The short answer
Studying with AI works best when the AI quizzes and explains while you do the thinking. Put your course material into Gemini Notebook, called NotebookLM until 16 July 2026, which answers only from your sources with citations and makes quizzes, flashcards and Audio Overviews on a free plan of 100 notebooks. Use ChatGPT study mode, listed on every plan, as a step-by-step tutor, and check your course rules on AI use first.
What you need before you start
- Your course's AI rules. Universities, schools and professional exam bodies set different limits on AI use, and some ban it for assessed work. Read them first; this guide is about learning, not handing in AI-written work.
- Your own material: lecture slides, readings, notes, past papers and the syllabus. AI that answers from your sources is far more useful than AI answering from the internet.
- A free Google account for Gemini Notebook, and optionally a free ChatGPT account.
- A study calendar with your exam or deadline dates.
The rule that makes AI help rather than hurt: use it to explain, quiz and give feedback, and do the thinking and writing yourself. If you finish a session without having had to remember or produce anything, it was not studying.
How to study with AI, step by step
- Build a notebook per module. In Gemini Notebook, which Google renamed from NotebookLM on 16 July 2026, create a notebook and add your sources: PDFs, Word files, slides, Google Docs, web pages, audio files and public YouTube lectures with captions all work. The free Standard plan holds 100 notebooks with 50 sources each. Students in the US and India can also add free textbooks from providers including OpenStax, announced on 29 October 2026.
- Ask questions with citations. Answers in Gemini Notebook are grounded only in your sources and cite the passage behind each one. Click the citations: that is where you learn, and where you catch a weak answer.
- Turn sources into practice. Ask for flashcards and quizzes. Since October 2026 quizzes can include short-answer, multi-select and fill-in-the-blank questions, and Interactive Learning Overviews, under Reports, walk you through a topic with summaries, slides, quizzes and flashcards.
- Listen on the move. From the Studio panel, create an Audio Overview. The Brief is a single speaker in under two minutes; The Debate and The Critique are good for essay topics. Short Video Overviews of about 60 seconds arrived in September 2026.
- Use a tutor for problems. For maths, science and step-by-step reasoning, turn on study mode in ChatGPT, which OpenAI lists on every plan including Free. It works through the problem with you instead of giving the answer.
- Explain it back. Once a topic feels familiar, tell the AI to stay silent while you explain it in your own words, then point out what you got wrong or left out. This is the fastest way to find gaps before an exam does.
- Space your revision. Ask for a revision timetable from today to the exam that revisits each topic after one day, three days and a week, and stick to it.
- Get feedback on your writing, not a rewrite. Paste your draft and ask for comments against the marking criteria. Keep the words yours.
Worked example: two weeks before a statistics exam
Take Tom, a student with a second-year statistics exam in 14 days, eight lectures of slides and two past papers.
- Day 1: he adds the slides, the module handbook and both past papers to one Gemini Notebook and asks which topics appear in both papers and how many marks each carried. Say the cited list shows hypothesis tests and regression carry most marks; those become his priority.
- Days 2 to 4: for each lecture, he asks for a 10-question quiz in mixed formats, takes it without notes and asks for explanations of every wrong answer, with the slide reference.
- Days 5 to 10: in ChatGPT with study mode, he works through past-paper regression questions one step at a time, asking for a hint rather than the answer when stuck.
- Days 11 to 13: he explains each topic back in his own words and gets told what he missed. He listens to a two-minute Brief on the train each morning.
- Day 14: a timed past paper with no AI at all, then a comparison with the mark scheme.
The AI never answered an exam question for him. It made the practice faster and showed him where to look.
Common mistakes and how to fix them
- Asking for summaries and stopping there. Reading a summary feels like learning but is not. Fix: always end a session with a quiz or an explain-back.
- Trusting answers without sources. Fix: use Gemini Notebook for course content, click the citations, and check anything important against the original.
- Weak or missing sources. A notebook with half your notes gives confident, well-cited gaps. Fix: add the full slides and readings.
- Letting AI write assessed work. It breaks most institutions' rules and skips the learning. Fix: ask for feedback on your draft against the criteria instead.
- Asking AI for references. Chatbots can invent citations. Fix: find sources in your library or with a tool that links real pages, such as Perplexity, and read them yourself.
- Uploading private material to a personal account. On school accounts, Google says Gemini Notebook uploads, questions and answers are not reviewed by humans or used to train AI models. On personal accounts, content is not used to directly train Google's foundational models unless you give feedback, so skip the feedback buttons on private notebooks.
Which AI to use for studying
Gemini Notebook is our pick for studying from your own course material, because every answer is tied to your sources. ChatGPT with study mode is the best free tutor for working through problems. Perplexity is the best way to find sources you can cite: every plan can search and cite Wiley journals and books since 5 October 2026, and verified students can get Education Pro, which adds Learn Mode. AI data retention is on by default on Perplexity's Free, Pro and Max plans; switch it off in Account settings, under Preferences. See the best AI for students, the Gemini Notebook guide, NotebookLM vs Perplexity, prompts for students and the best AI for summarising PDFs. Teachers can find classroom-ready prompt sets in Yuzoki kits.
Prompts to copy
Find what the exam cares about
Using only the past papers and handbook in this notebook, list the topics that appear in more than one paper, how many marks each carried, and the type of question asked. Cite the paper for each.
You get: A cited priority list for revision
Quiz me properly
Give me a 10-question quiz on [lecture or topic] from my sources, mixing short-answer, multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank. Ask one question at a time, wait for my answer, then tell me if I was right and cite the passage that explains it.
You get: Active recall with the evidence for each answer
Tutor me, do not tell me
Help me solve this problem without giving me the answer. Ask what I think the first step is, give a hint only if I am stuck, and check each step before we move on: [paste problem].
You get: Guided practice that builds the skill, ideal with study mode
Check my explanation
I am going to explain [topic] in my own words. Do not interrupt. Afterwards, tell me what I got right, what I got wrong and what I left out, compared with my sources, and give me one question to test the weakest part.
You get: Your gaps, found before the exam
Build a revision timetable
My exam is on [date] and today is [date]. Topics: [list, with how confident I feel in each]. I can study [hours] a day. Build a timetable that revisits each topic after one day, three days and a week, puts weak topics first, and leaves the last day for a timed past paper.
You get: A spaced revision plan you can follow
Feedback against the criteria
Here are the marking criteria and my draft essay. Do not rewrite anything. For each criterion, tell me how well the draft meets it, quote the sentence that shows it, and suggest one thing I should change myself. [paste criteria and draft]
You get: Feedback that improves your work while keeping it yours