In this article we are going to be reviewing Caktus, an AI product built specifically for students. It’s an interesting platform bringing multiple tools to its users, spanning from content generation to research to mathematics. We will dive into the offerings, pricing, usage, platform design, AI detectability, and more to figure out if Caktus AI is worth your money.
In the world of AI, academic tools vary wildly in their quality and offering. While there are many on the market, there are only a few that are truly oriented towards students, bring multiple features to the market, and are priced affordably.
Caktus is definitely one of those few, and (at the time of publication) over 2,300,000 students use it.
Let’s take a look at all the features that this platform has to offer.
With one single subscription, you get access to over 40 different tools spanning across multiple academic subjects. For example, there’s the essay writer, python code writer, content improver, French tutor, image caption error, even a class absent excuse generator!
You can tell that this is a tool that was made specifically with an academic context in mind.
We can’t cover every single offering in this review, but let’s take a look at some of the more popular ones they give you a good understanding of how the tool works, how it’s designed, and some of the features that you will have access to as a subscriber.
Chat About Class
A very unique feature is the ability to register and chat about specific classes. In this example, I chose a university, teacher, and class. I can then add additional details and even upload the syllabus to give the AI chatbot a better understanding of what’s being taught here.
Then, I can use it as a general purpose assistant when it comes to this class. Drawing on its knowledge from the details and syllabus section, the outputs are very specific to the content being taught.
This is a screenshot of the actual chat interface.
Essay Writer
The essay writer is one of the more complex offerings in this suite of AI tools for students. There is a simple or complex mode. In this example, let’s take a look at the essay composer, which is the more complex of the two:
I want to write something about bird migration patterns. I set up the topic, tone of voice, choose a thesis, and then determine how long the essay should be. Then, I click generate, and it begins to write the introduction, body, and conclusion.
One of the big selling point of this tool is that it will include academic citations from real sources. That sets it apart from many other conversational offerings on the market.
In the output above, you can see that it cites a real article from JSTOR.
The essay reads very well. I wanted to check if it would pass the leading AI detectors, something that students may be concerned about.
GPTZero, the leading free AI detector, ranks it at 56% probability of being written by AI. Originality.AI, the leading paid AI detector, ranks in at 100% AI. This is definitely something to keep in mind when used in an academic context.
Luckily, there are AI tools to make content undetectable, like HideMyAI. We wrote an entire article about these type of offerings if you’re interested:
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I passed it through HideMyAI, and it kept the general structure and citations intact, while rewriting it in a more human tone. When running it through originality.AI this time, it passed with flying colors:
That’s a quick look at the essay generation tool, which is one of the more popular offerings that Caktus has. Now, let’s dive into the STEM side of things.
STEM Tools
When it comes to math and science, there are two distinct paths you can take. You can enter a physics or math problem to get a step-by-step solution. Or, you can enter a word problem and get a detailed explanation. Discover is pretty much every single question that a student may encounter when it comes to the STEM fields.
Let’s take a look at the word problem. First, I ask ChatGPT to generate a very complex problem for me, as I have none accessible. It made a very difficult physics related question.
I’m going to submit the first two sub questions to Caktus, and see how it reacts. It gets to work solving the problem and within about 30 seconds, this is the output:
Given that I am not a masters student studying physics, I have absolutely no idea if this is correct, but the output looks very impressive, leveraging formulas, and describing how the AI solve the question in a step-by-step format.
If you have a more traditional mathematical problem with a formula, you can enter it in that part of the math and science section.
I didn’t try anything here, but based on the keyboard, there is support for basic math, trigonometry, calculus and sums, and other miscellaneous things.
AI Flashcards
Another cool feature is the AI powered flashcards. If you are a student that learns the best from studying flashcards, this one’s for you.
It is a traditional flash card study package, but when you are adding the flashcards, you can enter the term, and have AI fill out the actual description for you. This makes things much more efficient, allowing you to register many flashcards at once.
Platform Design and Usage
Based on some of the feature screenshots above, you can see that the Caktus platform is very well designed and easy to use.
You’re able to favorite tools that you use consistently, making them easy to access from the dashboard. You can also make Caktus your own by setting up a profile, importing writing and documents to apply your writing style to the output of content, and adding classes to set up custom chat bots specific to the syllabus and content covered within.
It’s very quick and easy to navigate between all of the various tools, and there is a central depository for documents generated by the essay writer, and other creation tools.
Overall, the actual platform itself is very easy to use and navigate. That’s a big plus in our books, because there are some AI products that are their jobs very well, but are so difficult to use we can suggest them to our audience!
Pricing and Limits
Now that we’ve taken a look at the design and usage of the platform, alongside many of the features that the tool has to offer, let’s take a look at the pricing for Caktus AI.
Pricing comes in at $8.33 a a month if billed annually. That is $99.99 as a one time charge.
If you opt for the monthly billing, that will cost $14.99.
There are no tiers, all features like the class helper, writing tools, coding tools, citation tools, academic sources, step-by-step solutions, and more come with a subscription.
Should You Purchase a Caktus Subscription?
Now, given all the information discussed in this review, let’s take a look at the value proposition that Caktus brings to the table. If you are a student looking to leverage AI to be the most effective and efficient you can be, there are many different tools on the market.
What sets Caktus apart is the public focus on academics. Many AI tools shy away from this industry, as some academic institutions discouraged the usage of AI. However, Caktus takes the opposite approach and offers over 40 specific AI tools built for students.
The platform is easy to use and navigate, and offers tools for all different types of subjects expanding from mathematics to physics to writing to research.
The relatively low price tag for all of these tools is impressive, and definitely makes us think that purchasing a Caktus subscription is worth it.
We would love to hear your thoughts. What do you think about Caktus AI? Do you have any questions for us? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section below.