AI tools by job: pick the type of tool before the brand

Our catalogue sorts AI tools by job, ten groups from assistants to platforms. Inside one group the services do different work. A meeting bot and a pocket recorder both produce a transcript, and the bot is no use in a room without a laptop. Among the AI productivity tools of 2026 we track, five groups split this way, and in each one you should pick the type before you compare prices.

Code: three kinds of help at one price

The four services in our code group used to start within $5 of each other. On 12 October Cursor moved to new tiers from $8 a month, as SpaceX folded it into its X Subscription with Grok, while Replit and Devin stay at $20 and Lovable at $25. Price still will not tell you which type you need. Cursor is an editor that reads your whole project. Lovable and Replit build an app from a description, and Replit hosts it as well. Devin is an AI agent that takes a ticket and returns a pull request. Stack Overflow's 2026 developer survey, published on 6 October, found the same split among working programmers:

“Many of those AI users live in coding agents (66%) and chatbots (63%).”

— Ryan Donovan, Stack Overflow, on the 2026 Developer Survey, 6 October 2026 · stackoverflow.blog

The same survey found that 27% of developers use different models for different work. Start with the editor if you write the code yourself, and with a builder if you need the app and not the code.

Transcripts: where the speech happens

Otter and Fireflies send a bot into your video call, and Fireflies then pushes the notes into a CRM. PLAUD sells a card-sized recorder for meetings around a table. Wispr Flow types what you say into any text field, so it replaces your keyboard and leaves the note-taking to someone else. All four have a free plan, and paid plans start between $8.33 and $17.99 a month.

Video: do you have footage

Without footage, a generative model makes the shots: Higgsfield from $9 with camera moves picked from a list, Kling from $10, Runway from $15. With a script and no camera, HeyGen puts a talking avatar on screen from $29. With footage already shot, Descript lets you cut the video by editing its transcript. TopView and Zeely build ad clips from a product listing, and neither has a free plan.

Images: from a prompt or from a photo

Midjourney, Ideogram and Recraft generate from a prompt, and each answers a narrower need: Ideogram keeps text in the picture readable, Recraft hands back an SVG you can edit. Photoroom, Evoto and Topaz Labs start from a photo you already have. Evoto sells an annual licence from $75 in place of a monthly plan, and Topaz runs on your own machine.

Search and agents: an answer, a page or an action

Perplexity answers and shows its sources. Genspark turns research into a finished page, Manus carries a task through to a result, Superhuman sorts your inbox before you open it, and n8n chains steps into a flow. Of the five, n8n is the only one you can run on your own server for free.

Every group above has its own page in our AI tools hub. Yesterday we matched six professions to these groups, which answers what is the best AI tool for my job. The next piece in the series asks how do I find the right AI tool for my workflow, when one tool hands its output to the next. Name the type you need before you compare brands: if you want generated shots, that rules out five of the eight video cards before you look at a single price.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Prices are the entry plans in our catalogue as checked on 12 October 2026, and Cursor's follow its new tiers from that day. Survey figures come from the Stack Overflow 2026 Developer Survey.