Caktus AI

About

Caktus AI, sometimes misspelled as Cactus AI, is an AI-based language model co-founded by Harrison Leonard and marketed toward helping students write their homework assignments (such as essays and personal statements for grad school), as well as code ranging from Python to Java and even cover letters for job applications. The website was officially launched in August 2022 and promoted on TikTok and Twitter as an alternative to ChatGPT for help with schoolwork. The site admits users via a waitlist, with 500 new users being admitted daily. It also offers a premium paid service allowing users to skip the waitlist line. As of January 2023, the website has gathered over 450,000 users. Caktus and ChatGPT being used for schoolwork have generated considerable controversy and viral debates online since they began seeing use in these settings starting around mid-to-late 2022.

History

According to the WHOIS Database,^[14] the Caktus.ai^[1] domain was originally registered on May 17th, 2022, with GoDaddy, though the site itself did not begin posting or advertising its services until roughly two months later and its official launch coming in August of that year.

On July 11th, 2022, the TikTok^[2] page for Caktus, @caktus.ai, posted a video captioned, "Caktus is the first educational artificial intelligence tool that can help you get your work done faster and easier. With Caktus, you can stop wasting time doing the grunt work of traditional education and start doing the things you love!Sign up today! #caktus # students # ai." The post gathered over 1,000 views and 27 likes in seven months (seen below, left). On August 29th, Harrison Leonard, the co-founder of Caktus AI, then posted a video to his TikTok^[3] account with the caption, "Turning dreams into reality! And helping one student at a time!! #kickerceo #MessFreeHero #GenshinTeleport" The post gathered over 2,000 views and 70 likes in over six months (seen below, right).

Initially, Caktus AI received minimal attention online until around December 2022 when Google searches for the AI tool began ramping up alongside social media posts referencing it.^[15]

Livvy Dunne Caktus AI Controversy

On February 27th, 2023, Livvy Dunne posted a sponsored video set to the What You Looking For sound on TikTok^[18] advertising Caktus AI, an AI marketed to help students write essays, garnering over 946,000 views in four days (shown below).

On March 2nd, The Advocate^[19] published an article claiming that LSU, the school she attends, does not support the AI, with a representative of the school quoted as saying, "using AI to produce work that a student then represents as one’s own could result in a charge of academic misconduct, as outlined in the Code of Student Conduct."

Features

Notes and Essays

Caktus AI and its co-founder Harrison Leonard's TikTok pages highlight various features offered by the website. On September 11th, 2022, TikToker^[4] @hjleonard98 posted a video showing how the program can be used to generate notes for a class (seen below, left). On September 12th. Leonard posted a video^[5] showing how the program can be used to create an essay (seen below, right). The videos gathered over 5,000 and 1,000 views, respectively, in roughly five months.

Resume and Cover Letters

On September 28th, 2022, @caktus.ai^[6] posted a video detailing how the program can be used to generate bullet points for a resume, gathering over 600,000 plays and 22,000 likes in nearly four months (seen below, left). On October 3rd, the account then posted a video^[7] showing how the program can be used to write a cover letter, gathering over 49,000 plays and 2,000 likes in three months (seen below, right).

Citations and Plagiarism

Caktus AI notably markets itself as a better alternative to ChatGPT by providing citations and bypassing plagiarism-checking mechanisms. On December 18th, 2022, @hjleonard98 posted a video^[11] showing how Caktus AI can be used to generate MLA citations, gathering over 22,000 plays and 1,000 likes in nearly a month (seen below, left). On December 19th, @hjleonard98 posted a video^[12] showing how the platform can create essays that are not flagged by plagiarism checkers like TurnItIn (another popular site for schoolwork generation), gathering over 30,000 plays and 1,000 likes in nearly a month (seen below, right).

Premium Services

According to the site, Caktus grants 20,000 credits to each new user, with every word in an AI-generated answer amounting to 1 credit. The website also has a referral system that gifts 10,000 credits to each user that invites a friend to use the platform via a referral code. The website also offers a $9.99 monthly plan and a $59.99 yearly plan that grants unlimited credits.^[10]

On October 3rd, 2022, Caktus AI also confirmed this in a response to a TikToker inquiring about whether the program is free, saying "It’s $9.99" (seen below).

Highlights

Discussions about Caktus AI began gaining traction in December 2022, particularly after the release of the ChatGPT chatbot. On December 14th, 2022, Harrison Leonard posted a video^[8] explaining how Caktus AI is better suited for helping college students with their assignments than ChatGPT is, gathering over 3 million plays and 500,000 likes in over a month (seen below, left). On December 27th, TikToker^[9] @carterpcs also posited Caktus AI as a better alternative to Chat GPT, gathering over 5.6 million views and 700,000 likes in nearly a month (seen below, right).

On January 18th, 2023, the Twitter account @websiteExplore posted a tweet citing Caktus AI as the "fastest growing education platform worldwide using AI with 300,000+ students" (seen below, left).^[13] As of January 18th, the website has over 450,000 users (seen below, right).^[1]

Criticism

Cheating Controversies

Alongside the rise of similar text-generating AI tools like ChatGPT, controversy and backlash against such AI generators grew in late 2022, particularly receiving negative media attention in early 2023 as outlets began covering these tools being banned from schools and viewed as cheating. For example, on January 7th, 2023, Fox News^[16] published an article titled "NYC bans AI tool ChatGPT in schools amid fears of new cheating threat." On January 18th, The Hill^[17] published a similar article noting that AI technology was "sending schools scrambling to preserve learning."

Search Interest

External References