The 21 best generative AI tools in 2026

Have you ever wished you could instantly brainstorm creative ideas, generate realistic images, or write compelling marketing copy without the talent—uh, time loss or inspiration?

While I'd be hard-pressed to recommend relying on generative AI tools for everything, these innovative AI-powered solutions are revolutionizing the way we approach content creation, design, coding, and problem-solving.

I thought it'd be a great idea to put together a list of which generative AI tools are the most horrible. But since no one accepted that pitch, here's a list of the best generative AI platforms.

I've selected the 21 tools below based on a combination of my own experiences and the thousands of hours of testing the Zapier team has done.

The best generative AI tools

• Jasper for AI-powered marketing content

• Shortwave for email writing and management

• Notion for creating a second brain 

• Runway for freeform and creative videos

• Wondershare Filmora for polishing video 

• Midjourney for the best AI image results

• Adobe Photoshop for AI-generated image enhancement

• ElevenLabs for a comprehensive AI voice library

• Canva for all-in-one design and presentations

• Gamma for AI-powered presentations and websites

• Pitch for sales teams

• Wix for intuitive website-building 

• Framer for AI-centric website-building

• Airtable for building data-centric apps

• Lovable for easy vibe coding

• Cursor for coding with AI agents

• ChatGPT for versatility

• Gemini for Google product integration and image generation

• Copilot for Microsoft product integration

• Claude for great writing skills

• Zapier for building safely with AI

What are generative AI tools?

The term "generative AI" can be a little vague in that it covers a wide range of tools and technologies. Here, I'm focusing on generative AI tools specifically designed to create entirely new assets or significantly enhance existing ones. The tools I'll explore below all excel at generating original content, such as text, images, audio, code, or a combination of all of those things.

Here's a breakdown of the key categories I'll be covering.

• AI writing and editing tools: These tools allow you to generate original written content, like blog posts, marketing copy, or even creative fiction. They can also assist with editing existing text, suggesting improvements for grammar, clarity, and overall flow. I've included AI email assistants in this category since they include a lot of generative AI.

• AI video generation tools: These tools create video content from scratch based on textual descriptions or prompts. Some tools specialize in generating photorealistic visuals, while others focus on creating more stylized or animated videos. Many of them can also be used to edit videos.

• AI image generation and editing tools: These tools help you generate entirely new images or manipulate existing ones. Some specialize in photorealistic creations, while others excel at creating artistic imagery. AI image editing tools offer functionalities like removing unwanted objects, enhancing resolution, or even generating entirely new image elements.

• AI voice and music generation tools: Some of these tools enable users to generate realistic-sounding human voices from text, offering a variety of voices with different accents and tones. Others let you generate music using natural language prompts.

• AI presentation apps: These tools leverage AI to streamline the presentation creation process. They can generate visually compelling slides based on your content, suggest improvements to structure and flow, and even provide data-driven insights to enhance audience engagement.

• AI website builders: These website creation platforms utilize AI to simplify the website-building process. They offer functionalities like automatic design generation, image resizing, and content suggestions, allowing users with no coding experience to build professional-looking websites.

• AI app builders and coding assistants: These tools create mobile or web applications without extensive (or, in some cases, any) coding knowledge. They leverage AI to automate various aspects of the development process, such as generating basic app layouts or implementing functionalities based on natural language instructions.

Given the ridiculous volume of generative AI apps available, there's no way my list of the top apps is going to be the same as your list of the top apps. The goal here is to introduce you to some excellent apps—all of which have been put through the wringer by the Zapier team—and inspire you to explore the category even more.

What makes the best generative AI tool?

Not all generative AI tools are equally as powerful—the "Terminator" plots progressively reinforce that fact. Some generative AIs excel at specific tasks, while others offer a broader range of capabilities. I've leveraged insights from Zapier's team of app testers to bring you this analysis and explore the key features that define a truly great generative AI tool:

• Versatility: The most valuable tools offer a wide range of functionalities, allowing you to tackle diverse creative challenges, from crafting marketing copy to generating innovative product concepts.

• Output quality: Ultimately, the success of a generative AI tool hinges on the quality of its results. Look for tools that produce highly realistic images, informative text formats, or creative content that aligns with your specific needs.

• User-friendliness: A great generative AI tool should be intuitive and easy to use, even for those without extensive technical expertise.

• Control and customization: While AI automates tasks, you still need control. The best tools empower you to refine prompts, tailor outputs, and guide the creative process effectively.

