ChatGPT
AI
General-purpose AI assistant for writing, analysis, coding and research.
Checked Aug 2026
Category
AI software
Assistants, generation, agents and AI infrastructure.
We currently cover 9 products classified primarily as ai software, plus 27 more that cover it as a secondary capability. Prices below are the vendors' own published figures, checked in August 2026.
AI tools by what they do
The list further down is this category's own products. These four groups cut across the whole directory instead, and most of what they contain is filed under another category: the tools that measure whether AI answers mention you are SEO products, and the generators are design products. A product is filed here only where AI is its function rather than a feature it also ships. Tools that added AI to an existing job keep their ordinary category and appear in neither list.
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8 products
AI assistants and answer engines
General-purpose assistants and answer engines: the tool is the model, and you bring the work to it.
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4 products
AI search visibility
Measuring and improving whether AI assistants mention and cite a brand. The newest cluster here, and the one with the least settled vocabulary.
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5 products
AI writing and content optimisation
Drafting, editing and optimising text against a target - a style, a search result, or an AI answer.
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3 products
AI image and video generation
Generating and editing visual assets from prompts, references or brand styles.
Compare ai tools
| Product | Best for | Starting price | Free plan | Trial | API |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | Drafting, editing and summarising written work | Free; Go from $8/month, Plus $20/month | Yes | - | Yes |
| Claude | Long-document analysis and editing | Free; Pro from $17/month billed annually ($20 monthly) | Yes | - | Yes |
| DeepSeek | Individuals who want a capable assistant at no cost | Free; API from $0.22 per million input tokens | Yes | - | Yes |
| Google Gemini | Organisations already running Google Workspace | Free; Google AI Plus from $4.99/month, AI Pro $19.99/month | Yes | - | Yes |
| Grammarly | Professionals writing email and documents all day | Free plan available; Pro $12/month | Yes | 7 days on Pro | Yes |
| Grok | Anyone who needs current information from X and the open web | Free; SuperGrok $30/month; SuperGrok Plus $100/month | Yes | - | Yes |
| Microsoft Copilot | Organisations already standardised on Microsoft 365 | Copilot Chat free; Microsoft 365 Copilot Business from $18/user/month paid yearly | Yes | Offered on the business plans; a credit card is required to start one | Yes |
| Mistral | Teams that need a European vendor with a published data processing addendum | Free; Pro $14.99/month; Team $24.99 per user/month | Yes | - | Yes |
| Perplexity | Research where you need to check the sources | Free; Pro $20/month; Max $200/month | Yes | - | Yes |
Profiles
Claude
AI
AI assistant built by Anthropic, strongest on long documents, careful writing and code.
Checked Aug 2026
DeepSeek
AI
A free assistant with open-weight models and per-token API pricing an order of magnitude below the field.
Checked Aug 2026
Google Gemini
AI
The AI assistant that arrives already inside your email and documents.
Checked Aug 2026
Grammarly
AI
A writing assistant that works everywhere you already type.
Checked Aug 2026
Grok
AI
xAI's assistant, with real-time X and web search and the steepest paid ladder here.
Checked Aug 2026
Microsoft Copilot
AI
The assistant that arrives inside the apps your staff already open.
Checked Aug 2026
Mistral
AI
A European assistant with open-weight models, publishing limits as actual numbers.
Checked Aug 2026
Perplexity
AI
An answer engine that shows its sources, which is the whole point.
Checked Aug 2026
Also covers ai
These products are classified elsewhere but include meaningful ai capability.
Adobe Creative Cloud
Design
The professional creative stack, rented rather than owned.
Checked Aug 2026
Adobe Express
Design
Adobe's answer to Canva, with Firefly generation attached.
Checked Aug 2026
AirOps
SEO
Content operations automation for AI search, with no price on the pricing page.
Checked Aug 2026
Apollo.io
Sales
B2B contact database combined with outbound sequencing and light CRM.
Checked Aug 2026
Clay
Sales
Data enrichment as a spreadsheet, billed by credit rather than seat.
Checked Aug 2026
Clearscope
SEO
Content optimisation with unlimited users, now tracking prompts as well as keywords.
Checked Aug 2026
Fashion Diffusion
Design
Fashion-only AI photoshoots, virtual try-on and design tools, metered in credits from $12 a month.
Checked Sept 2026
Frase
SEO
Research, draft, optimise, publish and monitor, priced from $49 a month.
Checked Aug 2026
Freshdesk
Support
Zendesk's job at roughly a third of Zendesk's price.
Checked Aug 2026
GitHub
Development
Where most of the world's code, and most of its collaboration, actually lives.
Checked Aug 2026
Google Workspace
Productivity
Browser-first productivity suite built around Gmail, Drive and real-time documents.
Checked Aug 2026
Help Scout
Support
A shared inbox that never makes your customer feel like a ticket.
Checked Aug 2026
HubSpot
Sales
CRM platform bundling marketing, sales, service and CMS around one contact record.
Checked Aug 2026
Intercom
Support
Customer messaging that reinvented itself around an AI agent.
Checked Aug 2026
Mailchimp
Marketing
Email marketing and automation platform aimed at small and mid-sized businesses.
Checked Aug 2026
Microsoft 365
Productivity
Cloud productivity suite bundling Office apps, email, storage and security.
Checked Aug 2026
Microsoft Dynamics 365
Sales
CRM and ERP applications for organisations already standardised on Microsoft.
Checked Aug 2026
Microsoft Power BI
Analytics
Business intelligence priced low enough that finance stopped arguing.
Checked Aug 2026
Microsoft Teams
Productivity
Chat, meetings and calling built into the Microsoft 365 stack.
Checked Aug 2026
Notion
Productivity
Connected workspace combining docs, databases, wikis and project tracking.
Checked Aug 2026
Recraft
Design
AI generation that outputs vectors and holds a brand style, from $10 a month billed annually.
Checked Aug 2026
Salesforce
Sales
The enterprise CRM standard, extended into a full customer platform.
Checked Aug 2026
Semrush
SEO
All-in-one SEO, PPC and competitive research platform for marketing teams.
Checked Aug 2026
Slack
Productivity
Channel-based messaging that replaced internal email at a lot of companies.
Checked Aug 2026
Surfer
SEO
Content optimisation scored against what already ranks, now with AI-answer tracking attached.
Checked Aug 2026
Vercel
Development
Deployment platform for frontend frameworks, built by the team behind Next.js.
Checked Aug 2026
Zendesk
Support
Customer support ticketing that grew into a full service platform.
Checked Aug 2026
AI comparison guides
8 tools compared
Best AI assistants for work in 2026, by what you can buy and predict
An independent comparison of eight AI assistants for work - ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Mistral, Perplexity, Grok and DeepSeek - scored on seat price, business route, published usage limits, modalities and free tier, with every figure read from the vendor's own page.
Updated 24 August 2026