The best AI tools of 2025
The top 3 according to 24 votes from people: ChatGPT · Claude · Cursor. (Updated Feb 6, 2026.)
The artificial-intelligence tools that reviewers tested and recommended most in 2025, by what they're best at: chat assistants, research, coding, images, video, audio and productivity.
Top 20
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1
ChatGPT
OpenAI's all-round assistant and the most used AI chatbot; free tier plus Plus at $20 a month.
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2
Claude
Anthropic's assistant, praised for long documents, careful writing and coding.
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3
Cursor
A code editor built around AI that edits across your whole project.
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4
Midjourney
The image generator known for the most artistic results, used through its website and Discord.
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5
Gemini
Google's assistant, tied into Gmail, Docs and Search.
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6
Perplexity
An AI answer engine that searches the web and cites its sources.
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7
NotebookLM
Google's free research notebook that answers only from the documents you upload, with podcast-style Audio Overviews.
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8
GitHub Copilot
AI pair programmer inside VS Code and other editors, from $10 a month.
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9
DeepSeek
The Chinese open-weight model whose free chatbot shot to the top of app stores in January 2025.
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10
ElevenLabs
Realistic AI voices and dubbing in dozens of languages.
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11
Canva (Magic Studio)
Canva's AI design tools for images, presentations and text.
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12
Gamma
Generates presentations, documents and simple websites from a prompt.
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13
Grok
xAI's assistant, built into X (Twitter).
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14
Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft's assistant built into Windows, Edge and the Microsoft 365 apps.
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15
Runway
AI video generation and editing tools used by filmmakers.
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16
Suno
Makes complete songs, with vocals, from a text description.
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17
Grammarly
AI writing assistant that checks and rewrites text wherever you type.
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18
Otter.ai
Records and transcribes meetings and writes summaries automatically.
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19
Notion AI
AI built into Notion for writing, summarising and searching your workspace.
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20
Adobe Firefly
Adobe's image generator, trained on licensed content and built into Photoshop.
How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.
Is something missing?
Comments (6)
NotebookLM is so underrated.
Cursor changed how I code.
Claude for writing and coding, ChatGPT for everything else, that's my setup.
NotebookLM's audio overviews were the surprise of the year for me.
Cursor completely changed how I write code. Not sure I could go back.
Grok at the bottom, as it should be