Get started with free AI tools from Microsoft Education

Editor’s note: This blog was updated on September 11, 2024, to include additional AI tools.

Developments in AI are happening quickly, with many exciting new products and features launching. Wondering where to get started with AI tools in education? We’ve got you covered! We’ve compiled a list of free AI tools and offers to kickstart your AI journey.

AI offers opportunities to reshape how we approach creativity, problem-solving, learning, and communication in a time where these skills are more important than ever. It can help educators grow and focus on what matters most and help prepare students for a future where AI will play an increasingly important role in many careers. It’s also important to teach students how to use AI tools in a safe and responsible way, making sure they understand the benefits and potential impacts.

In addition to leveraging new products below, we recommend first building a strong foundation for understanding AI in education with our free training courses and resources. Take the courses in the AI for educators learning path to understand essential AI concepts and applications for your classroom. Use the Classroom Toolkit: Unlock generative AI safely and responsibly to help students gain skills like fact-checking, cultivating good digital hygiene habits, safeguarding their data privacy, and adopting strategies to manage their mental wellbeing effectively.

Take a step toward a more informed and inclusive future with AI. Let curiosity be your guide and explore these free AI tools from Microsoft.

1. Microsoft Copilot

Learn all about Microsoft Copilot, your AI assistant for education. Copilot offers AI-powered web chat, using the latest AI models, with sources and enterprise data protection. It’s available to education staff, faculty, and higher education students aged 18 and older at no additional cost. Get an overview of how to use Copilot, as well as ideas and inspiration for how you can use Copilot to save time, differentiate instruction, and enhance student learning.

• Read Meet your AI assistant for education: Microsoft Copilot to get started.
• Save or print this quick guide to Microsoft Copilot to refer back to as needed.

2. GitHub Copilot

GitHub Education brings tech and open-source collaboration to students and educators worldwide. To empower the next generation, GitHub Copilot is free for all verified educators and students aged 13 and above. GitHub Copilot suggests code and entire functions in real-time from your editor, allowing you and your students to focus on solving bigger problems and building better software.

With GitHub Copilot Chat, students and teachers can not only get code suggestions, but also ask questions, get explanations, offer prompts for code, and more, all in the integrated development environment (IDE) while staying in the flow.

• Visit GitHub Education to start your journey.
• Read more about GitHub Copilot Chat for students and teachers.

3. Learning Accelerators

Learning Accelerators can help students catch up, keep up, and get ahead. With these powerful tools included in Microsoft 365 Education, students can start practicing right away, and you can start gathering data to help them build their skills.

• Use Reading Coach to provide personalized, engaging, consistent, and independent reading fluency practice. It allows learners to create unique AI-generated stories by choosing characters and settings from a curated collection of options. Reading Coach is available for free as a Windows application and a web app to use in the classroom or at home with a Microsoft account.
• Leverage Search Progress and Search Coach, two information literacy tools, to empower students to seek, evaluate, and use online sources responsibly—a critical step in helping them navigate AI-generated content and the wider information ecosystem with confidence.
• Try Speaker Progress to help develop students’ public speaking with AI-powered real-time coaching. It helps students build confidence, offer a private space to practice and refine presentation delivery, and develop critical communication skills. And as an educator, you can create, customize, and assign speaking projects to your students and collect insights about their performance over time.
• Visit Learning Accelerators: Tools for Students to get started with these powerful tools in your classroom.

4. Microsoft Teams for Education

New AI-powered features in Microsoft Teams for Education, a free communication app for schools, are available to all educators for no additional cost. They leverage AI to draft content like rubrics, assignment instructions, personalized reading passages, and learning objectives, all while keeping the educator in control.  

• In Assignments, get multiple suggestions for how to enrich your content, including creating rubrics and assignment instructions. After the content is created, you can make edits and generate different options. 
• Use Reading Progress, a powerful reading fluency tool, to track students’ reading skills, get actionable insights quickly, and focus students on specific areas for improvement. New enhancements in the tool—AI passage generation and AI comprehension questions generation—can help you save time and personalize learning.
• Visit Microsoft Teams for Schools and Students to download Teams and get started.

5. Minecraft Education AI Foundations

Build AI literacy and digital citizenship with Minecraft Education’s learning content and teaching resources. In fun, immersive worlds and videos, students explore how AI can help us solve real-world problems, demystify the risks and opportunities of AI, and build confidence through game-based learning. Use Minecraft’s lesson planning resources to spark classroom engagement and inspire AI learning.

• Watch and share AI Adventurers, a new animated video series with classroom-ready teaching materials, a parent guide, and free movie poster to capture young imaginations and spark discussion.
• Discover Fantastic Fairgrounds, the new Minecraft world for students ages 8-14, to bring AI concepts to life through fun, values-driven gameplay.
• Teach standards-aligned STEM lessons that build AI literacy like Hour of Code: Generation AI, AI for Earth, and Hour of Code: AI for Good.
• Use the Minecraft Prompt Lab for educators to learn how to use Copilot with sample prompts to create engaging game-based learning lessons and assessment materials.
• Visit aka.ms/MinecraftAI to get started!

6. Khanmigo for Teachers

Khanmigo for Teachers, a pilot AI-powered teaching assistant, is free for educators in more than 40 countries in English due to our new partnership with Khan Academy. Khanmigo streamlines class prep and gives teachers more time and energy to spend with students. As your planning ally and instructional collaborator, Khanmigo leverages Khan Academy content to simplify AI for teachers. No prompting is required. Khanmigo will help create engaging lesson hooks, provide insights on student performance, recommended assignments, and support for refreshing your knowledge.

• Read the article Enhancing the future of education with Khan Academy to learn more and get started today.
• Save or print this quick guide to Khanmigo for Teachers to refer back to as needed.

AI tools are quickly transforming the way schools foster creativity, approach challenges, and enhance learning. We’re here to help you find the tools and resources to feel inspired and level up your teaching skills. Get started with these free AI tools from Microsoft and seamlessly integrate AI into your teaching and learning.