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Not Everything is Created Equal: What I Learned From AI Model-Hopping

Generative AI assistants are popping up everywhere, and they all seem to do the same things. If you ask an AI assistant what it can do, the typical reply includes: answering questions, brainstorming ideas, providing support, generating content, and even creating images. Once you start exploring an AI assistant and playing around with it (by asking questions), you might be quite impressed with the results you see. Before long, you may find yourself relying on it for everything. But should you simply settle for the first AI assistant you try? Not necessarily. Different AI assistants are powered by distinct models, each with unique capabilities, strengths, and limitations. This means the output can vary significantly depending on the tool you use. Here are some tips to help you decide which AI assistant to “buddy up” with, and when.

If you want to use generative AI to reformat drafts or notes into proposals, I strongly recommend trying a few different options before settling on a result. Drop your notes into several AI assistants and compare the results. For instance, you’ll get very different outputs from Gemini and ChatGPT. Personally, for this task, I find ChatGPT superior to Gemini at the moment for this type of task.

In terms of brainstorming, I really love Claude's conversational responses. Makes me feel like I'm chatting with a colleague. I used Claude to come up with the title of this post and a few hooks for my LinkedIn post, and after a few back and forths I was happy and felt that Claude really understood what I was trying to achieve. I think Claude is being designed as a more realistic assistant. You can check out a podcast discussion on Claude if you are starting down the AI rabbit hole. (Details at the end of blog)

If you just want to ask simple questions to solve everyday problems like “How do I cook a chook in the air fryer?” or “Why does my text keep overwriting itself?”—use the tool that’s easiest to access. This could be the one sitting in your toolbar or the one you have on your phone. For example, I use Microsoft’s Copilot on my PC because it’s right in the toolbar (see image below for output) and Meta AI on my phone through Messenger (image output below - blue one). I imagine a lot of people would prefer the ChatGPT app for this kind of thing, but personally I'm not one to add apps to my phone beyond the core few.

When it comes to image creation, most AI assistants have models that generate pics, but again, the quality of the output can vary. Personally, I’m enjoying how easy Meta’s AI is to use within Messenger (can use messenger on phone or PC). One tip: I always specify “cartoon” in my prompts. If I don't, I find I end up with photorealistic images, which seem to be the default for Meta AI and other image generators (aside from Illustrator which creates very cool vectas...but that's probably for another blog post).

If I’m working on a proposal, I often add information to the AI assistant, review its output, add more details, and iterate from there. For this type of work, I need the assistant to consider everything we’ve already discussed—even if those conversations happened days, weeks, or months ago. That means I need a tool with easy access to my conversation history. For this, assistants like Google’s Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude are invaluable because they maintain a dedicated chat history.

For table creation, most AI models produce nice-looking tables from text, that you can then screen shot and share as image. However if you want to manipulate and use the data (which is generally the reason for creating a table in the first place), copying and pasting into a spreadsheet, then reformatting, can be time-consuming. This is where the tools differ (until Excel/Google Sheets add an AI feature powered by CoPilot/Gemini for 'text to table' that is). I’m a big fan of Gemini for this—it can send a generated table straight to a Google Sheet. As long as you’re signed in to your Google account, you can click “Open in Sheets” which saves me so much time in formatting.

The example below shows text to table...and please ignore the lame text example, it's simply there to illustrate text to table and then Sheets in something like 10 seconds.

If you need the most up-to-date information, you'll want to choose the right AI assistant. While many AI tools rely on periodically updated data, some can provide real-time information straight from the web. Check out the table below to see which assistants are up to the task. Note: While some advanced, paid AI models offer real-time capabilities, this comparison focuses on free, entry-level options. Over time I assume most general purpose assistants will support real time or close to real time capabilities.

When it comes to cold hard facts, using AI assistants can be hit or miss. You just need to try a few different AI assistants with the same question to realise that the responses vary quite dramatically. At times the response is clearly a fabrication. When asking about the assistants themselves (such as comparing models), I’ve noticed a bias toward the specific assistant being used. Then there are the infamous 'hallucinations,' where the answer is not just wrong but completely nonsensical. This highlights the importance of approaching these tools with caution when seeking factual information. While they're incredibly helpful, they’re best viewed as aids rather than definitive sources of truth. Human oversight and critical thinking are still vital for fact-checking and ensuring accuracy.

