Which AI should I use? 35+ tools, sorted by the job

Everyday assistants

Start with one of these. They cover most daily work.

• ChatGPT My pick The most complete all-rounder — writing, files, images, research and data.
• Claude Long documents, clear writing and thinking things through step by step.
• Gemini Best if your life is in Gmail, Google Drive, Docs and Sheets.
• Microsoft Copilot Best if you work in Windows, Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams.
• Meta AI Quick answers inside WhatsApp and Instagram, where it's available.

Research & learning

When you need answers you can check, or to learn from your own material.

• Perplexity Web search with answers and sources you can click and verify.
• NotebookLM Upload your notes, PDFs or course material and ask questions only about them.
• Consensus Answers backed by research papers — good for health, science and studies.

Writing & typing

• Grammarly Fixes grammar and tone in emails and documents as you type.
• Wispr Flow Talk instead of type — turns your voice into clean text in any app.
• Notion AI Write, summarise and search inside your Notion notes and docs.

Meetings & notes

Stop taking notes by hand.

• Granola Writes clean meeting notes from your call, plus your own quick jottings.
• Fathom Records Zoom, Meet and Teams calls and sends a summary with action items.
• Otter Live transcription for meetings, lectures and interviews.

Images & design

• Canva My pick Posters, posts, carousels and presentations, with AI built in. Easiest start.
• Nano Banana Google's image model inside Gemini — great for editing photos with a sentence.
• Ideogram AI images that get text right — posters, thumbnails, banners.
• Adobe Firefly Generate and edit images, safe for commercial use, works with Photoshop.
• Midjourney The most artistic, high-quality image generation.

Presentations

• Gamma Turns an outline or a document into a clean slide deck in minutes.

Video

Short-form content without a big team.

• CapCut We use this Fast editing for Reels and Shorts, with auto-captions.
• Descript Edit video by editing the transcript, like a document. Great for talking heads.
• Opus Clip Turns one long video or podcast into many short clips.
• HeyGen AI avatar videos, and translating your video into other languages.
• Veo Google's model for generating video clips from a text prompt.
• Runway AI video generation and editing tools for creators.

Voice

• ElevenLabs Natural voiceovers, voice cloning and dubbing into other languages.

Automation

Connect your apps so the boring steps happen on their own.

• Zapier The easiest way to connect apps — “when this happens, do that”.
• Make Visual automation builder for longer, multi-step workflows.
• n8n Powerful automation you can self-host. Better for technical users.

Build apps & websites

Describe what you want; AI builds it.

• Lovable Build a web app or website by chatting. No coding needed to start.
• Bolt Prompt-to-app builder that runs in your browser.
• Replit Build, run and publish apps from the browser with an AI agent.
• Cursor Code editor with AI built in, for people who write code.
• Claude Code We use this AI that writes and fixes code across a whole project.

Data & business

• Julius AI Upload a spreadsheet and ask questions — get charts and answers.
• Heffl I built this AI CRM for small businesses — leads, quotes, invoices and an agent that does the admin.