Best AI tools for research

ChatGPT is OpenAI's chat assistant. You describe what you need in plain language and it drafts, rewrites, explains or brainstorms with you. It handles a wide spread of everyday jobs: emails, outlines, summaries, study help and quick coding questions.

Best for: drafting and rewriting everyday text, brainstorming ideas and outlines, quick explanations and summaries.

Worth knowing: Check facts and figures it gives you before relying on them, especially for recent events.

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Perplexity answers questions by searching the web and showing numbered sources next to its answer, so you can click through and check what it says. It works well as a starting point for research.

Best for: research questions where you want sources, quick fact-finding on current topics, comparing options with links to check.

Worth knowing: Open the cited sources for anything important; a citation is not a guarantee the summary is right.

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Claude is Anthropic's AI assistant. It is often chosen for working through long documents, careful writing and editing, and help with code. You can upload files and ask it to summarise, compare or rewrite them.

Best for: summarising and questioning long documents, careful drafting and editing, coding help.

Worth knowing: Like any assistant, it can be wrong. Verify important details against the source.

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Notion AI works inside the Notion workspace. It can summarise pages and meeting notes, draft content, and answer questions using what is already in your workspace.

Best for: summarising notes and meetings, drafting inside Notion, finding information across your workspace.

Worth knowing: Most useful if your team already keeps its work in Notion.

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