Guide · the shortlist
Tools we'd hand a friend
The AI landscape is loud and crowded. This is the short, honest list: the handful of tools worth your time, what each is actually for, and nothing you don't need. Every one has a free way in.
ChatGPT
The all-rounderIf you only try one, try this. Quick answers, drafts, plans, explanations. The most polished general assistant, with a generous free tier.
Open →Claude
Careful writing & codeThe most natural writer of the bunch, and patient with long documents. Also one of the best at writing and explaining code.
Open →Gemini
Big files, inside GoogleReads enormous documents at once, handles images and video, and lives right inside Gmail and Docs. Worth it if you already work in Google.
Open →Perplexity
Search, with receiptsAnswers your question and shows the sources, with links you can click. Our pick when you need what's true right now, not last year.
Open →Grok
The live pulseWired into X (Twitter), so it's the strongest at what's happening this minute, plus genuinely sharp at maths and reasoning. Aggressively priced.
Open →DeepSeek
Cheap & openAn open model that punches far above its price, strong at reasoning and code for a fraction of the cost. Worth knowing if budget matters.
Open →NotebookLM
Your own documents, explainedDrop in your files and it answers only from them, with no making things up, and can even turn them into a short audio overview. Free, and quietly brilliant.
Open →ElevenLabs
Voices & narrationTurns text into remarkably natural speech, and can clone a voice. The tool behind a lot of audiobooks and podcasts you've heard lately.
Open →We're not paid to list any of these. They're here because we'd genuinely hand them to a friend. If that ever changes, you'll see it said plainly, right here.
The book behind this newsletter
Just Predicting Words
How ChatGPT, Claude, and Modern AI Actually Work
The trick is small. The world it built is not.