Ctrl-Alt-AI

Ctrl Alt AI is a Custom GPT that helps college students stop staring at a big assignment and start actually doing it. If you've ever looked at a syllabus and felt overwhelmed, this tool is for you. It breaks assignments into small, clear steps with realistic time estimates, builds study schedules around your actual availability, explains tricky course material in plain language, and quizzes you when you need practice.

It was designed with first and second year students in mind, but it works just as well for upperclassmen juggling capstones and internships or grad students fitting coursework around a job. The key difference from a generic AI chatbot is that Ctrl Alt AI won't do your work for you — it's built around IU's academic integrity standards and will guide you through your own thinking instead of handing you a finished answer. Think of it as a study buddy who's really good at planning and never judges you for starting the night before.

How to Use Ctrl Alt AI

Open the Ctrl Alt AI link in ChatGPT. The assistant will introduce itself and ask three onboarding questions: what you're working on, when it's due, and how much time you have today.
Share your assignment details — paste the prompt, describe the project, or list your upcoming deadlines. The more detail you provide, the more tailored the plan. If key information is missing, the tool will ask a clarifying question before proceeding.
Get your plan. For a single assignment, you'll receive a step-by-step breakdown with time estimates for each subtask. For multiple deadlines, you'll get a structured timeline that spreads work across available days and flags crunch weeks. The first step is always small and low-effort to help you get started.
Explore other features as needed: ask "explain this concept more simply" for a plain-language summary of course material, say "quiz me on this" for practice questions in multiple formats, or request help prioritizing when you're feeling overwhelmed.
Use the outputs as a starting point. Review time estimates against your own pace, verify content summaries against your course materials, and build on the plan with your own thinking. For questions about grading expectations or degree requirements, check with your instructor or academic advisor — Ctrl Alt AI is a planning and study tool, not a substitute for those resources.

Erin Wiedling - Major: Artificial Intelligence
Aiden Eichenour - Major: Human Computer Interaction
Arash Mousavi - Major: Artificial Intelligence
Kumudhinisre Suresh - Major: Computer Science
Jermiaha Johnson - Major: Artificial Intelligence

Overview of Ctrl-Alt-AI Study Tool.

Description of the video:

Every college student
knows that feeling. You open a syllabus,
see a 10-page research paper due in two
weeks, and just freeze. You don't know where
to start, so you don't start at all.
And by the time that you do start, you're
cramming in everything the night before.
We built Control-Alt -AI to fix that. It's
a custom AI assistant designed specifically
for IU students that breaks your
assignments into manageable steps, building a
real study schedule around your availability
and guiding you through the work without
doing it for you. The problem isn't that
students are lazy. It's that big assignments
feel paralyzing when you don't know how to
break them down, and generic AI tools makes
this worse. They'll either write the whole
essay out for you, which is an academic
integrity violation, or they will give
you vague advice like start early and
outline your ideas. Control-Alt-AI is
different. It's built around IU's
academic integrity standards so
it coaches your thinking instead
of replacing it. Let me show you how
it works. So within ChatGPT, I'll open
up Control-Alt-AI, which is a custom
GPT that we crafted. And when you first open
it, it has a little brief introduction
that it'll give you for what it's able to
do. Then it has four little sample prompts
that give you an idea of what certain things
can be asked. For this demo, I am
going to paste in a question about a 10
-page research paper on climate change that's
due in 12 days, and I only have two hours
to work on it today. So after sharing my
assignment details, it gives me a step
-by-step plan with estimates for each
subtask, and notice that the first step
is always small. It's mainly just focused on getting you started. That's intentional.
It gets you moving without overwhelming
you or making it seem daunting. For
multiple deadlines, it builds a full
timeline spread across your available days
and flags crunch weeks so you're never
caught off guard. As you can see from
this one, it starts off with the two
-hour plan that we had asked for,
starting with block one to understand the
assignment, and it builds on with more
and more tasks. Then near at the
end, it adds a little bit reassurance
for the user talking about
what to do first or what they can
do going forward and then it'll ask for
some more things or any more uh information
that it may not have had that it can
give you a better response to if it had
the information but this isn't all of what we
had in mind for our application we actually
wanted this control all ai to be used
as a web app. So I present to you the
Control-Alt-AI web app. Starting from the left
side and going over to the right, we have
the weekly plan. This is where users are
able to export any weekly plans or any
planned out time that they have from the week to
their calendar from Google, Outlook,
Apple Calendar, or any other type of one that
is .ics compatible. And then in the middle,
we have the coach chat this is where our
custom gpt, Control Alt AI, will live and where
users can use it on the right side we have
the task planner where users are able to add
their various tasks just to keep a little
bit more formal structure alongside it this
has the due dates the hours able to use the
type of assignment it is and the priority and
by adding a task you can see our metrics
update to where we have the tasks we have on
on our planner and how much time it's planned
out and when our next due date is and whenever
we're finished we can click these out and
it reflects it across the whole app you can
notice up at the top we have a plan mode
which is the standard coaching mode this is just
the overall all-around version of our AI.
The study mode is directly focused on studying,
quizzing, or anything that can help you
further your learning. For the assignment
one, it can help you start focusing on
individual assignments where it's not as good
for doing projects. And then finally, we
have the policy check. And this is because
Control-Alt-AI doesn't replace your thinking.
It helps you structure it. It's like having
a study buddy who is great at planning, knows
IU academic standards, and never judges you
for starting late. We built this for
first and second year students specifically,
who are still figuring out college workloads.
But it works just as well for upperclassmen,
capstone students, and grad students
balancing coursework with everything else
going on in their life. So try it out today. The link is in the
description. Stop staring at
your assignments. Control-Alt-Ai will
help you start.