Using AI Right Now: A Quick Guide

Which AIs to use, and how to use them

ETHAN MOLLICK
JUN 24, 2025

Every few months I put together a guide on which AI system to use. Since I last
wrote my guide, however, there has been a subtle but important shift in how the
major AI products work. Increasingly, it isn't about the best model, it is about
the best overall system for most people. The good news is that picking an AI is
easier than ever and you have three excellent choices. The challenge is that
these systems are getting really complex to understand. I am going to try and
help a bit with both.

First, the easy stuff.

Which AI to Use
For most people who want to use AI seriously, you should pick one of three
systems: Claude from Anthropic, Google’s Gemini, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
With all of the options, you get access to both advanced and fast models, a voice
mode, the ability to see images and documents, the ability to execute code, good
mobile apps, the ability to create images and video (Claude lacks here,
however), and the ability to do Deep Research. Some of these features are free,
but you are generally going to need to pay $20/month to get access to the full set
of features you need. I will try to give you some reasons to pick one model or
another as we go along, but you can’t go wrong with any of them.

What about everyone else? I am not going to cover specialized AI tools (some
people love Perplexity for search, Manus is a great agent, etc.) but there are a
few other options for general purpose AI systems: Grok by Elon Musk’s xAI is
good if you are a big X user, though the company has not been very transparent
about how its AI operates. Microsoft’s Copilot offers many of the features of
ChatGPT and is accessible to users through Windows, but it can be hard to
control what models you are using and when. DeepSeek r1, a Chinese model, is
very capable and free to use, but is missing a few features from the other
companies and it is not clear that they will keep up in the long term. So, for
most people, just stick with Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT

Great! This was the shortest recommendation post yet! Except… picking a
system is just the beginning. The real challenge is understanding how to use
these increasingly complex tools effectively.

Now what?
I spend a lot of time with people trying to use AI to get stuff done, and that has
taught me how incredibly confusing this is. So I wanted to walk everyone
through the most important features and choices, as well as some advice on how
to actually use AI.

Picking a Model
ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini each offer multiple AI models through their
interface, and picking the right one is crucial. Think of it like choosing between
a sports car and a pickup truck; both are vehicles, but you'd use them for very
different tasks. Each system offers three tiers: a fast model for casual chat
(Claude Sonnet, GPT-4o, Gemini Flash), a powerful model for serious work
(Claude Opus, o3, Gemini Pro), and sometimes an ultra-powerful model for the
hardest problems (o3-pro, which can take 20+ minutes to think). The casual
models are fine for brainstorming or quick questions. But for anything high
stakes (analysis, writing, research, coding) usually switch to the powerful
model.
Most systems default to the fast model to save computing power, so you need to
manually switch using the model selector dropdown. (Except for Gemini, the
free versions of these systems do not give you access to the most powerful
model, so if you do not see the options I describe, it is because you are using the
free version)

I use o3, Claude 4 Opus, and Gemini 2.5 Pro for any serious work that I do. I
also have particular favorites based on individual tasks that are outside of these
models (GPT-4.5 is a really interesting model for writing, for example), but for
most people, stick with the models I suggested most of the time.

For people concerned about privacy, Claude does not train future AI models on
your data, but Gemini and ChatGPT might, if you are not using a corporate or
educational version of the system. If you want to make sure your data is never
used to train an AI model, you can turn off training features easily for ChatGPT
without losing any functionality, and at the cost of some functionality for
Gemini. You may also want to turn on or off “memory” in ChatGPT’s
personalization option, which lets the AI remember scattered details about you.
I find the memory system to be too erratic at this point, but you may have a
different experience.

Using Deep Research

Deep Research is a key AI feature for most people, even if they don’t know it
yet. Deep Research tools are very useful because they can produce very high-
quality reports that often impress information professionals (lawyers,
accountants, consultants, market researchers) that I speak to. You should be
trying out Deep Research reports in your area of expertise to see what they can
do for you, but some other use cases include:
  Gift Guides: “what do I buy for a picky 11-year-old who has read all
of Harry Potter, is interested in science museums, and loves chess?
Give me options, including where to buy at the best prices.”
 Travel Guides “I am going to Wisconsin on vacation and want to visit
unique sites, especially focusing on cheese, produce a guide for me”
 Second opinions in law, medicine, and other fields (it should go
without saying that you should trust your doctor/lawyer above AI, but
research keeps finding that the more advanced AI systems do very
well in diagnosis with a surprisingly low hallucination rate, so they
can be useful for second opinions).

