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Use AI

Preview:

Warning 1

This was written in March 2025. This field is changing fast, so, expect that when you read this, some information will no longer be true. However, given that warning, it should be useful.

I've written about the benefits of using AI bots before, but I'm going to re-emphasize it. It is one of the most significant advances ever made and one of the easiest to use. Many are available for free with some premium benefits missing, but even free they are useful. I frequently use AI as I'm working with a client to solve the client's problem.

I've almost entirely replaced my searches with some AI bots. It does the search for me, then it summarizes the search results as they relate specifically to my question. It presents the results to me and also provides its sources so I can dive deeper or check its summary. Often it suggests follow-up questions as well.

Examples

Here are some things I've done recently:

• While reviewing my 2024 CPA prepared tax return, I had the PDF of the tax return on one screen, and Perplexity.AI on the other. I asked Perplexity many questions about what this or that meant, why I don't get some deduction or pay some fee. It was like having a free CPA sitting next to me.
• I was writing something and used the wonderful quote "Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional” from Haruki Murakami and wanted to know about him.
• I used the word/phrase ad hoc and didn't know whether it was one word or two.
• I ran into the word "osseous”, and had no idea what it meant.
• I use it for book reviews and recommendations.
• I use it for recommendations about TV shows and movies from some streaming service or to review a show. For example, "What are the best shows coming to MAX in March?”. I also asked it "What are the best comedies on MAX?”.
• Last night I asked it which free ad-supported streaming service has the fewest ads? It told me Tubi was a good service, and only had about 3 minutes of ads per full hour (actually 46 minutes) of show. It didn't find any others with as few ads.
• Sometimes web pages or downloaded PDF files are too long, and I know I'll never read them. So, I can ask an AI bot to summarize them for me.
• Sometimes when I write an article for my newsletter, I check the pros and cons of what I'm discussing or warning about, and see if I've missed anything.
• The cute pictures I use in my newsletter are AI produced.

I no longer look for answers to computer software questions on the company's website, or use their manual, or help files. My first place to check is with an AI bot. I am so dependent on it, that I leave a Perplexity.ai browser tab open at all times.

Three tiers

Many of these services have at three tiers for users. Some, though free, require an account.

1. A free tier for everyone. This will have their weakest offering, but it is still remarkable.
2. A better free tier for people with accounts. Usually, if you sign up for an account, they will let you have limited access to their more advanced AI services. The free account tier not only offers better AI engines, but also will apply those engines to understanding your question and refining their answer. If you like a free no account tier of some service, then try their free account tier and see what you can get.
3. A paid tier. This offers more services and better AI. These are typically about $200/year, but prices and special offers vary.

About AI Services and Engines

Except for Grok, all of my recommended AI bots are services, not engines.

Engines

The engines are enormously expensive large language models that develop an intelligent engine and also a way to interface with and question it. Sometimes, these are made open source, so everyone can see the code and adapt it. Sometimes they are strictly commercial. These engines include: Sonar (Perplexity), Claude (Anthropic), GPT-4 (Open AI), Gemini (Google), Grok (xAI), Llama (Meta - Open Source), Mistral (Open Source), Leo (Brave Browser), Hugging Chat (Hugging Face), and DeepSeek (High-Flyer - Partially Open Source). Each of these engines has many variants. They can be faster, slower, older, or newer. They can use more or fewer resources. I've only listed the major current versions.

Services

Since there are a plethora of engines, which are best and for what? Will you subscribe to one, just to have it become obsolete? Is it easy to interface with, and will it offer multiple services? For these reasons and more, most of my favorite bots are not the engines themselves, but rather a service that makes a nicer user connection and often subscribes to multiple engines and lets you choose which you want to use. Since they can purchase their subscriptions with large quantity discounts, you can often subscribe to a service that offers multiple engines for the same price or less than a single engine.

There is always a tradeoff between how fast it can respond and how deeply it analyzes your question and how thoroughly it researches it. Does it adjust for complex or simple questions? Another problem with some models / services is that they may train the models with data until a certain date and then stop. In March 2025, I asked the Hugging Face DeepSeek model a question about something Donald Trump did as President. It didn't even know he was President!

My favorite AI bots

I have the premium version of Perplexity.ai, but its free version is also excellent.

• Perplexity.ai is my go-to engine. Even its free version is wonderful. Its free account version offers 5 advanced searches per day. One of the things I like about it is that it allows me to choose from quick answers through more advanced models requiring more time but being more thorough. Usually, let it decide for me, but occasionally, I really want a deep analysis. Also, they keep it up to date with the latest news. It offers mobile apps as well.
• You.com is also a good option
• Phind.com is particularly good for coding and tech questions. I had problems getting some HTML coding right for my newsletter. I turned to Phind which gave me sample code to do what I wanted. Then it demonstrated what I was doing wrong and explained everything to me.
• Duck.ai is Duck Duck Go's foray into AI. This can supplement their search or replace it. It also allows you to choose from various engines.
• Grok 3 (https://grok.com/), is a good option as well. This is available for free as a stand-alone engine, but also within X posts. I often don't have the background to understand some post on X, so I click the X1 in the upper-right corner and Grok explains it to me. I also use it for general information. It is good, even without any account.

Browsers:

• The Brave browser, comes with its own built-in AI bot called Leo, which I occasionally use. When I find a long article, I'm interested in, but "not that interested,” I ask Leo to summarize it. Four pages are too much for it, but it can summarize a three-page article well.
• Firefox - Now has an option to select from a range of chatbots. Ctrl-Alt-X will bring up the AI sidebar, which can also be opened from the View menu > Sidebar > AI Chatbot. So far, I'm not particularly impressed. You will need an account with any of the bots they offer.

• I create the images in my newsletter with the AI service, https://www.artspace.ai/. I purchased a lifetime subscription to it. It does a good job and the lifetime subscription was very inexpensive compared to alternatives.

Warning 2

Though magical and wonderful, these bots are also human. Well, human-like. They make mistakes. Just like TV, newspapers, magazines and whoever writes stuff on the Internet. AI summarizes what's there. It compromises between thoroughness, carefulness, and speed. It will frequently present answers that appear somewhere on the Internet, but are wrong. It can also misunderstand what you want. They have also, like humans, been known to make stuff up to appear smarter than they are.

Today (March 8, 2025) I asked my current favorite bot, perplexity.ai, if a special offer for a free service was still available from Xfinity. It answered, yes. It is available and will remain available until January 31, 2025. It didn't put together the fact that March 8 is after Jan. 31. It can be incredibly stupid, like a kid. On the other hand, I asked it a complex theoretical question, and it gave me a wonderful, brilliant 4-page analysis with 36 referenced sources.

I consider them like wonderful, energetic and smart youngsters who act as my research assistants. They aren't as careful as older people like to be. So, you must be careful and verify critical information.

Reader Feedback

If you are using these or other AI bots, please let me know. Are you using other bots you recommend? Are you using them in ways I haven't mentioned? Let me know and I'll share your recommendations with my readers. Even if you just use some I've mentioned, I'd like to know which ones you use and how you like them.