google Gemini / Gemini Pro

gemini.google.com | Google Gemini at UH

Gemini is a multimodal AI platform that supports writing, summarization, brainstorming, document analysis, and productivity tasks across web-based workflows. It performs well for general-purpose assistance, quick research support, content drafting, and working across different types of media and information.

Its strengths include integration with Google services, multimodal capabilities, and ease of use for everyday tasks.

Access: Available to the UH students and employees

NotebookLM

notebooklm.google.com | NotebookLM at UH

NotebookLM is an AI-powered research and knowledge organization tool designed to work directly with user-provided source materials. It is especially useful for summarizing documents, extracting themes, generating study materials, organizing notes, and exploring information grounded in uploaded content.

Its primary strength is source-based interaction, which helps reduce hallucinations by focusing responses on provided materials.

Access: Available to the UH students and employees

ChatGPT EDU

chatgpt.com | ChatGPT EDU at UH

ChatGPT EDU is a conversational AI platform designed to support higher education teaching, research, writing, brainstorming, and academic workflows. It is particularly strong at generating ideas, summarizing complex information, drafting content, explaining concepts, and assisting with research-related tasks.

Its strengths include natural conversation, strong writing support, and flexible problem-solving across many disciplines.

Access: Available to faculty