Forget ChatGPT — these are my four favorite AI research tools

Tom's Guide

11-06-2025

The huge sea of AI tools now available to us can do some incredible things. But for me, their best use is as an infinite guide to the world around us. Whether it is a deep research project or a quick answer to a question, AI has become the ultimate research tool.
This is what I use AI for every single day, both with answering my simplest of questions and helping me understand the complex.
That said, some tools just do a better job at this. Out of all the options out there right now, these are my four favorite AI research tools.
Yes, we know — you're tired of hearing about chatbots… but let's talk about them some more. They are the bread-and-butter of AI tools, and when it comes to research, they absolutely thrive.
While you can use any of the big names like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Deepseek, my favorite for research right now is Claude. The Anthropic-owned chatbot saw a huge upgrade with its Claude 4 models and thrives in its understanding of complicated subjects.
I use Claude for everything from a quick answer to a simple question all the way through to a massive deep dive into complicated concepts and tricky-to-understand processes.
Claude also offers pre-built prompts to help you learn about new topics, inputting phrases automatically for you to get the best answer.
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For those who haven't used Perplexity before, the best way to describe it is as an AI-powered Google.
It's the combination of a search engine and an AI chatbot. Ask it questions, and it will search the internet, using the answers of Reddit forums, research papers, and news articles to answer whatever question you might have in immense detail.
While it has some flaws, specifically around the lack of ability to do things like load maps or complete purchases, I have found that it is a better option than Google in a number of situations, especially when you want a quick and detailed answer to a complicated question.
Often times, Perplexity will answer a string of questions you might have to ask Google one after the other, all in one search.
I recently covered Logically, saying it was like a mix of Perplexity, NotebookLM, and ChatGPT put together. So, in theory, does that mean you don't need any of the above tools? Well, no. While Logically offers the functions of all three, it doesn't do it as well as any of them.
Instead, Logically consolidates all of these features into one place, offering a very specific experience. While anyone can find use in this, whether it's for school, work, or just gathering important information, it is intended for a very focused kind of research.
This isn't the tool to go for when you're doing a quick dive into a topic or just want to ask a couple of questions. Instead, Logically is what you pull out when you have a 10,000-word essay or a year-long project to keep track of.
Part of the Google Gemini family, NotebookLM is a fantastic research tool. Its main use is in summarization.
Give it incredibly long documents, YouTube videos, news articles, or just about any kind of source of information, and NotebookLM will summarize it, picking out key points and offering study guides, timelines, and FAQs on the information you've provided.
This doesn't have to just be one source of information. You can set up projects with multiple sources of information.
One of the more unique features of Notebook is that you can generate a conversation between two AI voices talking through your sources of information. It's kind of like making a podcast specifically for you.