• Underlying technology: Many generative AI tools are powered by large language models (LLMs) and large multimodal models (LMMs)—complex algorithms trained on massive datasets. Understanding the models behind a tool can provide insights into its capabilities and potential limitations.

The best generative AI tools at a glance

The best generative AI tools for writing and editing

Jasper for maintaining brand voice

Jasper pros:

• One of the most feature-rich AI writing generators

• Integrates with Grammarly, Surfer, and its own AI art generator

Jasper cons:

• Expensive given that all the apps use similar language models 

Jasper is a versatile AI writing assistant known for its user-friendly interface and extensive capabilities. From crafting blog posts and social media captions to generating creative sales copy and product descriptions, there's a lot that you can do with this tool. 

Its focus is on marketing campaigns, offering tools to craft high-converting copy, social media content, and blog outlines. But at $59/month (billed annually), it's not exactly the cheapest AI solution on the market, so it may be too pricey for marketing teams with a tight budget.

I found Jasper's Brand Voice tool particularly useful. If you upload samples of content, Jasper will analyze your style, capturing elements like humor, tone, and use of listicles. Granted, a lot of people already do that with ChatGPT, but Jasper's dedicated tool feels a bit more refined.

You can also use Zapier's Jasper integration to connect it to thousands of other apps to kick off Jasper's AI generation from wherever you spend your time. For example, when your team shares a blog idea through Slack, Jasper can automatically draft the first version, save the output to Google Docs for editing, and notify the content team in Slack once it's ready. Learn more about how to automate Jasper.

Jasper pricing: Starts at $59/user/month (billed annually) for the Pro plan, which includes 1 seat.

Shortwave for email assistance

Shortwave pros:

• Deep integration with Google Calendar

• AI assistant is very flexible

Shortwave cons:

• Interface feels cluttered at times

On the AI email assistance front, Shortwave takes the crown for the most comprehensive suite of AI features. These functionalities reside conveniently in the top-left corner of your screen, symbolized by a magic star icon. Clicking the icon reveals the Shortwave AI assistant, a docked chat window on the left side.

One of Shortwave's unique features is the AI-powered email search. I don't know what your inbox looks like, but mine routinely causes me anxiety. Imagine effortlessly surfacing old emails and conversations by asking your inbox questions, eliminating the need to sift through mountains of messages.  

Shortwave can extract key data from email threads, generate content based on your email exchanges (like crafting a tweet summarizing your productivity tips), and even answer your questions in a ChatGPT-style format. 

Shortwave pricing: Personal plans include the Free and Pro tiers ($14/seat/month). Business plans start at $24/month/seat, and include 5 years of AI search history.

The best generative AI tools for knowledge management 

Notion for creating a second brain

Notion pros:

• Flexible organization features

• Great collaboration tools

Notion cons:

• May take too much work to maintain

Notion is a strong workspace for jotting down notes and organizing your knowledge. You can do all of this manually, of course. Or you can use Notion AI to generate and edit text for you, adjusting the text's tone and structure to match your needs. And when your workspace is filled to the brim with useful information, you can upgrade to a business plan to get access to Notion AI. Ask questions about anything and get generated answers grounded in your data.

As your Notion brain gets bigger, it's a good idea to use Zapier's Notion integration so you can orchestrate workflows that keep Notion in sync with the rest of your business processes. For example, when a new task is added in Asana, you can use Notion AI to draft a project brief, and alert your team in Slack when it's ready for review. You can also use Zapier to access all your Notion data—and take action on it—directly from your other AI tools. Discover more ways to automate Notion.

Notion pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $10/user/month (billed annually).

The best generative AI tools for video generation 

Runway for freeform and creative videos 

Runway pros:

• Advanced AI tools for unique results

• Great help content

Runway cons:

• Steep learning curve

Runway takes a unique approach to AI video generation. Many generative AI tools that handle the video format tend to do so with pre-defined templates. But Runway lets you capture and generate unique videos from prompts. 

Getting the exact results you want will be difficult, especially when starting out, but Runway has an Academy with plenty of guides and videos to show you how the platform works. You can also keep this prompting guide handy to help you predict the results. These resources make the learning curve less curvy. 

But text-to-video isn't the only trick in the book. Runway has a large collection of AI-powered tools to remove backgrounds, create super-slow motion video, and generate subtitles—among many others that work with sound and static images. The platform has a serious video-editing vibe, but all the tools are surprisingly easy to use, even if it's hard to understand what's really going on behind the scenes.

