AI for real work

AI tools for work.

Practical guides for learning, coding, research and everyday work — with source checks built into the workflow.

Start with the task

What do you need to finish?

Choose a small task with a visible input and a result someone can review.

Choose your path

Three focused desks

Novice and intermediate learning, programming workflows, or everyday office tasks — pick one lane first.

Show the work

Three ways to keep review visible

These are original workflow diagrams, not product screenshots or performance claims.

All guides

Practical tutorials

Every guide links to official vendor pages and keeps human review on anything contractual.

Tool catalog

Official tools worth testing first

Every link goes to the vendor's own site. Pricing type is noted; exact plan prices change too quickly to hard-code here.

Coding and development

Freemium

Cursor

Edits code in-repo with context instead of copying snippets into a separate chat window.

Official site
Paid

GitHub Copilot

Autocomplete, agent mode in supported IDEs, and GitHub cloud agents for issue-to-PR workflows.

Official site
Plan-dependent

Claude Code

Terminal, IDE and Slack agent that reads your repo, runs commands and can prepare pull requests after permission prompts.

Official site
Plan-dependent

OpenAI Codex

Software-development mode in the ChatGPT desktop app for repo-aware technical tasks separate from Chat and Work.

Official site
Freemium

ChatGPT

Fast drafting for scripts, regex, SQL and one-off debugging when IDE integration is not required.

Official site

Writing and documents

Freemium

Claude

Strong long-document rewriting, structured summaries and careful tone control.

Official site
Paid

Microsoft 365 Copilot

Drafts in Word, Outlook, Excel and Teams without leaving the Microsoft stack.

Official site
Freemium

Google Gemini

Useful when Docs, Gmail and Workspace files are already the daily environment.

Official site
Paid add-on

Notion AI

Summarises meeting notes, wikis and project docs where Notion is the source of truth.

Official site

Meetings and transcription

Freemium

Otter.ai

Turns meetings into searchable transcripts, summaries and action lists.

Official site
Paid

Microsoft Teams Copilot

Recap, actions and follow-up drafts for Teams meetings already on Microsoft 365.

Official site
Included on eligible plans

Zoom AI Companion

Meeting summaries and chat catch-up inside existing Zoom workflows.

Official site

Research and source-backed answers

Freemium

Perplexity

Web-grounded answers with citations for market, product and technical research.

Official site
Free

NotebookLM

Q&A over uploaded PDFs, specs, slide decks and project document packs.

Official site
Free / paid tiers

Hugging Face

Find open models, datasets and deployment options when you need more control than a chat app.

Official site

Images and design

Freemium

Adobe Firefly

Commercial-safe image generation and edits inside Creative Cloud workflows.

Official site
Paid

Midjourney

Fast concept visuals, mood boards and presentation imagery.

Official site
Freemium

Canva AI

Quick social graphics, slide visuals and brand-safe layouts for non-designers.

Official site
Freemium

ElevenLabs

Voiceovers, narration and dubbing without booking studio time for every draft.

Official site

Local AI agents

Free

Ollama

Runs open-weight models on your own PC or server with a simple CLI and local API for private chat and scripting.

Official site
Free

LM Studio

Desktop app for downloading, chatting with and serving local models without sending prompts to a cloud API.

Official site
Free / self-host

Open WebUI

Browser UI for local models with chat history, document upload and team-friendly self-hosting on top of Ollama or compatible backends.

Official site
Free

Jan

Offline-first desktop chat for local models when you want a simple app without running a server stack.

Official site

Online AI agents

Plan-dependent

ChatGPT Work

Multi-step office agent in ChatGPT for finished docs, sheets and slides with connected apps and supervised actions.

Official site
Paid plans

Claude Cowork

Desktop agent for folder-based tasks, browser steps and multi-step deliverables with permission prompts.

Official site
Paid

Microsoft 365 Copilot agents

Agents inside Copilot that act on Excel, mail, records and workflows with enterprise governance options.

Official site
Freemium

Google Gemini

Gems and Workspace-connected chat when your files, mail and docs already live in Google's cloud stack.

Official site
Freemium

Perplexity

Research agents with cited web answers when the task needs live sources rather than only private files.

Official site

Automation and agents

Freemium

Zapier

Connects apps with no-code automations for repetitive admin and handoffs.

Official site
Free self-host / paid cloud

n8n

Flexible workflow automation when you need custom logic or self-hosting.

Official site

AEC and BIM

Included / plan-dependent

Autodesk Assistant

Help inside Autodesk workflows for document search, drafting support and product guidance.

Official site
Paid

Microsoft 365 Copilot

Spec comparisons, transmittals, coordination emails and Excel-based quantity review support.

Official site
Free

NotebookLM

Project briefings, method statements and onboarding packs from uploaded PDFs and reports.

Official site
New worked example

What should your AI actually read?

Choose current evidence, spot an obsolete approval and build a checkable source packet.

Try the context-engineering guide and exercise →
API costs and limits

Compare route pricing

Open API cost analysis · Model lifespan desk

Deepseek

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (batch)

#1 · 100 price/capacity index · 17.2M tokens/$

OpenRouter page
Anthropic

Anthropic: Claude Haiku 5.5 (batch)

#2 · 55.4 price/capacity index · 10.0M tokens/$

OpenRouter page
Nvidia

NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

#3 · 51.2 price/capacity index · 9.8M tokens/$

OpenRouter page
Deepseek

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017

#4 · 45 price/capacity index · 7.7M tokens/$

OpenRouter page
Trending AI news

General public and programming

Open AI news desk

General · Tools & productivity

Gilbert + Tobin rethinks the business of law with AI

A conversation with Sam Nickless, Partner and Chief Executive Officer at Gilbert + Tobin.

Read OpenAI News
General · Tools & productivity

ChatGPT Plus for veterans and servicemembers

More than 20,000 veterans and transitioning service members have claimed a free year of ChatGPT Plus. See how they use it to prepare for civilian careers.

Read OpenAI News
Programming · Models & releases

BotPsy: On-Device Personal Assistant with a Sub-Billion-Parameter Agentic Language Model

Open the original announcement for confirmed product details, availability and pricing.

Read Hugging Face Blog
Programming · Models & releases

llm-gemini 0.36

Release: llm-gemini 0.36 Gemini 4 Carbon was announced two weeks ago for "a subset of cyber defenders", but today it's available to everyone else . This is Google's best ever Gemini, priced at $2/million input and $10/million output at launch (that's GPT-6.1 Sol / Claude Sonnet 5.5 prices) but scheduled to double in price to...

Read Simon Willison