ai-resources-for-msu-students

AI tools available to MSU students

One page. Details checked against MSU IT’s published pages on 2026-10-08; confirm at tech.msu.edu/ai before you present, because these change.

Tool	What it is	How to get in	Use it for
Microsoft Copilot Chat	General AI chat (writing, coding, images, Q&A)	copilot.microsoft.com, sign in with your MSU Spartan 365 account	Everyday work. The only MSU IT-approved AI tool for institutional, research and FERPA-protected data, because your data is protected and not used to train the model.
Google Gemini	General AI chat	googleapps.msu.edu, sign in with your MSU Google account	Brainstorming, drafting, summarizing, explaining data
Google NotebookLM	Answers only from the documents you upload	Same MSU Google account	Studying: upload readings or notes and ask questions of them. Runs inside MSU’s Google environment; uploads are not used to train models.

ChatGPT EDU (MSU’s enterprise ChatGPT): sold through the Tech Store to departments only. Students cannot buy it, but you can use the free personal ChatGPT.
Microsoft 365 Copilot (AI inside Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams): only if your department buys you a licence.
Claude and Perplexity: no MSU agreement. Free personal accounts work but your data is governed by their terms, not MSU’s.

Never paste student records, grades, health or research-protected data into a public tool. If it is sensitive, use Copilot with your MSU login or leave it out.
Using an MSU login is not the same as being allowed to. Your instructor’s AI policy for each course still applies.
Free tiers change often and run smaller models with message limits. If a tool stops working, try another.
You own the answer. AI output must be checked, and you should be able to explain how you got a result.

MSU IT, tech.msu.edu/ai (service request: “Generative AI Platforms” in the TDX portal).