Choosing in practice, in three questions

You don't need to know the catalogue. Three questions are enough, in this order.

1. Does the problem have multiple steps?

No: a fast model. Yes: a reasoning model. This is the question that most often separates the options, and it's the one people skip.

2. Is there anything other than text?

A photo, a PDF, a spreadsheet: you need a multimodal model, and you need to check that the format is supported.

3. Does what I paste need to stay on my side?

If so, neither a consumer service nor a free version: a professional version under contract, or a locally installed model.

And what about quality, then?

Rankings change every month and often hinge on differences that no one notices in practice. For everyday tasks, the current major models are largely on par. What makes a difference in your day is the quality of your request, not the last percentage point on a benchmark.

The tip that saves the most time

Stick with a single service long enough to learn its habits. Flitting between three tools costs more than the expected gain: you pick up the habits of none.

You've finished this topic

You know what a model is, what sets them apart, and which one to choose. The next level gets into the tools themselves.