Best AI tool for everyday AI chat & research (2026)

5 tools that list chat as a use case, ranked by our rubric. Fit matters more than score: read each "what it is" line.

#1 · score 92.0/100

Google's AI assistant; Google AI plans add higher limits and video generation.

💰 Free · UK plans £4.49 / £18.99 / £189.99 per month

chatresearchimagesvideowriting

#2 · score 90.0/100

Anthropic's AI assistant (web, desktop, mobile) incl. Claude Code on paid plans.

💰 Free tier · Pro $20/mo ($17 annual) · Max from $100

chatwritingresearchcoding

#3 · score 81.0/100

xAI's assistant; per cursor.com/pricing, Grok usage is pooled with Cursor in X subscription tiers.

💰 Free (limited) · paid tiers from $8/mo per cursor.com/pricing

chatimagescodingresearch

#4 · score 75/100

OpenAI's general AI assistant with GPT-6 models, image creation, deep research, Codex and agents.

💰 Free tier · Go/Plus/Pro: check site (check site)

chatresearchwritingimagescoding

#5 · score 35/100

Microsoft's consumer AI assistant.

💰 Free to use · paid plans: check site (check site)

chatwritingresearch