Activating Deep Research

Deep Research reports are not error-free but are far more accurate than just
asking the AI for something, and the citations tend to actually be correct. Also
note that each of the Deep Research tools work a little differently, with different
strengths and weaknesses. Turning on the web search option in Claude and o3
will get them to work as mini Deep Research tools, doing some web research,
but not as elaborately as a full report. Google has some fun additional options
once you have created a report, letting you turn it into an infographic, a quiz or a
podcast.
An Easy Approach to AI: Voice
Mode
An easy way to use AI is just to start with voice mode. The two best
implementations of voice mode are in the Gemini app and ChatGPT’s app and
website. Claude’s voice mode is weaker than the other two systems. What
makes voice mode great is that you can just have a natural conversation with the
app while in the car or on a walk and get quite far in understanding what these
models can do. Note the models are optimized for chat (including all of the
small pauses and intakes of breath designed to make it feel like you are talking
to a person), so you don’t get access to the more powerful models this way.
They also don’t search the web as often which makes them more likely to
hallucinate if you are asking factual questions: if you are using ChatGPT, unless
you hear the clicking sound at 44 seconds into this clip, it isn’t actually
searching the web.

Voice mode's killer feature isn't the natural conversation, though, it's the ability
to share your screen or camera. Point your phone at a broken appliance, a math
problem, a recipe you're following, or a sign in a foreign language. The AI sees
what you see and responds in real-time. I've used it to identify plants on hikes,
solve a problem on my screen, and get cooking tips while my hands were
covered in flour. This multimodal capability is genuinely futuristic, yet most
people just use voice mode like Siri. You're missing the best part.
Making Things for You: Images,
Video, Code, and Documents
ChatGPT and Gemini will make images for you if you ask (Claude
cannot). ChatGPT offers the most controllable image creation tool, Gemini uses
two different image generation tools, Imagen, a very good traditional image
generation system, and a multimodal image generation system. Generally,
ChatGPT is stronger. On video creation, however, Gemini’s Veo 3 is very
impressive, and you get several free uses a day (but you need to hit
the Video button in the interface)

“make me a photo of an otter holding a sign saying otters are cool but also
accomplished pilots. the otter should also be holding a tiny silver 747 with gold
detailing.”
All three systems can produce a wide variety of other outputs, ranging from
documents to statistical analyses to interactive tools to simulations to simple
games. To get Gemini or ChatGPT to do this reliably, you need to select
the Canvas option when you want these systems to run code or produce
separate outputs. Claude is good at creating these sorts of outputs on its own.
Just ask, you may be surprised what the AI systems can make.

Working with an AI
Now that you have picked a model, you can start chatting with it. It used to be
that the details of your prompts mattered a lot, but the most recent AI models I
suggested can often figure out what you want without the need for complex
prompts. As a result, many of the tips and tricks you see online for prompting
are no longer as important for most people. At the Generative AI Lab at
Wharton, we have been trying to examine prompting techniques in a scientific
manner, and our research has shown, for example, that being polite to AI
doesn’t seem to make a big difference in output quality overall1. So just
approach the AI conversationally rather than getting too worried about saying
exactly the right thing.

That doesn’t mean that there is no art to prompting. If you are building a prompt
for other people to use, it can take real skill to build something that works
repeatedly. But for most people you can get started by keeping just a few things
in mind:

 Give the AI context to work with. Most AI models only know basic
user information and the information in the current chat, they do not
remember or learn about you beyond that. So you need to provide the
AI with context: documents, images, PowerPoints, or even just an
introductory paragraph about yourself can help - use the file option to
upload files and images whenever you need. The AIs can do some of
these ChatGPT and Claude can access your files and mailbox if you
let them, and Gemini can access your Gmail, so you can ask them to
look up relevant context automatically as well, though I prefer to give
the context manually.
 Be really clear about what you want. Don’t say “Write me a
marketing email,” instead go with “I'm launching a B2B SaaS product
for small law firms. Write a cold outreach email that addresses their
 specific pain points around document management. Here's the details
of the product: [paste]” Or ask the AI to ask you questions to help you
clarify what you want.
 Give it step-by-step directions. Our research found this approach,
called Chain-of-Thought prompting, no longer improves answer
quality as much as it used to. But even if it doesn’t help that much, it
can make it easier to figure out why the AI came up with a particular
answer.
 Ask for a lot of things. The AI doesn’t get tired or resentful. Ask for
50 ideas instead of 10, or thirty options to improve a sentence. Then
push the AI to expand on the things you like.
 Use branching to explore alternatives. Claude, ChatGPT, and
Gemini all let you edit prompts after you have gotten an answer. This
creates a new “branch” of the conversation. You can move between
branches by using the arrows that appear after you have edited an
answer. It is a good way to learn how your prompts impact the
conversation.