If that's not enough, Runway also connects with Zapier. This means you can connect it with thousands of other apps and orchestrate AI-powered workflows across your organization. For example, when someone shares a video idea in Slack, you can automatically use ChatGPT to refine it into a polished prompt and send it to Runway to create. Once Runway's created the video, it can notify your team in Slack for review.

Runway pricing: Free plan includes 125 one-time credits (you can't buy more); Standard plan for $12/user/month (billed annually) includes 625 monthly credits with the option to top up.

Wondershare Filmora for polishing video 

Wondershare Filmora pros:

• Traditional video editing tool with AI features

• Lots of learning resources

Wondershare Filmora cons:

• Runs slow on low-end computers

While Runway is living its creative exploration fantasy, Wondershare Filmora takes a more streamlined approach to AI video generation. It integrates a suite of AI editing tools designed to enhance and polish existing video footage. Features like background removal, noise reduction, and automatic object tracking streamline the editing process, saving you time to focus on storytelling.

Filmora also offers AI-powered text-to-video generation capabilities—the internet's AI video generation bread and butter. You can use a script or outline to automatically generate a video storyboard complete with royalty-free music and transitions. There are plenty of other creativity and productivity features, from a template library that quickly puts together a video based on your footage to auto beat sync, which helps you keep your cuts aligned with the music blasting on your audio track.

All of these features are easy to use. But if you need extra guidance, Wondershare offers tons of in-depth video guides and tutorials to help you along. 

Wondershare Filmora pricing: Free plan available with video watermark; Basic plan for $49.99/year includes 1 GB of cloud storage and no watermark. 

The best generative AI tools for image generation and editing

Midjourney for the best AI image results

Midjourney pros:

• Consistently produces the best looking AI-generated images

• The community is a great way to get inspiration

Midjourney cons:

• Images you generate are public by default

I've put a lot of time and prompts into Midjourney, and trying to get exactly what I need feels like a game of charades. Once you nail down your prompt, though, it's hands-down the best quality AI art generator. The images it creates have better textures and colors, and are generally just more interesting and visually appealing. 

Best of all, Midjourney now has an actual web app. You're no longer limited to using it through Discord—but you can if you want. Both the web and Discord tools get consistent updates, and there's an alpha site for testing new versions. Midjourney has tons of advanced features like blending multiple images, preserving details across different generations, and matching styles, but their availability can depend on the platform and the version you use.

One key drawback: By default, every image you generate is posted publicly on Midjourney's Explore page and can be viewed on your profile. While not necessarily a problem for artists, this might be a dealbreaker if you're looking to use Midjourney to create assets for your business. 

Midjourney pricing: Basic plan from $8/month (billed annually) and provides commercial usage rights.

Adobe Photoshop for AI-generated image enhancement

Adobe Photoshop pros:

• Some of the best AI-powered tools you can find in any app

• It's still Photoshop, with all the power and control that gives you

Adobe Photoshop cons:

• Steep learning curve 

Known for being the industry-standard image editing software, Adobe Photoshop wasn't immune to the AI effect. While not solely an AI image generation tool, Photoshop leverages Adobe's Sensei and Firefly AI with a range of generative features. 

You can easily remove unwanted objects from images, enhance resolutions for better clarity, and generate entirely new image elements using Adobe Firefly. There are also Neural Filters that can do things like intelligently adjust your subject's facial expression, transfer the color palette from one image to another, and remove compression artifacts. The automatic subject and background selection is excellent, and the automatic tone, color, and contrast adjustment all work as you'd expect.

For those of you already familiar with Photoshop's workflow, this integration of AI functionality significantly boosts your creative toolkit. It won't make Photoshop any easier to learn, but it'll help you create much better results.

Adobe Photoshop pricing: From $19.99/month as part of the Photography Plan, which includes Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and 1,000 generative credits to use generative features.

The best generative AI tools for voice and music generation

ElevenLabs for a comprehensive AI voice library

ElevenLabs pros: 

• Voice library includes 10,000+ voices, including licensable AI-powered versions of real people

• Good search and filtering tools 

ElevenLabs cons: 

• Controls aren't as powerful as other AI voice generators 

ElevenLabs takes a comprehensive approach to AI voice generation, making the tool useful for creators, businesses, and individuals alike. The platform is home to a library of ultra-realistic, human-sounding voices across various languages and accents.

