Transcription
If you've been wondering which AI tool to use and when to pay for them, this video is for you. I've spent hundreds of hours using Chatubi, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity.
And the only conclusion I can draw is that there isn't a universal answer for which one is the best. It really comes down to who you are and what you're using it for. So today, I'll be sharing which one suits best for who and tell you whether it's worth your money. And because I respect your time, I'll highlight the sequence in which I'll cover the AI tools so you can skip ahead if you're here for a specific one. If we haven't met before, I'm Ali Salam and I currently work as a director in a tech company. And on this channel, I'll help you turn tech and finance into your personal advantage.
Chat is the jack of all trades. It nails everyday stuff. drafting, rewriting emails and documents, summarizing meetings or PDFs into real action items, and helping you brainstorm and structure your thinking. You also get access to deep research, which lets you pull data from multiple sources and synthesize a clean, structured report, perfect for when you want a real deep dive without opening 47 tabs and questioning your life choices. Another great thing with Chat GBT is its ability to draw from context. That's what makes it feel more efficient over time. The first example of that is projects which lets you build a workspace for each topic where the relevant files and chats stay together and chat GPT will draw from them anytime you work in the project. So if you prompt chat GPT in a project chat, it will check the materials and instructions that you've attached in the project space, which makes it super convenient if you want the AI to stay consistent over a specific topic that you're working on. Then you have custom instructions that lets you lock in your tone, format, and style once and then it will consistently answer the way you want across all chats. And lastly, if you toggle on memory, chat GPT will remember your preferences across chats and you can review or erase that memory anytime. My personal take is that chat GPT is unusually good when it comes to context continuity compared to most of the competitors. Then there is agent mode. It uses a virtual browser and tools to do multi-step tasks like shortlisting options, comparing them, and then drafting an email based on the findings. And lastly, you have scheduled tasks that lets you set reoccurring check-ins like receiving the most important AI updates at the start of each week.
Now, let's shift gear into the subscription ladder. There are three paid tiers. The first paid tier go gives you higher GPT5 upload limits, more images and data features, plus projects, tasks, and custom GPTs, and also a larger memory context window. Plus is even higher limits. It allows access to deep research and agent mode and includes 40 agent messages per month. For most of you, this subscription tier will be the best pick. And pro is basically max headroom. practically unlimited usage, maximum deep research, 400 agent messages per month, the strongest memory and context, and priority access to new features. Also, an added benefit is that your wallet gets lighter.
So, who's chat for? If you want one default AI that covers the whole workday, writing, summarizing, planning, research, and occasional automation, then chat is usually the safest all-around pick.
Gemini is Google's ecosystem native. Similar to Chat GPT, it handles general stuff really well. Drafting, summarizing emails, rewriting documents, summarizing long threads and turning messy notes into something your manager won't hate reading. But the real kick is the deep integration into Google Workspace. On the paid plan, Gemini shows up inside Gmail, Docs, Vids, and can even work with what's already in Drive. So, you're not doing the copypaste shuffle like it's a cardio workout. Deep research works similar to Chat GBT. It builds a plan, gathers sources, and returns a clean structured report. But there is a pretty significant Gemini difference, which is that you can optionally include your own Gmail, Docs, drives, chats, or even file sources. So it can produce a brief that is based both on the web and on your actual internal collateral. Another cool capability in Gemini is gems which lets you build custom mini experts for specific tasks like one that turns text into an executive brief and you can reuse them whenever you want. It also has scheduled actions like chat GPT that lets you automate reoccurring check-ins. And lastly, a notable mention is the context window which is huge. Gemini has a 1 million token context window, which is a fancy way of saying it can chew through huge amounts of information in one prompt. You could literally drop multiple books as input to Gemini and it will handle it. One drawback that is important to be aware of though is that it doesn't have a project feature, although I'm sure that's going to come out soon.
Now, the subscription ladder is fairly simple. You have two tiers. Google AI Pro is the best pick for most people. You get higher limits. Gemini inside Google apps, access to Notebook LM Pro, which is great for low hallucination tasks like extracting insights from reports. You also get access to Flow and Whisk, which are tools for video and image generation. And you get 2 terabytes of storage and 1,000 monthly AI credits that you can use in Flow and Whisk. Then you have the second subscription tier, which is Google Ultra. That is the maximum everything tier. You get the highest limits, 30 tab of storage, 25,000 monthly AI credits, and extras like YouTube Premium in some regions, plus Deep Thinking and Gemini Agent, which are currently US only.
So, who's Gemini for? If you mostly work in Google Workspace, or you care about video or image generation, then Gemini will be the most natural upgrade.
