The Huge List of AI Tools: What's Actually Worth Using in June 2025?

There are way too many AI tools out there now. Every week brings another dozen “revolutionary” AI products promising to transform how you work. It’s overwhelming trying to figure out what’s actually useful versus what’s just hype.

So I’ve put together this major comparison of all the major AI tools as of June 2025. No fluff, no marketing speak - just a straightforward look at what each tool actually does and who it’s best for. Whether you’re looking for coding help, content creation, or just want to chat with an AI, this should help you cut through the noise and find what you need.

I’ll keep this up to date as new tools emerge and existing ones evolve. If you spot any errors please let me know on social media!

Key

• - Paid plan needed ($10-30/month)
• - Premium plan needed ($100+/month)

Search, Chat & Discovery

While each major AI model offers unique strengths, I’ve found distinct personalities in the three main assistants I use. Claude feels like a tool that’s great at writing - exceptional for creative tasks with superior artifact creation and canvas capabilities. I pay for Claude Max and find it worth every penny. GPT feels like an assistant with lots of bells and whistles - great images, amazing real-time voice, fantastic for general chat, but just not as good at the fundamentals as Claude. I still use it regularly though. Gemini feels like a robot - it’s great at researching and being thorough, but it’s still a bit soulless. For research and analytical work, Google’s suite remains solid, while OpenAI’s tools excel at search and quick interactive conversations.

Coding

When it comes to coding assistance, Cursor remains excellent for close attention to edits and manual tweaks of sections, while Claude Code with Opus provides a more hands-off approach that is slightly better (though more expensive at £75/month). Emerging tools like Google’s Jules are promising, yet AI coding agents are still maturing towards full reliability. The decision between CLI and IDE-integrated tools often boils down to individual workflow preferences. While cloud-based builders offer fantastic speed for prototyping, I prefer more control for production-level development. For more on my experiences and best practices for coding with AI, see my post on Coding with AI. To explore how AI is reshaping software quality and craftsmanship, read AI: The New Dawn of Software Craft.

Creation and Productivity

In the realm of writing and design, my preference leans towards using Claude via Cursor, which consistently delivers superior results. It’s also worth checking out Adam Martin’s recent and insightful evaluation of Google’s Stitch. Although many AI-powered creation tools come with a significant price tag at present, the innovative prototypes emerging signal a future where content creation across all media formats will be fundamentally transformed. (To see a practical example of building an AI creativity application from the ground up, you might find the lessons from my live AI cheatsheet generator build interesting!)

Building Agents

The toolkit for constructing AI agents is still nascent, with substantial opportunities for advancement across all platforms. Evaluating agent performance, for example, presents ongoing challenges. I’m actively contributing to this area with my own solution, Kaijo (you can read the announcement here). For a broader look at the future of AI agent development, check out my thoughts on Building the Future. When it comes to orchestrating agent workflows, n8n is a powerful choice for no-code automation, although it has a steeper technical learning curve. For a more user-friendly alternative, Zapier is a solid option. Understanding how agents manage knowledge is crucial, and I believe that Graph RAG is the Future for building truly intelligent systems - I will add more tools here when they become available.