This versatility allows you to tailor the voice perfectly to your project, whether it's a casual explainer video, a dramatic audiobook narration, or a professional-sounding podcast intro. 

Beyond voice selection, ElevenLabs provides users with granular control over speech parameters. Adjust the pace and pitch, and even add subtle emotional inflections to fine-tune the generated voice and ensure it aligns with your tone and message.

You can also connect ElevenLabs to Zapier to automate workflows that weave AI voice generation into broader production processes. For example, Zapier can take a finalized script from Google Docs, send it to ElevenLabs to generate narration, and upload the audio file to Dropbox. Or you can kick off the process directly from your AI tool of choice.

ElevenLabs pricing: Free plan includes 3 studio projects; Starter plan for $4.17/month (billed annually) gives you 20 projects and a commercial license.

The best generative AI tools for presentations

Canva for all-in-one design and presentations

Canva pros:

• Robust free plan with a variety of projects, app connections, and features

• Gives non-designers a way to create professional images and presentations

Canva cons:

• Not as powerful as dedicated editing software

Canva is practically everywhere. Everyone and their moms use it for graphic design. It's great for tons of projects, from social graphics to QBR decks, and the drag-and-drop editor makes it usable even if your design background begins and ends with "I once resized a logo badly."

Its AI features are a mixed bag, but the useful ones are genuinely useful. You can generate first-draft designs, bring in brand docs for context, and use Canva's assistant while you're already building instead of bouncing to a separate AI tool. And that's the real appeal here—Canva keeps AI inside a workflow people already know how to use.

It also pushes beyond static design. Canva's no-code tools let you build simple websites and interactive elements from plain-language prompts, which makes it a decent option for lightweight marketing assets and internal projects.

The best part is still the free plan. Canva won't replace dedicated design or dev software, but for teams that need to make polished visuals fast without hiring a full-time designer for every slide deck, it's hard to beat.

And with Zapier's Canva integration, you can turn design work into a real workflow. For example, you can draft social post variations on a schedule, save them to Google Sheets, or create new Canva designs automatically from data in Notion. Check out a few more ways to automate Canva.

Canva pricing: Robust free plan. The Pro plan is $18/month and adds premium tools plus 100GB of cloud storage.

Gamma for AI-powered presentations and websites

Gamma pros:

• Intuitive interface

• Fast and easy way to generate complete first-draft presentations

Gamma cons:

• Limitations in the templates and a lack of fine control

Gamma is very good at one specific job: turning rough content into a polished-looking deck fast. If you already have notes, a transcript, or a messy outline, Gamma can turn that into something presentable in under a minute.

That's also why it's better as a presentation builder than a presentation writer. You can let Gamma generate text, but the results are stronger when you bring your own material and use the AI for structure, condensation, and layout.

Your input quality matters a lot here. Gamma works best when you're building from content that already has some substance behind it, like:

• Turning a bulleted list of notes into a polished deck

• Condensing a transcript into slide-ready takeaways

• Preserving polished copy while Gamma handles the visual assembly

Nothing really beats PowerPoint for customization, control, and compatibility. But if you don't need pixel-level precision and mostly want a respectable deck by lunch, Gamma is the better bet.

Gamma also integrates with Zapier, so you can automatically turn meeting notes into recap decks, create enablement decks from docs and wikis, or turn customer notes into a QBR presentation. Kick it all off based on triggers or directly from your AI chatbot.

Gamma pricing: Free plan with 10 cards per prompt and 400 total AI credits; Paid plans start at $9/seat/month for 20 cards per prompt and 1,000 monthly AI credits.

Pitch for sales teams 

Pitch pros:

• Great presentation design out of the box

• Lots of useful integrations

Pitch cons:

• Basic AI generation settings

If you're looking for an AI presentation maker to create a deck for your next PowerPoint party, you've scrolled too far. Pitch is more niche—it's geared towards sales teams. 

Enter the prompt, choose the fonts and color scheme, and you've got your initial deck. The generated presentation structure is designed to cover everything you have to talk about, from pain points your leads are experiencing to major industry-wide issues to positioning your solutions as the best in the market. After you generate the presentation, everything becomes a simple point-and-click: just find the stats and paste them where appropriate.

Pitch also integrates with data apps like Google Analytics and ChartMogul, meaning you can easily pull in deal-closing stats to up the ante. It also accepts data from Google Sheets or a CSV file, so if your data is on other platforms, you can still export it and put it to good use.