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Claude is the deep work partner like Chachi and Gemini. It handles everyday stuff well, like drafting emails, rewriting documents, summarizing long material into action items, and helping you brainstorm and structure your thinking. But I want to clarify something. When people say that Claude is for deep work, they don't just mean coding, which it's most famous for. Claude is also fantastic for non-coding deep work. things like long documents, careful reasoning, strategizing, and turning messy inputs into crisp structured outputs. And the big reason for that is extended thinking mode. For tougher tasks, Claude can slow down, be more deliberate, which is basically the opposite of how most of us handle deadlines. Claude also has a very workbench feel. Projects let you keep a workspace for a topic similar to chatgpt and artifacts gives you a separate side window for big outputs like documents, a table, or even a small tool, which is honestly really convenient because you don't need to scroll through the chat like it's a medieval scroll. Then there's claude skills, which are kind of reusable mini playbooks. You can set up a specific skill to do a specific job like applying brand colors, follow a specific structure, or follow your company's writing style. So you get repeatable quality instead of reinventing the prompt every time. And Claude can also connect to external tools and data through connectors. So you can pull context from where your work actually lives instead of doing the whole copy paste thing. Now, as mentioned before, Claude is obviously amazing for long form thinking, but it's primarily text output, meaning that it's great for writing and analysis, but the drawback is that it's not so great for image and video generation.
Now, looking at subscription tiers, pro is the standard upgrade at about 20 bucks a month, which is good for regular day-to-day use, and max is kind of the power user tier at about 100 a month. Here you'll get much higher usage limits, higher output limits, memory access across conversations and early access to new features and also a really important thing is that you would get priority access when the servers are really busy.
So who's cloud for? If your work involves deep thinking, writing, analysis, strategizing, long documents, and careful reasoning where video and image generation isn't that important, then Claude is a killer pick.
Last on the list, we have Perplexity, which is the answer engine. Like the others, it can write and summarize, but its real superpower is that it behaves like a search first assistant that goes out to the web real time and shows its receipts with citations. So, if Chhat GPT is your Swiss Army knife, Perplexity would be your detective. It's built for questions where you care about being right and want to have an easy time backing it up. Every answer comes out with numbered sources that you can click, which makes it great for work you actually have to defend in front of colleagues. When you want depth, then Pro Search works like a search mode on demand. It does multiple searches, pulls from highquality sources, and synthesizes a structured response for you. You can even choose which model you want powering the answer and which sources you want the model to target. And for deep dive research mode automates a lot of searching, reading and returns a full report similar to chat GBT but with Perplexity citation first mindset. And then there is labs. This is where Perplexity stops being a search and becomes kind of like a delivery factory. It can generate things like reports, spreadsheets, dashboards, even simple web apps backed by browsing and analysis tools. You also have spaces, which is kind of project-like research hubs where you can organize threads, set custom instructions per space, and collaborate with others.
Now, if we shift gear into the subscription ladder, pro is $20 per month, and the main upgrade is more depth, more citations, lab access, research access, and lots of more proarch capacity. Max is kind of like it sounds. It's $200 per month, targeting people who basically wants unrestricted access to the heavy research features and the top models. And for companies, Enterprise Pro is 40 bucks per seat per month and Enterprise Max is $325 per seat per month with stronger privacy and collaboration controls.
So, who's Perplexity for? If you do heavy research work and you want fast cited answers that you can trust and share, Perplexity is going to be the most natural pick.
I want to leave you with some final thoughts that may or may not be of further help. First, if you after all of this still don't know which one to pick, I would recommend you to try all the free versions. The reality is for a generalist user, most AI tools are kind of converging to a similar set of base capabilities. Try out which one you like the most. Don't worry too much about it. you're not picking a life partner. That being said, the second advice is don't switch too often. Context will become more important over time, and your AI will learn from your past conversations and make your experience more accurate the more you use it. So, the value of an AI tool increases the longer you use it. The third advice I want to leave you with is to stick to monthly plans. the capabilities in the various models are constantly changing and you want to be able to stick to one model but also kind of switch if something significant enough comes out. So you don't want to be locked into an AI tool just because you bought an annual plan. And the last advice I want to give you is explore the subscriptions that you already have because they actually might already give you some of these prepaid plans for free. For example, my Revolute subscription gives me access to Perplexity Pro and Lovable, and I'm not affiliated with Revolute. And that specific case might not actually even be relevant for you because it may differ over regions. But my point is to check your existing subscriptions in case they already provide you with access to paid subscriptions for free or at a discount.
And now you should be geared with the knowledge to make a selection of which AI tool you want to invest your hard-earned money on. I hope this video was of value to you. Let me know if it was and let me know if it wasn't because this channel is for you. So, your feedback really matters. And since we ended on Perplexity, I will point you to this tutorial over here, which is an end- to- end walkthrough of how you can become proficient in Perplexity. As always, thank you for trusting me with your time and take care.