So, what is out there in terms of AI assistants? There are so many now, and which ones you stumble upon first will likely depend on factors like the applications you rely on, your device and operating system, and your subscriptions. Here are just a few common examples of everyday assistants (NOTE:The table includes a few key features to help you decide what might be the best fit for your needs. However, it was compiled by ChatGPT at my request, so it may not be highly factual and may show some bias plus it is talking about free AI assistants rather than paid version. Furthermore, AI assistants are changing so rapidly that this table will be outdated in no time...so it is just for a rough guide):

Tool and Owner	Link to Tool	Tools with Dedicated Chat History	Tools That Show Real-Time Responses from the Web
ChatGPT (OpenAI)	ChatGPT	Chat history is easily accessible, allowing you to continue conversations or reference past chats.	No
Google Gemini (Google)	Google Gemini	Has a history feature where previous conversations can be referenced.	No
Claude (Anthropic)	Claude by Anthropic	Includes chat history that you can revisit and continue working with.	No
Bing Chat (Microsoft)	Bing Chat	Maintains a session history within a single browsing session but may not save longer-term history.	Yes
Replika (Replika Inc.)	Replika	Built to mimic human-like conversations, with a clear history of interactions for continuity.	No
ChatSonic (WriteSonic)	ChatSonic (WriteSonic)	Saves chat history for users to access and reference later.	Yes
Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft)	Microsoft Copilot	Does not have a standard chat history interface; functionality is more embedded in documents and emails.	No
Meta AI (Meta)	Meta AI	No standalone history; interactions are part of the Messenger thread but lack the organization of a dedicated history interface.	No
Jasper AI (Jasper)	Jasper AI	Focused on content creation but does not provide chat-like history.	No
OpenAI's DALL-E (OpenAI)	OpenAI's DALL-E	No chat history; designed for image generation.	No
DeepL Write (DeepL)	DeepL Write	No chat history; provides text refinement only.	No
Copy.ai (Copy.ai)	Copy.ai	Task-specific with no dedicated chat history.	No
Notion AI (Notion)	Notion AI	Embedded in Notion for note-taking and task management, not a conversational tool with chat history.	No
Perplexity AI (Perplexity)	Perplexity AI	Does not maintain ongoing chat history.	Yes
Sudowrite (Sudowrite)	Sudowrite	Focused on writing assistance, no interactive chat history.	No
AI Dungeon (Latitude)	AI Dungeon	While it offers continuity within story sessions, it does not store a traditional chat history for reuse.	No
WriteSonic (WriteSonic)	WriteSonic	Primarily for one-off content generation without a chat interface.	No

If you want an easy way to compare outputs from different models for tasks like content generation or reformatting formal documents, try the AI assistant aggregator tool, Usnap. It’s free for a certain number of daily requests and lets you compare basic models side by side without jumping between tabs or assistants. When you sign up, they ask you to subscribe to the “AI Fire” newsletter (a newsletter I actually rate highly). You can upgrade Usnap to compare advanced models is you like.

Then there’s the question of paid versus unpaid AI assistants. Are the paid ones actually adding more value to your task at hand? Or do they just let you bypass usage limits? My advice: try the latest models for free whenever possible (like USnap mentioned above). If you notice a significant difference in the quality of the output, it might be worth paying. If it’s just a quota issue, check whether you already have free access to another assistant—like Copilot, for instance.

So, what should you consider when choosing an AI companion? For quick, simple questions, I use the handiest free tool—just open it and ask. For more serious work like brainstorming, reviewing drafts, or generating proposals, I shop around to ensure I'm getting the most helpful feedback. Often, I'll combine outputs from multiple assistants. At the end of the day, brainstorming with a few AI assistants is still faster than going solo (where you'd rely on both your brainpower and hours of Googling). While all models are quite different in their abilities and specialties, one thing is shared across all: accuracy and reliability cannot be assured. An AI assistant is simply that—a tool to assist you. So remember to use your critical thinking, cross-reference important information, and apply your own judgment to evaluate the responses you receive.

For those wishing to go down the AI podcast rabbit hole, I can suggest one of my regular listens... Hard Fork from the New Your Times. Interesting discussions about all things tech, including AI. This episode has interesting chat about the latest Quantum breakthrough at Google (still not entirely sure I understand Quantum, but I feel I know more than I knew before listening), and then a discussion on the Cult of Claude. Check out Hard Fork: TikTok's Last Stand + Google's Quantum Breakthrough + Cult of Claude