The AI Tool Rankings

The rankings — all 6 jobs

The full list from the video. Same rules: Bad means skip it for this job (the tool might be great elsewhere), Decent gets it done, Great is what I’d actually open. Tool names link straight to the real sites.

✍️ Writing

BadMeta AI — fine for asking what to cook. Flat and generic the second you want anything in your own voice.

DecentDeepSeek — surprisingly sharp for a free tool, but the writing still reads slightly translated.

GreatClaude — the one that actually sounds like you once it has seen a few samples of your writing. My every-single-day writer.

📣 Marketing

BadChatGPT — hands everyone the same five ideas, so your captions end up sounding like everyone else’s.

DecentCanva — brilliant once the words are done and you need them to look like something.

GreatBlotato — writes, schedules and posts across every platform from one place. It runs my entire posting system.

📄 Your resume

BadNotebookLM — wrong tool for this job. It studies documents; it doesn’t sell you.

DecentClaude — a solid, plain-English rewrite of your bullet points.

GreatGemini — reads the job ad and your resume side by side and tailors one to the other.

🔍 Research

BadChatGPT — answers confidently whether or not it actually knows. Risky habit for research.

DecentNotebookLM — brilliant once YOU supply the sources. Upload the documents, then ask away.

GreatPerplexity — searches the live web and shows its receipts. Research without the making-things-up problem.

🖥️ Web apps

BadBase44 — demos beautifully, fights you on anything custom.

DecentLovable — lovely for landing pages and simple apps.

GreatEmergent — the one I recommend for non-coders building something real.

⚙️ Coding

BadCursor — built for developers. If you’re not one, you’ll drown in the interface.

DecentCodex — OpenAI’s coding agent. Capable, but you’re still steering a dev tool.

GreatClaude — plain-English coding that actually ships. Claude Code built the page you’re reading right now.

Round 2 — four new jobs (and two rematches)

Video two put four more jobs on the board — learning, video, design and productivity — and re-ran writing and marketing against a different line-up. Same rules as above.

🎓 Learning

BadChatGPT — answers your question and teaches you nothing on the way through.

DecentGemini — solid explainers, especially with YouTube and Docs plugged in.

GreatNotebookLM — upload the course notes, PDFs and recordings; it quizzes you, podcasts them, and actually teaches. Built for exactly this.

📣 Marketing (rematch)

BadChatGPT — still handing everyone the same five ideas. Don’t waste your time.

DecentGemini — decent captions once you brief it properly.

GreatBlotato — still insane. Writes, schedules and posts everywhere from one place.

✍️ Writing (rematch)

BadChatGPT — mid. Reads fine, sounds like nobody.

DecentGemini — pretty good, and better the more context you give it.

GreatClaude — still the one you want. No contest for sounding like you.

🎬 Video

BadCanva — fine for a title card, painful for actual video editing. Skip it.

DecentSubmagic — auto-captions and b-roll that get the job done.

GreatOpusClip — one long video in, a week of clips out. Awesome.

🎨 Design

BadCanva — everyone’s designs end up looking like everyone else’s.

DecentClaude — surprisingly good taste for layouts and copy hierarchy.

GreatClaude Code — builds the actual page, deck or poster. Real design you own — it built the page you’re reading.

⚡ Productivity

BadChatGPT — fine. It answers; it doesn’t organise your life.

DecentNotion — solid, if you’re the type who’ll actually maintain it.

GreatClaude Cowork — where it’s at. Claude with hands: your files, email, calendar and scheduled tasks.

Every tool, one link list

All 19 tools in one place so you never sign up via a dodgy lookalike site. Two of these — Blotato and Emergent — are affiliate links: costs you nothing extra, and it keeps freebies like this one free.

Claude — claude.ai · writing, resumes and coding (three greats, one login)
Perplexity — perplexity.ai · research with sources
Blotato — blotato.com · marketing + social posting (affiliate)
Gemini — gemini.google.com · resume tailoring
Emergent — emergent.sh · web apps for non-coders (affiliate)
Claude Code — claude.com/product/claude-code · design and building that ships
Claude Cowork — claude.com · productivity (Claude with hands)
OpusClip — opus.pro · long video into a week of clips
Submagic — submagic.co · captions and b-roll
Notion — notion.so · the organised person's second brain
NotebookLM — notebooklm.google.com · study your own documents
Canva — canva.com · make the words look good
Lovable — lovable.dev · simple apps and landing pages
DeepSeek — chat.deepseek.com · free and sharp
ChatGPT — chatgpt.com · everyday assistant (just not for research)
Codex — openai.com/codex · OpenAI’s coding agent
Cursor — cursor.com · coding, for actual developers
Base44 — base44.com · app builder
Meta AI — meta.ai · it’s there if you want it

If you only sign up for three

You do not need 14 AI accounts. For most business owners, these three cover 90% of the jobs on this list:

✳️

Claude

Three of the six greats — writing, resumes and coding — in one tool. If you only get one subscription, it’s this.

🔍

Perplexity

Anything that needs to be TRUE — research, fact-checking, comparisons. Free tier is plenty to start.

📣

Blotato

If you post content to grow your business, this replaces the writing-scheduling-posting stack with one login.

Building something?

Add Emergent as your fourth the day you want a real web app without hiring a developer.

How I ranked them

Three questions, applied to every tool: does it do the job well (not just fast)? Can a non-technical business owner drive it without a manual? And does it hold up when you use it every day, not just in the demo?

Two honest caveats

These rankings are for non-technical business owners — a full-time developer would rank the coding column differently. And AI tools move fast: this list is current as at 16/07/2026, and I update my picks when a tool earns it.