Pitch pricing: Free plan includes unlimited presentations and 100 AI credits; Plus plan for $13/month (billed annually) includes 3,000 AI credits and the ability to buy more.

The best generative AI tools for website building

Wix for intuitive website-building  

Wix pros:

• Effective, easy-to-use AI site designer

• Backed up by Wix's mature site builder ecosystem

Wix cons:

• Not the most futuristic-feeling AI around

Wix is a household name in the website-building space, and for good reason: it offers a perfect blend of ease of use and powerful features. Its AI capabilities are particularly noteworthy.

The Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) tool streamlines the website creation process from start to finish. Simply answer a few questions about your desired website type and functionality, and Wix ADI will generate a personalized website template complete with layouts, content suggestions, and even royalty-free images. This is a fantastic option for users who want a professional-looking website up and running quickly.

Beyond ADI, Wix integrates AI throughout its platform. Users can leverage AI-powered features like automatic image resizing, background removal for photos, and even a logo maker to create a cohesive brand identity for their website.

Wix also connects to Zapier, allowing you to orchestrate workflows that extend beyond the website itself. For example, when a visitor submits a form on your Wix site, you can use AI to enrich that lead data, add it to your CRM, and notify your sales team in Slack. Learn more about how to automate Wix.

Wix pricing: Light plan for $17/month includes 2 collaborators; plans from $29/month include more collaborator seats and basic marketing and eCommerce features. 

Framer for AI-centric website-building

Framer pros:

• It's a super impressive and fun generative AI tool 

• The rest of the app is great, so you can build a real site

Framer cons:

• Needs a lot of work to go from an AI draft to a great site

While Wix caters to a broad audience, Framer is the AI website builder for designers and creative professionals. The platform includes powerful AI design tools like Auto Layout, which automatically fine-tunes the spacing and arrangement of website elements.

Get started using one of their free website templates, or enter a prompt, and it'll create a rough website, including some AI-generated draft copy. It's the closest thing to the dream "type a prompt and get a website." 

You'll still need to do things like turn links and buttons that look clickable into truly interactive elements using Framer's suite builder. It's a great site builder—just keep in mind that it has a more code-centric approach Wix. 

Framer pricing: Free plan available for non-commercial use; individual paid plans start at $10/month (billed annually).

The best generative AI tools for app building

Airtable for building data-centric apps

Airtable pros:

• Powerful AI platform that lets you build tools on top of databases

• Dozens of integrations and the ability to build step-by-step workflows

Airtable cons:

• Steep learning curve if you haven't worked with relational databases before

Airtable sits in the sweet spot between spreadsheet familiarity and database structure. If your team has outgrown a chaotic Google Sheet but isn't ready to build a full custom app, Airtable makes a lot of sense.

Its AI features are most useful when paired with the data model underneath. You can build workflows that update records automatically, deploy AI agents to pull structured data from documents like invoices or contracts, and use Omni to build interfaces or apps on top of your existing data.

In other words, Airtable does more than just help you generate content. It helps you do something with your data. That's what makes it a better fit for operational use cases than a lot of more general-purpose AI builders.

And once Airtable is acting as a source of truth, Zapier can extend those workflows across the rest of your stack by syncing records across tools, triggering follow-up actions automatically, and keeping dashboards up to date with data from multiple sources. Read more about how to automate Airtable.

Airtable pricing: The free plan includes limited functions to get started. The Team plan is $24 per month, and the Business plan is $45 per month. Airtable also has custom plans for enterprise use cases.

The best vibe coding and AI coding tools

Lovable for easy vibe coding

Lovable pros:

• The most beginner-friendly vibe coding tool

• Non-developers can get working prototypes running just with the chat interface

Lovable cons:

• Advanced users may feel constrained by the limitations

Lovable is almost suspiciously easy to use. You describe what you want in plain language, and it builds a working front-end experience for you. For beginners, that's the whole appeal.

Among vibe coding tools, Lovable is the most approachable by a comfortable margin. Non-developers can build a functional prototype, website, or UI without touching code, and the app does a decent job of fixing errors as you go.

There's a tradeoff to this design philosophy, though. Those beginner-friendly guardrails make it easier to get started, but they also make it harder to get very specific. If you're more technical, or you care a lot about precision, you'll probably hit the ceiling faster here than with other vibe-coding tools.

