Best AI tools: 12 picks by job, what each costs, and the 6 jobs one plan covers

What are the best AI tools right now?

These are the best AI tools for twelve jobs, one winner each. We read every price at the company's own pricing page or its US App Store listing on 31 October 2026. Six of the jobs happen inside a chat window. The other six don't:

We stopped at twelve on purpose. Zapier's own roundup, last updated December 2025, runs to 18 categories plus a list of others, but several of them (email, resumes, social posts) are a chat app with a different prompt. They'd add logos, not choices. The writing, image and video calls rest on Arena's public leaderboards. The other picks rest on what each company publishes, and each section below names its source. Perplexity's App Store listing, for one, promises "Cited sources for every answer."

Bought separately, the six chat jobs cost $84.99 a month

The paid winners for chat, writing, research, video and music cost $84.99 a month together: ChatGPT Plus at $19.99, Claude Pro at $20, Perplexity Pro at $20, Runway Standard at $15 and Suno Pro at $10. Images add nothing, since ChatGPT makes them on the same plan. Whizi Powerhouse covers all six jobs on one plan, and Pro covers the first four:

Whizi, which publishes this page, is one app that puts the models of several labs on one plan. Pro carries Claude Opus 5.5 (the Arena writing leader), Claude Sonnet, ChatGPT Sol, Gemini Flash, Grok and Perplexity Sonar Pro. On top of that it gives you 100 pictures and 80 voice minutes a month. On whizi.io you can send one prompt to two models in side by side columns and keep the better answer. Powerhouse adds video, music, Claude Fable and ChatGPT 6 Astra. That's why we put Whizi at the base of the stack. It replaces the subscriptions that overlap and leaves room for the six tools a chat plan can't replace.

The math has limits, and you should know them before you switch. Credits per message vary by model and can change, and each column of a side by side chat bills its own model. A Whizi video costs 20 credits and runs about 5 seconds at 1280 by 720. Runway Standard buys 52 seconds of its Gen-4.5 model plus 4K upscaling. Whizi's songs run 30 to 150 seconds, while Suno Pro adds 20 song downloads a month and stem separation. If one lab is enough for you, keep that lab's app. Google AI Pro is $19.99 in the App Store and lists video generation and 1,000 Flow credits beside Gemini. That's cheaper than either Whizi plan, and so is any single $20 plan. How many AI subscriptions you need works through that count.

Which AI tool is best for chat and writing?

ChatGPT is the best AI tool for everyday chat, and Claude is the best for writing. On 31 October 2026 ChatGPT's US App Store listing had 11,775,790 ratings at 4.8 stars. Gemini had 2,386,946 and Claude 290,874. The app is free, and Plus costs $19.99 a month there. Popularity isn't quality. It does mean ChatGPT is the app your coworkers already know, and its listing names image generation in the free app.

For writing, Arena's creative writing leaderboard puts Claude Opus 5.5 first at 1520. It was updated on 27 October 2026 from 1,450,312 votes. Gemini 4 Argon sits second at 1517, inside the 13 point margin, so Gemini is a fair runner up. Anthropic's pricing page prices Claude Pro at $20 a month, or $17 a month billed yearly at $200. Its free plan can "Search the web, create files, and run code." Our writing app ranking compares the apps for essays, email and books, and the best AI by task picks one model per job.

Which AI tool is best for research?

Perplexity is the best AI tool for research, because every answer links its sources. Its App Store listing had 520,277 ratings at 4.8 stars on 31 October, and Perplexity Pro is $20.00 a month there. You can check a claim in one tap. That matters more than speed when the answer goes into a report.

Gemini is the free runner up. Google's plan page lists Deep Research and Gemini Notebook, a "Research and writing assistant," on the free plan, with no number on either. In Whizi, web search is on by default in every new chat, Perplexity Sonar Pro is a Pro model, and a Deep Research run costs 200 credits.

Which AI tools are best for images, video and music?

ChatGPT is the best image tool, Runway is the best video studio, and Suno is the best song maker. OpenAI's GPT-Image models hold the top three places on Arena's text-to-image leaderboard, led by GPT-Image-2.5 Sunburst at 1427 (updated 26 October 2026). ChatGPT's free app "brings you the latest from OpenAI, including the new image generator." If you want it for free, Gemini is the runner up. Google's plan page lists "Image generation and editing" on the free plan, and Nano Banana 2.1 is fifth on Arena at 1325. Midjourney, which is on most of the other lists, isn't in that top five. Whizi Pro makes 100 pictures a month with Whizi Image, Nano Banana and Flux, and Nano Banana edits photos you upload (how it works).

Runway's pricing page sells Standard at $15 a month, or $12 a month if you pay for the year, and it gives you 625 credits. Runway says that's enough for 52 seconds of its Gen-4.5 video. The plan also opens all of the video and image models that Runway hosts, with Kling 4.0 among them, and it has no watermarks. On model quality alone, Google's Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash tops Arena's text-to-video board at 1516 (updated 21 September 2026), and Google AI Pro at $19.99 a month lists video generation. Suno's pricing page puts Pro at $10 a month or $96 a year. For that you get 2,500 credits, 20 song downloads and the right to use the songs commercially. Its free plan gives you 50 credits a day but no downloads. We rank the models one by one for images, video and music.

Where does a dedicated AI tool still beat one plan?

A dedicated tool wins any job that happens outside the chat window: a call, another app, a canvas, a code editor or your calendar. No chat plan replaces these six, Whizi's included.

Granola is the best meeting notes tool. Its pricing page says it captures audio from your device, so no bot joins the call. Basic is free with limited meeting history, and Business is $14 per user a month for unlimited notes. A chat app can summarize a transcript you paste. It can't sit in the meeting. Zapier is the best automation tool, with 100 free tasks a month and Professional from $19.99 on its pricing page. Whizi has no API, so it can't be a step in a Zap.

Canva wins design. Pro starts at $14.99 a month in the US App Store. Whizi makes PowerPoint decks on the website, but they hold text, tables and speaker notes, with no images or charts, so our presentation ranking is the place to pick a slide tool. ElevenLabs wins voiceovers: 10,000 free credits a month, and Starter is $6 a month after a $1 first month on its pricing page. Whizi's voice mode answers in one preset voice. That works for a conversation, not for narrating a video.

Claude Code wins coding because it works inside your repository, and Anthropic includes it in Claude Pro at $20. A chat window only sees the files you attach, and if you'd rather stay in your own editor, Cursor and GitHub Copilot are the ones to try. Motion wins scheduling. Its pricing page puts Pro AI at $49 a month for one person, or $29 billed yearly, and teams pay $29 a seat, or $19 yearly. Our stack, then, is one Whizi plan at the base and one dedicated tool per job it can't do. Most people need one or two of those.