Generative AI tools like ChatGPT seem to be taking over the world. Although there’s a lot of hype around AI, using the right tool for the task can make you more efficient and effective. With hundreds of AI systems being introduced each month, finding the right tools can be overwhelming. Here are Dr. Craig Van Slyke’s favorites.
ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini
Let’s start with the “big three” general-purpose AI chatbots. These are the classic general-purpose AI chatbots, so I’m lumping them together. I use all three of these frequently because they shine in different areas. ChatGPT exemplifies generative AI — artificial intelligence that creates content like text, images, video, and audio. ChatGPT is versatile and high quality. Claude seems to give more thoughtful, nuanced answers, so I often use it for trying to refine my ideas. Google’s Gemini is awesome for quick answers and is constantly improving. I use Gemini more frequently than other tools because it’s so good at answering tech support questions.
Poe.com
Poe.com is a chat-based AI tool that lets you choose which underlying AI technology you want to use. It’s the Swiss Army knife of AI chatbots. In a single conversation, you can use GPT, Claude, and Gemini. You can also create images using models like DALL-E and Midjourney. This may sound kind of complex, but Poe makes it really easy. I tell people, if you’re only going to pay for one AI service, make it Poe (but their free version is useful as well).
Perplexity
Perplexity is an AI chatbot that cites its sources. It’s like a combination of a search engine and AI. AI will hallucinate (make facts up), so I use Perplexity whenever I have a research task. When you ask Perplexity something, its response will have clickable footnotes that make it easy to find the sources underlying each part of its response so you can not only double-check, you can dig into more details.
Lex.page
Lex is a good example of a specialized AI tool. Lex combines a low-distraction writing environment with an AI editor that can check and critique your work. I’m using Lex to write this article. In fact, I use Lex pretty much any time I have to write something. Lex will check your grammar, but will also check for clichés, readability, brevity, and more. These checks are great, but my favorite feature is its chatbot that gives you honest feedback on your writing, along with advice for improving. Lex really is fantastic. If you have to write anything more than emails, you should check it out.
Google Notebook LM
Google’s Notebook LM may be the most interesting AI tool on this list. The idea behind Notebook LM is that you can upload your own documents and Notebook will use the information in those documents to craft its responses. For example, when I teach a doctoral seminar, I upload the readings into Notebook LM and ask it a bunch of questions, such as which points are likely to be the most confusing for students. You can save responses in a notebook for later reference. The most amazing feature of Notebook LM is the audio overview, which basically produces an NPR-style podcast based on the documents. It’s awesome and more than a little scary.
