When to use which AI tool
The tool landscape is bigger than three names
Most people know ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. But the AI tool landscape has expanded considerably. For specific tasks, specialised tools often beat general-purpose assistants significantly.
This page gives you a practical framework for choosing.
For general writing and thinking — ChatGPT or Claude
For everyday tasks — emails, summaries, brainstorming, explanations — either works well. Choose based on your preference from earlier testing.
Claude tends to win on: nuanced writing, long documents, careful reasoning, anything where tone matters.
ChatGPT tends to win on: breadth of plugins and integrations, image generation, coding tasks, consistency across many task types.
For research — Perplexity
Perplexity.ai is an AI-powered research tool that cites its sources. Unlike ChatGPT and Claude, which can hallucinate facts, Perplexity shows you exactly where each piece of information comes from.
Use it when: you need current information, you need cited sources, you’re researching a topic you don’t know well and need to verify claims.
For coding — Claude or GitHub Copilot
If you write code professionally, GitHub Copilot (integrated into your editor) is the standard tool. If you’re a non-developer who occasionally needs code, Claude handles coding tasks very well.
For image generation — DALL-E (via ChatGPT) or Midjourney
ChatGPT’s built-in image generation (DALL-E) is good for quick, practical images. Midjourney produces higher-quality artistic images but requires more learning to use well.
For working with documents — Claude or NotebookLM
Claude handles long documents well and can answer questions about content you paste in. Google’s NotebookLM is specifically designed for working with your own documents — upload a PDF or a Google Doc and ask questions about it.
The most important principle
Don’t accumulate tools for the sake of it. Two tools you know well are worth more than ten tools you barely understand. Start with one general-purpose tool and one specialised tool relevant to your work. Add others only when you hit a specific limitation.
Go to perplexity.ai and search for something you'd normally Google. Notice how it gives you a synthesised answer with numbered citations you can click. Compare the experience to a regular Google search on the same topic. This gives you an intuition for when a specialised AI tool beats a general one.