That's why Lovable works best as an entry point. It's a great way to build your first working prototype quickly, especially if you're still figuring out what you want to make in the first place.

Lovable pricing: Free plan with 5 daily credits. The first tier costs $25 and adds 100 monthly credits.

Cursor for coding with AI agents

Cursor pros:

• Excellent for debugging

• More control over development

Cursor cons:

• High complexity and learning curve

If Lovable is the easy starting point, Cursor is what you reach for once you want more control. It's an AI-first coding environment built for people who want AI help without giving up the actual code.

Instead of hiding the work behind a chat interface, Cursor keeps the code front and center. That's what makes it especially strong for debugging and more complex projects—you can inspect what's happening, make granular changes, and use AI as a collaborator instead of a black box.

You can also pull in existing code from tools like GitHub and work through it piece by piece, which is a lot more useful than hoping another app's chat window can untangle a project it barely understands.

Cursor is more of a guided coding experience than a "describe it and watch it happen" tool. It skips some of the convenience features that make beginner-friendly vibe coding apps feel effortless, and it expects you to think more like a developer. But for technical users, that's usually the point.

Using Zapier MCP, you can also connect Cursor with thousands of other tools, so you can take action across your tech stack directly from your code interface or chat window.

Cursor pricing: Free plan with limited access; paid plans start at $20/month

The best generative AI chatbots

Chatbots stand on strange grounds as far as the definition of generative AI goes, but they are capable of generating content, interacting with users, answering questions, and simulating human interactions, making them part of the pack.

ChatGPT for versatility

ChatGPT pros:

• Easy to use and kind of fun

• Powerful

ChatGPT cons:

• You need to be on the paid plan to get the most from it

The original, the most known, the first of its kind—ChatGPT rose to the top of the AI chatbot food chain quickly. Since its initial domination of dinner-party conversations everywhere, it's turned from a party trick into a genuinely useful tool. Especially with the release of more powerful models, its versatility is unmatched. 

ChatGPT can answer questions, search the web,  translate across languages, visualize data, write code, and understand audio. You can even build your own custom bot with unique instructions and data using GPTs. These bots can carry out straightforward tasks, simplify processes, or just do zany things for the fun of it. If you're looking for one generative AI tool to do it all, this is the one.

You can also use Zapier's ChatGPT integration to incorporate ChatGPT into your existing workflows. For example, when a new customer support ticket is added to Zendesk, you can use ChatGPT to draft a personalized response, share it with your support team in Slack for review, and record the interaction in your CRM. And with Zapier MCP, you can kick off the whole process directly from your chat window. Discover more ways to automate ChatGPT.

ChatGPT pricing: Free plan available; paid plans from $8/month (billed monthly) for ChatGPT Go and $20/month for ChatGPT Plus.

Gemini for Google product integration and image generation

Gemini pros:

• Great for analyzing large documents or code

• Deep Google integrations, such as with Chrome

• No limit on image generation

Gemini cons:

• Not as functional compared to other chatbots if you're not deeply integrated with Google

Gemini makes the most sense if you already live in Google's ecosystem. On its own, it's a capable multimodal chatbot. Inside Google Workspace and Chrome, it's much more useful.

It can handle the usual chatbot jobs—research, drafting, coding, web search, and image generation—but the real advantage is context. Gemini is built to work alongside the Google tools a lot of teams already use every day, so if your work happens in Docs, Gmail, Slides, and Chrome, it fits more naturally into that environment than most competitors.

Gemini pricing: Gemini is free to use; Google AI Plus is $7.99 per month and adds Gemini to Google apps and Chrome. Higher plans further increase tool access, including more coding options and agent development.

Copilot for Microsoft product integration

Copilot pros:

• Integration with Windows and Microsoft 365 apps

• Run pre-installed agents in 365 apps, or build your own

Copilot cons:

Free plan lacks the best integration features

Copilot is best understood as Microsoft's AI layer for the products a lot of businesses already run on. If your company works in Windows, Edge, Outlook, Teams, and Microsoft 365 all day, Copilot has a clear advantage over more standalone chatbots.

On paper, its core capabilities won't surprise you. It can draft, summarize, answer questions, and help with research, just like the other major AI assistants.

The real difference is where it gets its context. Copilot can pull from your Microsoft environment—files, emails, meetings, calendars, and apps—making it much more useful for day-to-day work within that ecosystem. That's a big deal for businesses that want AI features without stepping outside Microsoft's existing security and admin structure.

