AI tools I actually use

Claude is the model I trust with anything that needs careful, structured output. Long documents, code, agentic workflows, anything where instructions need to be followed precisely and the output needs to hold together over many steps. The reasoning is patient and the tone is calm, which makes it a good thinking partner when I am working through a problem rather than just looking up an answer. This website was built with Claude.

Gemini is excellent at refining prose and at stress testing an argument. When I have written something and want a second pair of eyes, or when I have a strategic line of reasoning that I want pressure tested before I commit to it, Gemini is who I go to. Its connection to Google search also makes it useful when the question depends on something current.

ChatGPT is what I use for the lighter end of life. Recipes, trivia, quick how-to questions, suggestions for what to bring to a dinner. The output is shorter and more conversational, which is what I want for casual asks. I rarely use it for work, but it earns its keep at home.

An open project from Stanford that produces Wikipedia-style articles on a topic of your choice, complete with citations. It is genuinely useful when you are starting a research project and want a structured map of the terrain before diving into individual sources. Free to use, no account required for the hosted version.

Google's research notebook. You upload PDFs, slides, transcripts, or links, and it lets you ask questions grounded in those sources, with citations back to the exact passage. The audio overview feature, which generates a podcast-style discussion of your material, is surprisingly good for absorbing dense documents on a walk.

Where I go when I want a sourced answer rather than a generated one. Every claim links back to the page it came from, which is exactly what you want when you are about to cite something. The free tier is generous enough for most occasional use.

French-built, hosted in Europe, and free at the level most people will ever need. Worth knowing about if you have any preference for keeping data on this side of the Atlantic, or simply want a backup that is not from one of the three big American labs.

Built specifically for finding and summarising peer-reviewed research. Drop in a question and it returns relevant papers with structured summaries of the methodology and findings. A good first stop when you want to know what the academic consensus actually says about something.