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Compare AI Tools

Pick two to five tools. Every cell comes from a verified record; anything unverified says so. There is no overall winner — the right choice depends on your task, budget and technical needs.

AI tools & apps AI models

Tool 1Tool 2Tool 3 (optional)Tool 4 (optional)Tool 5 (optional)

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Criterion	Microsoft Copilot	ChatGPT	Google Gemini	Claude	Perplexity
Provider	Microsoft	OpenAI	Google	Anthropic	Perplexity AI
What it is for	Microsoft's AI assistant, free on its own and built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook through Microsoft 365 plans.	OpenAI's general-purpose AI assistant for chat, writing, coding, research and file work, built on OpenAI's GPT models.	Google's AI assistant, bundled with Google One storage and Workspace apps on paid Google AI plans.	Anthropic's AI assistant for writing, analysis, coding and research, available on web, desktop and mobile.	An AI answer engine that searches the web and cites sources, with access to models from several providers on paid plans.
Latest confirmed model	—	GPT-6 Sol / GPT-6 Luna (in ChatGPT); GPT-6.1 Sol in Work and Codex Oct 7, 2026	Gemini 4 Argon Oct 13, 2026	Claude Opus 5.5 Sep 22, 2026	—
Main capabilities	Copilot in Office apps (Depends on plan) Advanced Copilot chat (Depends on plan) Agentic research and analytics (Depends on plan) Copilot Chat for work	GPT-6 models in Chat (Depends on plan) GPT-6 Pro reasoning (Depends on plan) Codex coding agent (Depends on plan) Credits for extra usage (Depends on plan) Ads on lower tiers (Limited)	Deep Research Gemini 4 Argon (Depends on plan) Image and video generation (Depends on plan) Gemini in Workspace apps (Depends on plan) Agent Mode (Preview)	Artifacts and file creation Claude Code (Depends on plan) Research (Depends on plan) Connectors Claude Dashboards (Preview)	Cited answers Pro Search (Depends on plan) Research (Deep Research) (Depends on plan) Model Council (Depends on plan) Brain (Preview)
Free plan	Yes Limited Copilot usage	Yes Limited usage; exact caps not published on the pages checked	Yes Base limits	Yes Usage aimed at everyday questions; up to 5 projects	Yes 3 Pro Searches/day; 1 Research query/month; limited uploads
Cheapest paid plan	Microsoft 365 Personal: $9.99/mo $8.33/mo billed annually $99.99 per year	Go: $8/mo US price; localised elsewhere	Google AI Plus: $4.99/mo	Pro: $20/mo $17/mo billed annually $200 billed up front annually	Education Pro: $10/mo With SheerID student verification
API access	No	Yes · docs (opens in a new tab)	Yes · docs (opens in a new tab)	Yes · docs (opens in a new tab)	Yes · docs (opens in a new tab)
Learning curve	Beginner-friendly	Beginner-friendly	Beginner-friendly	Beginner-friendly	Beginner-friendly
Last verified	Oct 19, 2026	Oct 19, 2026	Oct 19, 2026	Oct 19, 2026	Oct 19, 2026

How to choose

Start from the rows that matter for your job: a free plan and learning curve for casual use; API access, rates and data terms for building products; context window and modalities for long documents or images. Provider claims are labelled as such; we do not rank.

Ready-made comparisons

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