Copilot also includes a screen-sharing mode that gives the AI direct visual context when you're trying to solve a problem in real time.

And the Microsoft 365 Copilot app includes an agent builder with a low-code interface, so teams can create more specialized assistants for internal workflows. If you aren't deep in Microsoft's ecosystem, Copilot is less compelling. If you are, it's one of the most natural ways to add AI to work your team is already doing.

Copilot pricing: The free version of Copilot doesn't come with the integrations that give it the edge over other LLMs. At the $9.99 per month tier, you get access to most of the integrations with Microsoft 365. If you want to build AI agents, you'll need a $30 per month Copilot Studio add-on, or a business plan.

Claude for great writing quality

Claude pros:

• Tends to respond more empathetically than ChatGPT

• Large context window

Claude cons:

• Context window and daily message limit vary based on demand for users on a free plan

As strong of an AI chatbot as ChatGPT is, folks tend to agree that Claude is the one to beat when it comes to quality writing. Conversations with Claude flow naturally, with responses that are straight to the point. Claude also operates with a much larger context window, allowing it to process a lot more data at a time.

But the best feature is Artifacts, hands down. With just a few prompts, you can create a dashboard page to display your data—like this personal budget planner. You can also create web apps and simple games (check out this physics game created with Claude), making it a great vibe coding tool. These creations are accessible as you chat, so you can change them with prompts and interact with them in real time. 

In addition to its API, Claude also integrates with Zapier. This way, you can connect it with the rest of your tech stack and orchestrate AI-powered workflows at scale. It can work based on a trigger, or using Zapier MCP, you can ask Claude to take action directly from the chat window. Here are some more ideas for how to automate Claude with Zapier MCP.

Claude pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $20/month (billed annually) for the Pro plan. 

The best generative AI tool for automation

Zapier for building safely with AI

Zapier pros:

• Connects Claude, ChatGPT, and other AI tools to 9,000+ apps through Zapier MCP, with no credentials exposed to the model

• AI steps built into automated workflows, so you can generate, summarize, classify, or transform content as part of any multi-step process

• SOC 2 Type II certified, with 13+ years of managing app credentials safely

• Works with any AI model—switch between Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, and others without rebuilding your workflows

Zapier cons:

• Not a standalone generative AI tool

The other tools on this list are great at generating content. Zapier is what happens after the content gets generated—and increasingly, what makes the generation itself more useful.

The most direct example: Zapier MCP connects Claude, ChatGPT, and other MCP-compatible AI tools to 9,000+ apps through a single governed connection. That means when you're working in Claude and you ask it to draft a blog post, update a Notion page, notify your team in Slack, and schedule a social post—it can actually do all of that, not just draft the text. Your AI moves from generating content to taking action on it, without you switching tabs or copying things by hand.

Beyond MCP, Zapier has AI built into its automated workflows. You can drop an AI step into any Zap to summarize an email, classify a support ticket, extract data from a document, or generate a first draft, then route the output to wherever it needs to go next. There's no separate AI tool to set up. It's baked into the same platform where the rest of your automation lives.

This is the Zapier blog, so I won't blame you if you want to get a second opinion from real customers. But if you're already using Claude, ChatGPT, or another MCP-compatible tool from this list, connecting Zapier takes about five minutes and immediately makes those tools more capable.

Zapier pricing: Free plan available; paid plans from $19.99/month (billed annually)

A final note on generative AI tools

The world of generative AI extends well beyond the tools I've listed here. While tools like AI writing assistants and video generation are impressive examples of content generation, plenty of other AI tools incorporate generative features. For example, AI sales assistant apps use generative AI to personalize outreach emails or craft follow-up messages. The only reason I didn't include apps like those here is because their core function isn't original content creation.

While I'm not shouting Skynet at my computer, I'm convinced that this rapid growth of generative AI is the beginning of something great (scary?). What started as basic chatbots has turned into an integration for every facet of business, from marketing and sales to product development and customer service. Who knows what generative AI will help us do next? (Please let it be filing taxes.) 

Related reading:

• The best AI marketing tools

• The best AI productivity tools

• How to adapt to AI at work

• The best AI search engines

• The best free AI tools

• Prevent lock-in with AI model flexibility on Zapier

This article was originally published in June 2024 and has also had contributions from Jessica Lau. The most recent update was in June 2026.