Foundations7 min read

Choosing the Right AI Tool for the Job

Using the wrong tool costs you time. Here's exactly which tool to reach for and when.

For deep thinking and long documents — Claude

Claude (by Anthropic) handles nuance, complexity, and length better than most competitors. Its context window is massive — 200,000 tokens, which is roughly 150,000 words. You can paste an entire business plan, contract, or research paper and ask it to analyze or rewrite it.

Best for: long-form writing, complex instructions, document analysis, coding, anything that requires following detailed rules consistently.

For general tasks and coding — ChatGPT

ChatGPT (by OpenAI) runs on GPT-4o and is excellent at a wide range of tasks. It has the largest ecosystem — more plugins, more integrations, and more tutorials than any other AI tool. Its coding capability is especially strong.

Best for: coding, general Q&A, brainstorming, content creation, everyday tasks. The most common starting point for new AI users.

For research and current information — Perplexity

Perplexity searches the live web and synthesizes real answers with citations. It's what Google should have evolved into — you get an answer, not a list of links to click through.

Best for: researching products, finding current information, competitive analysis, anything that needs to be accurate and up-to-date.

For images — Midjourney

Midjourney consistently produces the highest-quality images of any AI image generator. The interface is Discord-based (or midjourney.com), and the learning curve is worth it for the output quality.

Best for: brand visuals, product concepts, social media content, anything where quality matters. For fast and good-enough images, DALL-E 3 inside ChatGPT is easier to use.

For video — Runway

Runway's Gen-3 Alpha model generates short video clips from text or images. 5-10 seconds, impressive quality. Not ready for long-form, but excellent for social content.

Best for: TikTok/Instagram content, product demo clips, visual concepts.