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As artificial intelligence tools evolve at a rapid pace, an Iowa State computer science professor and her students are developing a public website that tracks new AI releases and helps users make sense of the fast-changing technology.
Wei Le, a computer science professor at Iowa State University, observed her students struggling with the rapid proliferation of new AI tools during her advanced artificial intelligence course. The sheer volume and speed of innovation in AI made it overwhelming for students to keep up. To address this, she introduced a weekly segment called 'This Week’s AI' in her syllabus, where students collaboratively analyzed new AI developments. This informal segment became one of the most popular parts of the course, helping students compare tools, dissect demos, and understand both breakthroughs and failures in real-time.
Building on the success of her classroom solution, Professor Le and her graduate students are developing Todaysai.ai, a public website designed to catalog emerging AI tools. The site provides concise descriptions, potential use cases, links to demos, and insights into how each model performs in practical scenarios. The primary objective is to offer clarity and context in the fast-evolving AI landscape, rather than ranking tools. Todaysai.ai features a user-friendly design with clear categories for image and video generation, personal assistants, chat LLMs, coding, infrastructure, and other experimental applications in education and creative fields. Although AI is used to identify and organize new tools, human review ensures accuracy and clarity for each entry, with custom visuals created when official demos are unavailable. The platform aims to help people understand the available tools and consider their integration into their work and daily lives, stemming from the students' desire for a centralized, curated resource to track AI innovations.
Since its quiet launch last spring, Todaysai.ai has attracted over 130,000 visitors, with its growth attributed partly to community-driven features. These features include an option for creators to submit their AI tools for inclusion and a query function allowing users to describe AI needs that are not yet met. This helps connect real-world problems with potential technological solutions and identifies gaps in the current AI ecosystem. Le emphasizes that Todaysai.ai is particularly timely because diverse groups of people, from K-12 teachers and seniors to farmers, are navigating this rapidly evolving technology. She believes AI should empower individuals, not replace them, by helping them understand, evaluate, and choose appropriate tools. The site aims to demystify AI by presenting tools as they are, countering market hype, and fostering a sense of empowerment rather than overwhelm among users.
Todaysai.ai is continuously evolving, with ongoing input from students and colleagues, reflecting the dynamic nature of AI itself. Professor Le, who has an entrepreneurial background from the ISU Startup Factory, envisions the next phase of the site making AI accessible to a broader audience. Her team is seeking grants and partnerships to expand Todaysai.ai’s reach, particularly across Iowa. They plan to organize workshops for various community groups, including K-12 teachers, rural entrepreneurs, farmers, and senior adults, focusing on AI literacy without jargon or misinformation. The goal is to build a learning community through newsletters and demo dashboards, ensuring the public has a trusted platform to discover what’s real, new, and genuinely helpful in AI. Le ultimately hopes Todaysai.ai will become a comprehensive, continuously evolving resource that serves as a 'digital front porch' for exploring and understanding AI tools in a pressure-free environment.