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When you become a bit of an AI pro, it’s likely you’ll want access to most of the big-name models, and for good reason.
They all have unique strengths and weaknesses, including capabilities, costs, and benefits.
It’s almost impossible to give definitive advice that won’t date immediately, so I’m going to talk through the vibe of each company’s approach. Realize, though, that all the models are now pretty competitive, so your experience might vary.
Here are some salient points:
For Google:
- If you want an AI model with real-time web access and research, with tight integration to YouTube and Google Workspace, Google is your model. Google also has a really easy-to-use AI studio that provides free access to the Google Gemini API, which you can access in the console. It also offers free API access and is about 95% cheaper from a token perspective than Anthropic. Plus, its models have a massive 2M context window. Google is awesome for developers, and its latest iteration provides powerful scientific and reasoning capabilities.
- Google also has a host of other tools, like NotebookLM for studying and Firebase for vibe coding, plus heaps of other “Lab projects.” The Google Stack integrates neatly with Android and ChromeOS, but it generally works well with Apple too, as it’s pretty much platform-agnostic.
- Another tip on the Google front: it has API access to Google Maps, Google Travel, and YouTube. As one of the world’s strongest search engines, it crushes the competition in the data field, and it’s probably the leader now in AI video generation. Google has a lot going for it.
- Google also has Google Cloud, and extending AI services into that environment for hosting your own applications and services is quite easy to access and deploy.
For Anthropic:
- Anthropic’s Claude is killing it with the development community. It’s probably rated the #1 most reliable model. Claude 3.7 and the latest model, Claude 4.0, are ridiculously powerful and excellent at coding.
- Claude Code is one of the best AI agents and is easily set up on Mac and Linux. It’s as simple as running the command line npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code, navigating to your project folder with cd your-project-directory, and then typing claude to run it. You need a developer account and some tokens, but this is a phenomenal way to access AI. It gives you token-based consumption and can work within defined project folders on your behalf. Super cool!
- I’d also say that, in the early days, Claude was loved for its writing style. It seems to have a more lifelike, human, and clear way of expressing things, so that’s something else to consider.
- On the downside, Anthropic’s model is quite expensive (if consumed heavily), and there are real limits on the speed and performance you’ll squeeze out of the system. For large, complex, high-consumption tasks, it’s ridiculously costly. Processing 50MB of text through Claude could cost $80 compared to $2.50 with Google. The difference is massive.
For xAI Grok:
- This one’s new and still a bit scrappy, but the performance is phenomenal. It offers a powerful thinking mode, deep research, and an even deeper research mode.
- One thing I’d say about this model is its very large and powerful context window for end users. I’ve worked with it for over six hours on complex tasks, and it just eats them up. It seems to remember what came before and is very efficient at managing long strings.
- The party trick of xAI is its data centers. Elon has managed to string together 200,000 NVIDIA GPUs and is apparently aiming for 1 million. Before this, it wasn’t thought possible, with OpenAI maxing out at about 30,000, so Elon is really pulling away.
- As a point of complete speculation, I’ll note that xAI might one day end up in space. Elon teased that the US could double its energy production with 100 Starships, so there’s speculation he could move data centers off-planet, with unlimited theoretical real estate and energy. Seems like a reasonable assumption, given the pace of progress and the size of Starship.
- Another party trick is xAI’s real-time data access to X.com. While this may not seem relevant, it could be exceptionally powerful for responding to current events where timing matters. Paired with a more liberal policy on what it can do, xAI seems like a platform for rebels. The model is also being incorporated into Azure and other platforms, and it excels at real-world physics too, which leads to an additional point.
- xAI, Tesla, and X are all in a constellation of companies with SpaceX. There’s a high probability these platforms will start interacting. For example, SpaceX could be used for transport and transport intelligence globally. xAI will likely be used within Optimus. The “everything apps” being planned will probably integrate with X. There’s tremendous potential for xAI to become more than a trapped app, and Elon has the tools to make it happen.
For OpenAI’s ChatGPT:
- This is by far the world’s largest app, with over 600 million daily active users.
- ChatGPT is probably best known for its conversational power and reasoning models. It’s great at creative writing, summarizing documents, and conversational fluency.
- It also has content deals with some of the world’s best news sources, so its research capabilities are excellent.
- On balance, it seems to give the most to the broadest number of people. It’s the consumer king, and I’m sure its strategy is to branch out into more product lines and verticals, so it’s one to watch.
- It also has ChatGPT 5.0 coming, which is reportedly a massive upgrade, so we’ll see if they can re-cement their dominance. At the moment, I’d place them dead last.
You probably should cycle your models periodically if you can’t afford all of them and stay up to date with the latest updates.
These models are not static.
All of them can shift literally overnight.
You may have a preference for one, but you’re really limiting yourself if you’re not exploring all the models.
Stay up to date with regular announcements and test them.
Also, be pragmatic. There are differences between the models, but you don’t need them all. It depends on what you’re doing.
Conclusion
Models are a matter of personal preference.
If you want to code with APIs and integrate with your documents, I’d go with Google Gemini as a preference. It’s a full-suite solution with great capabilities.
If you want to code with precision, nice writing, and a good vibe, I’d pick Anthropic’s Claude.
If you want a powerhouse everyday model to do everything, I’d pick xAI’s Grok 3.
I’d pick ChatGPT for day-to-day questions and “woke” essay writing. It’s great at brainstorming, talking, and empathizing. It’s my least favorite, and I’ll probably drop it entirely unless ChatGPT 5.0 is epic.