My 10 favorite AI tools

The starter pack I'd send a friend who asked "where do I even begin?" — what each one is for, and why it made the cut. New picks land in the daily posts.

01 ChatGPT

The default for writing, coding help, and thinking out loud. Start here; the custom-GPTs and projects features replace a dozen niche apps.

OpenAI · Free + paid

02 Claude

Best long-document and coding partner. Huge context window means you can paste a whole file or report and have it actually reason over all of it.

Anthropic · Free + paid

03 Perplexity

AI search that cites its sources. Use it instead of Google when you need a real answer with links, not ten tabs.

Perplexity AI · Free + paid

04 Gamma

Type a topic, get a finished deck or one-pager. Kills the blank-slide problem for pitches and lesson decks.

Gamma · Free + paid

05 ElevenLabs

The most natural AI voices. Voiceovers for reels, audiobooks, and dubbing in a few clicks.

ElevenLabs · Free + paid

06 CapCut

Free editor with auto-captions, auto-cut, and AI b-roll — the fastest way to a clean reel without paying for Premiere.

ByteDance · Free

07 Cursor

An AI-native code editor. Even non-engineers use it to build small tools by describing what they want.

Anysphere · Free + paid

08 Notion AI

Summarize, rewrite, and auto-fill notes inside the notes app you already live in. Best AI for organizing your own knowledge.

Notion · Paid add-on

09 Suno

Describe a song, get a full track with vocals. Background music and jingles for content without licensing headaches.

Suno · Free + paid

10 Ideogram

AI image generator that can actually render legible text — the one to use for thumbnails, posters, and logos.

Ideogram · Free + paid