Who's who in AI, for normal people

If you've ever nodded along while somebody said "just use Claude for that" and had no idea what a Claude was, this one's for you.

Six names. Who they are, what they sell you, and the one thing I'd want a friend to know. The facts were checked against the companies' own pages in September 2026. The opinions are mine, and I'll flag them so you can ignore them.

OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT

Who: the company that kicked this whole thing off for normal people, at the end of 2022. What they sell: ChatGPT. There's a free version, and the paid one most people mean, Plus, is $20 a month. One thing to know: when a friend says "AI," nine times out of ten they mean this. It's the default, the way "Google it" means search. Opinion: it's a very good generalist, and it's also the one most likely to hand you the smooth, samey draft, precisely because so many people are pulling from it. Nothing wrong with the tool. Everything to do with how it's used.

Anthropic, which makes Claude

Who: in their own words, an AI safety and research company. What they sell: Claude. Free version, and Pro is $20 a month billed monthly. One thing to know: a lot of people who write for a living quietly prefer it for drafting. Opinion, and I'll own it: I build my own stuff with it. It still pulls to the middle if you let it. They all do.

Google, which makes Gemini

Who: Google. What they sell: Gemini, free, with a paid tier called Google AI Pro at $19.99 a month. One thing to know: it's already inside things you use, Gmail, Docs, the search box, whether you asked for it or not. Opinion: if you live in Google's world it's the path of least resistance, and the free tier is more capable than most people realise. I run a lot of my own tests on the free one, on purpose.

Microsoft, which makes Copilot

Who: Microsoft. What they sell: Copilot, an assistant built into Windows, Edge and the Office apps, Word, Excel, Outlook and the rest. There's a free version on the web and in the app, and more of it comes with a Microsoft 365 subscription. One thing to know: if your workplace runs on Microsoft, this is the one your IT department will let you use, and that's not a small thing. Opinion: it's the AI you have, rather than the AI you chose. That's fine. The instruction you give it matters more than which one it is.

Meta, which makes Meta AI

Who: Facebook's parent company. What they sell: nothing, in the sense that Meta AI is free. Their own words: "your free personal AI chatbot and assistant." It lives in the Meta apps, on the web, in its own app, and in their glasses. One thing to know: the price is zero for the same reason Instagram is zero. That's not a scandal, it's the deal you already signed up for. Opinion: fine for a quick question in a chat. I wouldn't write anything that mattered in it, and I say that as a guy who won't run ads on their platform either. Bias declared.

Perplexity

Who: a smaller company, a startup by comparison, and the odd one out on this list. What they sell: their own description is "a free AI-powered answer engine," and the paid version, Pro, runs around $20 a month. One thing to know: it's less "write me a thing" and more "answer this and show me where you got it." It cites its sources. Opinion: for looking something up, it's the one I'd hand a friend who doesn't trust AI, because you can click through and check. For writing in your own voice, not the tool.

A few things across all six

They're all about $20 a month at the paid tier, and they all have a free version that's better than most people think. If you're paying for two of them, ask yourself why. If you're paying for one and never touch the paid features, same question.

Every one of them, free or paid, pulls toward the average unless you tell it not to. That's not a knock on any of them. It's how the whole category is built. The fix is the same on all six: tell it how you talk, up front, before you ask for anything. I wrote about how to do that in the voice doc post, and it's free.

And none of them is going anywhere. Pick one, learn it a bit, and stop reading comparison articles. Including this one.

Which one do you actually use? Not which one you pay for. The one you open. Start there.

Six names, one habit: they all pull to the middle until you tell them not to.

That's the free drink for today. If you'd like the next one, the form below is the only thing here that wants your email.