Every week someone asks me which AI is the best. My answer is always another question: for what? To answer fifty emails you want something fast and cheap. To review a contract you want the smartest model available, even if it takes a bit longer. And to build a website a chat won’t do: you want an agent.
Here is which AI to use for what, the way I choose, with names. Names go stale quickly, so at the end I show you how to test it yourself in twenty minutes.
The rule: task first, brand second
Almost everything you will do with AI at work falls into one of four boxes:
- Volume. Sorting emails, summarising documents, pulling data out of invoices, answering repeated questions. Price and speed decide.
- Everyday work. Reports, long emails, analysing a spreadsheet, preparing a meeting. You want a good model that doesn’t keep you waiting.
- Hard stuff. A contract, a decision with money on the line, a strategy. Use the most capable model you have and check every figure.
- Building things. A website, a small tool, automating a process. For this you need an agent that works on your computer, such as Claude Code or Codex.
Which AI to use for what: my table
| Task | What I use | Alternative |
|---|---|---|
| Write, correct or change the tone of a text | Claude | ChatGPT |
| Everyday questions, by voice, on your phone | ChatGPT | Gemini |
| Research a topic with sources | Perplexity or Gemini Deep Research | ChatGPT |
| Study your own documents | Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) | Claude Projects |
| Make a presentation | Claude, with its PowerPoint add-in | Copilot in PowerPoint, or Canva |
| Create an image or edit a product photo | ChatGPT | Gemini (Nano Banana) or Midjourney |
| Make a short video | Gemini Omni, in the Gemini app | Kling or Runway |
| Transcribe and summarise a meeting | The assistant in Meet, Teams or Zoom | A dedicated note-taking app |
| If you live in Gmail, Docs and Drive | Gemini | ChatGPT connected to Google |
| If your company uses Word, Excel and Teams | Copilot | Claude for Excel |
| Office work with an agent, nothing technical | Claude Cowork | ChatGPT Work |
| Build a simple website or a custom tool | Claude Code | Codex, or Lovable in the browser |
If you are only going to pay for one, pick the one that fits the tools you already use, and the prices are in which AI subscription is worth it. If you work in Gmail, Gemini is already in there. If you live in Excel, Copilot or Claude for Excel save you a lot of copy and paste, and I go into detail in the best AI for Excel.
For presentations, the full guide is in the best AI for presentations. And two notes on the table. To record and transcribe a meeting, ask everyone for permission before you start. And for office work with agents, the full comparison is in Claude Cowork vs ChatGPT Work.
ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini: which is better for work
All three do the job, and for most tasks the way you work matters more than the model. Still, each one has its patch.
ChatGPT is a good general option in my view: voice, images and, on Plus, Codex and ChatGPT Work. OpenAI’s image models lead the Artificial Analysis text-to-image ranking, which measures human preferences. That does not guarantee your plan uses the exact model or configuration tested. If you do not know where to start, I would try it.
Claude writes best, to my taste, and is the most careful when you ask it to review something. On top of that, as of 1 October 2026 it has the model at the top of the Artificial Analysis ranking, Opus 5.5, and from the Pro plan it comes with Claude Code, the agent I use most.
Gemini wins if your company lives in Google: it’s inside Gmail, Docs and Drive, makes video with Gemini Omni and its paid plan (in Spanish) includes Drive storage.
Free AI tools worth using
You can do a lot without paying anything:
- Free ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, for questions, writing, summaries and the odd image. They have limits, but for occasional use they are plenty.
- Gemini Notebook, by Google, formerly NotebookLM, for studying your own documents. It answers from your sources, tells you where each fact comes from and prepares an audio summary.
- Perplexity, for searching with sources. Its browser, Comet, has been free since October 2025.
- Codex with a free ChatGPT account, if you want to try an agent before paying. It uses GPT-6 Luna and you will run out of room quickly, but it shows you how it works.
What is the best AI right now?
The daily message in the group always ends with the same five-line ranking. This is how it stood on 1 October 2026:
| For | Model |
|---|---|
| Best on the market | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| Best value for medium tasks | GPT-6.1 Sol |
| Best value for simple tasks | GPT-6 Luna |
| Best open-weights model | MiMo-V2.6-Pro, by Xiaomi |
| Favourite harness (the program you work with agents in) | Claude Code |
Opus 5.5 came out on 22 September 2026 and tops the independent Artificial Analysis ranking with 58 points at max effort with fallback enabled, ahead of Sonnet 5.5 in that configuration, on 56. For everyday work, the best value is GPT-6.1 Sol, which OpenAI released on 29 September: 52 points at max effort, with a lower API cost in those tests. The cost of automating paperwork also depends on output tokens and reviews; you cannot work it out from GPT-6 Luna’s input price alone.
Don’t treat it as gospel: in a month everything can change. The full ranking, with what changed and how to read the leaderboards without being fooled, is in the best AI right now, which I update every month.
How to test it yourself in twenty minutes
Rankings help you get your bearings, but your own test is the one that counts. Take three real tasks from this week and give them to two different assistants with the same text. For example:
Here are 50 fictional customer emails. Split them into urgent, quotes and the rest, and write a short reply to each one in my tone.Compare what each one gives you back: how much you have to fix, how long it takes and whether it makes anything up. In twenty minutes you will know more than from any comparison article.
What I wouldn’t do
- Pay for three subscriptions at once. Pay for one, monthly, and switch if another starts doing better.
- Put clients’ personal data into a personal account. Check whether you have allowed your conversations to be used for training and turn it off if enabled. In Claude it depends on your consent. This setting does not replace an authorized tool for client data.
- Trust a figure without a source. If it gives you an important number, ask where it comes from and open it.
Sources checked on 26 September 2026, with rankings, configurations and prices reviewed on 1 October: Artificial Analysis model ranking, its image generator leaderboard, OpenAI API prices, Google One plans (in Spanish), Microsoft 365 and Copilot (in Spanish), Claude for PowerPoint, Gemini Notebook, Gemini limits without a paid plan and ChatGPT Work and Codex by plan.