Troubleshooting
I also have seen some fairly common areas where people get into trouble:

 Hallucinations: In some ways, hallucinations are far less of a

concern than they used to be, as AI has improved and newer AI
models are better at not hallucinating. However, no matter how good
the AI is, it will still make errors and mistakes and still give you
confident answers where it is wrong. They also can hallucinate about
their own capabilities and actions. Answers are more likely to be right
when they come from the bigger, slower models, and if the AI did
web searches. The risk of hallucination is why I always recommend
using AI for topics you understand until you have a sense for their
capabilities and issues.
 Not Magic: You should remember that the best AIs can perform at
the level of a very smart person on some tasks, but current models
 cannot provide miraculous insights beyond human understanding. If
the AI seems like it did something truly impossible, it is probably not
actually doing that thing but pretending it did. Similarly, AI can seem
incredibly insightful when asked about personal issues, but you
should always take these insights with a grain of salt.
 Two Way Conversation: You want to engage the AI in a back-and-
forth interaction. Don’t just ask for a response, push the AI and
question it.
 Checking for Errors: The AI doesn’t know “why” it did something,
so asking it to explain its logic will not get you anywhere. However,
if you find issues, the thinking trace of AI models can be helpful. If
you click “show thinking” you can find out what the model was doing
before giving you an answer. This is not always 100% accurate (you
are actually getting a summary of the thinking) but is a good place to
start.
Your Next Hour
So now you know where to start. First, pick a system and resign yourself to
paying the $20 (the free versions are demos, not tools). Then immediately test
three things on real work: First, switch to the powerful model and give it a
complex challenge from your actual job with full context and have an
interactive back and forth discussion. Ask it for a specific output like a
document or program or diagram and ask for changes until you get a result you
are happy with. Second, try Deep Research on a question where you need
comprehensive information, maybe competitive analysis, gift ideas for someone
specific, or a technical deep dive. Third, experiment with voice mode while
doing something else — cooking, walking, commuting — and see how it
changes your ability to think through problems.
Most people use AI like Google at first: quick questions, no context, default
settings. You now know better. Give it documents to analyze, ask for exhaustive
options, use branching to explore alternatives, experiment with different
outcomes. The difference between casual users and power users isn't prompting
skill (that comes with experience); it's knowing these features exist and using
them on real work.

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1
It is actually weirder than that: on hard math and science questions that we tested, being
polite sometimes makes the AI perform much better, sometimes worse, in ways that are
impossible to know in advance. So be polite if you want to!

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Discussion about this post

The Bull & The Bot

Jun 24
Great breakdown! One thing I always mention when people say they’re wary of
using AI assistants because of hallucinations: the mindset needs to shift. These
aren’t just Q&A robots. They can actually be your critical thinking partners.

The real value isn’t in asking “what’s the answer?” It’s in using these models to
stress-test your thinking. They can:

1. Expand your ideas

2. Validate or poke holes in them

3. Surface POVs you may have completely overlooked

Yes, they’re great for answering simple questions but in doing so, they can also
hallucinate too. The key is in how you engage with them.

Give o3 a thesis, for example a stock idea and your reasons for liking it. And
give it a persona, like a skeptical hedge fund portfolio manager. Ask it for 10
reasons that support your case and 10 that challenge it. You’ll get new angles,
risks you hadn’t considered, and potential counterarguments to prepare for.
Now, the conversation isn’t about being right or wrong now. It’s about being
more rigorous.

Bottom line: don’t use LLMs only as search bars. Start using them like strategic
thought partners. Pick its brain so that it shares information that can sharpen
your thoughts and help YOU make more informed decisions.

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Federico
Jun 24Edited
This is incredibly timely and useful. I get asked this all the time—and even some
people who are paying for the good models (say, ChatGPT Plus) are not aware
that they can switch to more powerful models, so they're missing out. A quick
"please share your screen and tell me what you want to do" is often an hour
very well spent for greater effectiveness in using AI.
I agree with all your points, but I have found Claude far less useful for writing
than the other models. I did not see the leap toward Claude 4 (Opus or Sonnet)
that I expected, not in writing and reasoning. In fact, not long ago I asked both
Claude 4 and Gemini 2.5 Pro to quantify about three pages of data (quantitative
and qualitative). The conclusions were so different that I gave each the answer
the other had given. Claude apologized profusely and got it wrong again upon
reanalysis. I also find that Gemini is writing better than the rest of the models. If
someone wants to pay for a model, right now I would not recommend paying for
Claude.

One more thing—what I just mentioned is something that I recommend to

people who are willing to pay for at least two models. Make them converse! Give
one model the answer the other gave you. This is generally a very fruitful
exercise.

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