Abstract
This case study investigates how undergraduate philology students at the Azerbaijan University of Languages employ Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) as an informal tutor to bridge systemic educational gaps. Utilizing a mixed-methods research design, primary data was collected cross-sectionally from a sample of 50 undergraduate students through online questionnaires to capture quantitative usage patterns and qualitative motivations. The institutional context is defined by a critical shortage of formal support structures, including an absence of dedicated writing centers and restricted instructor accessibility outside formal class hours. Quantitative findings reveal a heavy reliance on generative tools, particularly ChatGPT, with 66% of respondents utilizing these platforms on a weekly basis or more frequently. Students primarily engage AI for complex cognitive and linguistic tasks, including explaining difficult philological concepts, summarizing lengthy literary texts, generating assignment ideas, and structuring academic essays. Qualitative thematic analysis outlines that students treat GenAI as a structural necessity and a surrogate for institutional support, using it for cognitive scaffolding rather than bypassing the writing process entirely. However, this functional dependency introduces a pedagogical paradox concerning long-term intellectual independence and primary research skills. Ultimately, this paper actively challenges prevailing institutional anxieties regarding "AIgiarism" by demonstrating that student adoption is a pragmatic, rational response to localized infrastructural resource limitations. The study concludes that resource-limited universities must shift from viewing AI strictly as an academic integrity threat to treating it as a pedagogical collaborator, thereby actively equipping students to critically interrogate and evaluate the algorithmic outputs they are structurally compelled to rely fully upon.