AI writing tools

Claude (Anthropic) excels at long-form writing, nuanced professional communications, and document analysis. Its 200,000-token context window means it can work with very long documents — uploading an entire contract, report, or research paper and asking targeted questions is a genuine use case. Strong for: legal and business writing, detailed analysis, maintaining consistent tone across long documents, and tasks where following complex instructions matters. ChatGPT (OpenAI) remains the most versatile general-purpose tool with the largest ecosystem of integrations and a strong track record for a wide range of writing tasks. GPT-4o with web search is useful for tasks requiring current information. Strong for: first drafts, brainstorming, coding assistance, and tasks where breadth of capability matters. Microsoft Copilot is the right choice for anyone in a Microsoft 365 environment — it integrates into Word, Outlook, Teams, and Excel and can access your own documents and emails directly, which is a significant productivity advantage for tasks involving your own data.

AI research and knowledge tools

Perplexity AI is strong for research queries requiring current information — it searches the web and cites sources, making it useful for background research where you need to verify claims. Better than ChatGPT with web search for academic and professional research because of its source citation quality. NotebookLM (Google) allows you to upload your own documents (PDFs, Google Docs, audio files) and then ask questions about them, generate summaries, and create study guides. Particularly useful for professionals who need to synthesise information from large document sets. Elicit is designed for research synthesis: upload papers or ask it to find papers on a topic, and it extracts structured information and helps synthesise across sources. Most useful for professionals doing evidence-based work (policy, clinical, research-heavy advisory).

AI productivity tools

Notion AI integrates AI into the Notion workspace for meeting notes, document drafting, and database management. Strong if you are already a Notion user. Otter.ai and Fireflies.ai transcribe meetings in real time and produce summaries, action items, and searchable transcripts. Both integrate with Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams. Strong for anyone who spends significant time in meetings and needs reliable records. Superhuman and other AI email tools help triage and draft email at speed — valuable for professionals whose inbox is a primary workload. GitHub Copilot and Cursor for anyone writing code — these are now essentially mandatory productivity tools for software developers, with research showing significant productivity improvements for routine coding tasks.

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Frequently asked questions

Which AI tool should I start with?
Start with whatever is already available through your employer (Microsoft Copilot if you are in a Microsoft 365 environment, Google Gemini if you are in Google Workspace) because integration with your existing documents and emails provides immediate practical value. If your employer does not provide an AI tool, Claude or ChatGPT on a paid subscription (£18-20/month) is the right starting point for most knowledge workers. The specific tool matters less than developing the habit of reaching for AI tools for the right tasks and building good prompting practice through regular use.