Here Are My Go-To AI Tools

My preferred LLMs, image and video models, music makers, research tools, and more.

LATEST UPDATE: March 30, 2026

I first published this round-up on October 17, 2024. But things in AI move fast, so I now release regular updates. Check out this archive page with all the past versions (fun for tracing how AI and my preferences evolved).

I often get asked about AI tools that I personally use.

While I regularly test and review all sorts of AI models and sites, most don’t end up a part of my routine.

Here are those that did.

🗣️ 1. Large language models

These are the chatbots and LLMs I turn to.

• 🎁Free:

  • Claude Sonnet 4.6 [UPDATED - replaced 4.5] for most creative work. Claude has a “fresh” conversational feel and tends to suggest unconventional ideas. The new interactive explainers are awesome for visualizing and grasping tricky concepts. The only downside is the strict message limit for free accounts.

  • Gemini 3.1 Pro (via Google AI Studio) [UPDATED - replaced 3.0] for working with big files. Gemini’s massive token window and native processing of audio and video make it a beast for handling long inputs in multiple formats.

  • GPT 5.4 [UPDATED - replaced GPT 5.2] still holds up for regular day-to-day chats and low-stakes research, although I find myself gravitating away from ChatGPT toward alternatives.

• 💵Paid:

  • Claude 4.6 Opus as my primary daily driver for everything I do with Claude Code. It runs and organizes most of my work and newsletter projects.

🖼️ 2. AI images

Here are my favorite image models.

• 🎁Free:

  • Gemini 3.1 Flash Image (aka Nano Banana 2) [UPDATED - replacing Nano Banana Pro] for image editing. Excellent at detail-preserving image edits from natural-language requests.

  • GPT Image 1.5: Still the top-ranked image generation model that understands context and can render entire pages of text in an image. You get a free quota on ChatGPT and can also run it for free on copilot.microsoft.com.

• 💵Paid:

  • Midjourney: I’ve written dozens of posts about Midjourney over the years. It’s become harder to recommend these days, as many free models have overtaken it in terms of prompt adherence and text rendering, but it remains great for artistic exploration and photographic images.

📽️ 3. AI video

The AI video space is making the biggest leaps lately. Here’s my take on AI video models based on thorough tests of both text-to-video and image-to-video.

• 🎁Free:

  • Seedance 2.0 (via CapCut): It’s currently the best video model, and you get free daily credits (but only enough for about 1-2 clips, so use sparingly).

  • Veo 3.1 is a top-tier model for lifelike videos with native audio effects and speech. The Flow platform now gives you free daily credits to try it.

• 💵 Paid:

  • Kling 3.0 Omni: Kling isn’t quite as generous with free credits anymore, but if you’re willing to pay, 3.0 Omni is a top-tier model.

  • Any of the above: If you’re all in on either Seedance 2.0 or Veo 3.1, you can always upgrade for more generations.

🎵 4. AI music

This space is surprisingly steady. I rarely use AI music tools, but when I do…

• 🎁Free:

  • Producer for solid outputs that stick close to your prompt.

  • Suno for more creative but natural-sounding results.

Both give you a generous amount of free credits, so take them for a spin to see which one you prefer. My recent head-to-head test had me narrow my choices to the two models above (sorry, Udio and Sonauto).

• 💵 Paid:

  • Any of the above: Once you’ve picked your favorite, you can always upgrade for additional features.

🔬 5. Research

• 🎁Free:

  • NotebookLM remains a super easy recommendation. I’ve been a fan since March 2024. (I covered everything in my recent live video walkthrough.)

  • Learn About is another Google product that complements NotebookLM nicely. While NotebookLM is grounded in your preselected sources and synthesizes info across them, Learn About can browse the web and is built for open-ended exploration of any topic.

  • Perplexity I don’t use Perplexity very often, but its “Pro” search is a good midway point between simple web browsing and the time-intensive “Deep Research” tools.

• 💵 Paid:

  • Perplexity Deep Research was recently upgraded with the latest Claude models to reach SOTA performance on deep research benchmarks.

📈 6. Productivity

• 🎁Free:

  • Google AI Studio: Google still offers a whole lot for free here. You can try its latest frontier models, voice generation, coding tools, and live calls with screen or camera sharing. It’s a great way to sample most of what Google has to offer at no charge.

  • Napkin automatically turns walls of text into catchy visuals like diagrams, infographics, etc. For design-challenged people like myself, it’s a superb way to illustrate concepts with minimal effort.

• 💵 Paid:

  • Claude Code: My primary daily driver for actually building and doing stuff with AI. (Here’s just some of what Claude Code can do for you.)

  • Genspark Super Agent: A robust agent that can orchestrate dozens of tools to complete complex, multi-step tasks. You get free monthly credits to try it, but you’ll likely need the paid plan for bigger tasks.

🫵 Over to you…

What AI tools do you use the most? What would you add to the above list?

Leave a comment or drop me an email at whytryai@substack.com.

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