AI Tools Comparison: 2025 vs 2026 — What Changed

1. ChatGPT: GPT-4 → GPT-4o

GPT-4o is faster, cheaper, and multimodal. Free users now get GPT-4o access. Vision and voice capabilities included at no extra cost.

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2. Claude: 100K → 200K Context

Claude doubled its context window. New Sonnet model offers best price-performance. Artifacts feature for interactive content creation.

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3. Cursor: New Entry → Market Leader

Cursor went from unknown to the most popular AI coding tool. Composer mode revolutionized multi-file editing. VS Code fork that improves weekly.

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4. Midjourney: v5 → v6

Major quality improvement. Better text rendering. More photorealistic output. Still no free tier, but quality justifies $10/month.

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5. Perplexity: Niche → Mainstream

Went from a curiosity to a daily-use research tool. Pro Search with multiple models. Pages feature for creating content from research.

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6. GitHub Copilot: Individual → Enterprise

Added Copilot Chat, Copilot Enterprise for organizations, and workspace context. Still the best value at $10/month.

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7. Notion: Notes → AI Platform

Notion AI integrated into every page. Q&A feature searches across your entire workspace. Calendar integration improved.

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8. Market Trend

Prices are dropping while capabilities increase. Free tiers are more generous. The total cost of an AI toolkit dropped from ~$200/month to ~$100/month for equivalent capabilities.