32 AI tools, honestly compared.
What each one is good at, what to watch out for, and who it suits. We don’t take money from any of them, and every fact is re-checked monthly against the maker’s own pages, then dated with our Hallmark.
Latest check 27 Sep 2026 See what changed in the Ledger
Tool Finder
Not sure where to start? Four quick questions.
Answer all four and we’ll suggest two to four tools to look at first.
General assistants
Chat with AI to write, ask, plan and think.
| Tool | Best at | Watch out for | Free plan | Suits | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT OpenAI | The broadest all-rounder, with the biggest community of guides | Free and Go plans show ads in the UK, and consumer chats train models unless you opt out | Yes, with ads in the UK | Everyone | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Gemini | Working inside Gmail, Docs and Google apps; makes images and video | Some chats can be reviewed by people while activity saving is on | Yes | Everyone | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Claude Anthropic | Careful writing, long documents and coding | Usage limits reset in rolling five-hour windows, even on paid plans | Yes | Professionals, builders | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Microsoft Copilot Microsoft | Working inside Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams | The free Copilot and the work version protect your data differently | Yes | Everyone at work | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Meta AI Meta | Already inside WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook | Meta trains its AI on UK adults' public Facebook and Instagram posts unless you object | Yes | Beginners | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Grok xAI (part of SpaceX since February 2026) | Live answers drawing on the web and posts on X | Ofcom has been investigating X since January 2026 over Grok being used to create illegal images | Yes | Professionals | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| DeepSeek DeepSeek (China) | Strong reasoning for free, and open models builders can run themselves | Personal data is stored in China | Yes, fully free; there is no consumer paid plan | Builders | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Mistral Vibe Mistral AI (Paris) | Data hosted in the EU by default, under GDPR | Some features send data to processors outside the EU | Yes, with limits | Privacy-conscious organisations | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
Research and study
Answers with sources, and study aids built from your own documents.
| Tool | Best at | Watch out for | Free plan | Suits | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perplexity Perplexity AI | Web answers with clickable sources | Cited answers can still be wrong: open the sources | Yes | Beginners, professionals | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Gemini Notebook | Answers and audio overviews built only from your own documents | It only knows what you upload, and the free plan limits sources per notebook | Yes | Learners, professionals | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
Create
Images, video, voice and music.
| Tool | Best at | Watch out for | Free plan | Suits | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canva AI Canva | Polished designs from templates, no design skills needed | The free plan's AI allowance is small | Yes | Beginners, small businesses | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Adobe Firefly Adobe | Images from models trained on licensed content, made for commercial use | IP indemnity is for enterprise customers and excludes partner models | Limited: a small number of free generations | Brand and marketing teams | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Midjourney Midjourney | Striking, high-quality images | Images are public unless you are on the Pro or Mega plan | No free plan or trial | Creatives | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Kling AI Kuaishou (Kling AI) | Turning text or still images into short video clips | Free credits expire daily, and data is held in Singapore | Yes: daily free credits | Creatives | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| ElevenLabs ElevenLabs | Natural voiceovers, dubbing and music | The free plan can't be used commercially | Yes | Creators, builders | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Suno Suno | Full songs with vocals from a text prompt | Free songs can't be downloaded or used commercially | Yes | Beginners, creators | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
Work
Writing help, notes, slides and meetings.
| Tool | Best at | Watch out for | Free plan | Suits | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grammarly Superhuman (formerly Grammarly Inc.) | Grammar, tone and rewrites in every app you type in | The free plan is capped at 100 AI prompts a month | Yes, with 100 AI prompts a month | Everyone | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Notion AI Notion Labs | AI that works directly on your team's documents and databases | Full AI features need the Business plan | Trial only on the Free and Plus plans | Teams on Notion | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Gamma Gamma | Presentations, documents and web pages in minutes | The free plan keeps Gamma branding | Yes | Professionals | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Otter.ai Otter.ai | Live meeting transcripts and summaries, with a generous free plan | Always tell people they're being recorded; a US privacy case over recording consent is ongoing | Yes: 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per meeting | Professionals, students | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
Automate and agents
Connect apps and let AI do the steps in between.
| Tool | Best at | Watch out for | Free plan | Suits | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zapier Zapier | Connecting 9,000+ apps, with AI steps and agents | The free plan only runs two-step automations | Yes: 100 tasks a month | Professionals, leaders | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Make Make (owned by Celonis) | Visual multi-app automations without writing code | Credit-based billing, so costs rise with volume | Yes: 1,000 credits a month | Beginners, small businesses | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| n8n n8n (Berlin) | AI-agent workflows you can run on your own servers | A steeper learning curve, and its fair-code licence limits reselling it | Free to self-host (Community Edition); the cloud version has a free trial | Builders, IT and operations teams | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Copilot Studio Microsoft | Building agents for organisations on Microsoft 365 | Priced by credits, and it needs admin set-up and governance | No free plan | IT and enterprise leaders | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
Build
Code, apps and models.
| Tool | Best at | Watch out for | Free plan | Suits | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Code Anthropic | Autonomous coding across real codebases | Usage caps apply on every plan | No: not included in the free Claude plan | Builders | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| OpenAI Codex OpenAI | Running coding tasks in parallel, bundled with ChatGPT | It shares its usage allowance with ChatGPT | Limited: included in ChatGPT Free | Builders | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| GitHub Copilot GitHub (Microsoft) | Code suggestions inside your editor, with a choice of models | Chat and agents are billed by credits, and personal-plan code trains models unless you opt out | Limited: 2,000 code completions a month | Builders | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Cursor Anysphere | Agents that change many files at once | Heavy use beyond the plan is billed extra | Yes (Hobby) | Builders | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Lovable Lovable (Stockholm) | Working web apps from a plain-English description | Generated apps need a security check before real people use them | Yes: 5 build credits a day | Beginners, founders | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Replit Replit | From idea to deployed app, all in the browser | AI use beyond the included credit is billed extra | Limited (Starter) | Beginners, builders | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Google AI Studio | Free access to Google's latest models for prototyping | Free-tier rate limits; production use moves to the paid API | Yes | Builders | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
| Hugging Face Hugging Face (Nvidia agreed to buy it in September 2026) | The largest library of open models and datasets | Every model has its own licence: check it before commercial use | Yes | Builders, ML teams | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
No tool here is “best”: the right one depends on what you do and where you already work. Prices and plans change often, so each tool’s page links to the maker’s own source for every fact. How we verify
