The best AI tools for work in 2026, by job function

Our AI tools catalogue lists 64 services across 10 job functions, from chat assistants to dictation and video. We picked the best AI tools for work in six of those functions and checked each price on the vendor’s pricing page between 2 and 5 November. Two vendors changed their plans after our October check: Cursor rebuilt its lineup, and Notion moved most AI features to its Business tier. Prices are monthly for one user.

General assistants

ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini all start free, and their main paid tiers sit close together. You will notice the gap in how they handle files, code and voice. Anthropic charges $20 a month for Claude Pro, or $17 a month billed annually, according to its pricing page. OpenAI and Google set prices by country, so check your local page. Cheaper paid options exist:

• Grok Plus at $8;
• Microsoft 365 Personal at $9.99, with Copilot inside Word, Excel and Outlook;
• Mistral Le Chat Pro at $14.99.

Coding

Cursor rebuilt its plans in October. It now sells Plus at $8, Premium at $30 and Super at $100 a month, and team seats start at $30, its plans page shows. GitHub Copilot Pro costs $10 and Pro+ $39. If you want a working app from a description, compare Lovable and v0 in our coding list.

Writing and translation

Notion Plus costs €9.50 per member and includes only a trial of Notion AI. The full Notion Agent and AI meeting notes come with Business at €19.50. DeepL Individual costs €8.99 and translates whole Word and PowerPoint files while keeping the layout.

Meetings and dictation

Otter Pro costs $8.33 a month billed annually or $16.99 month to month. Granola records the call from your computer’s audio, so no bot joins the meeting. Its Business seat costs $14.

Video and voice

• Runway Standard: $15, or $12 billed annually;
• Runway Pro: $35, or $28 billed annually;
• ElevenLabs Starter: $6 after a first month at $1.

Automation

n8n starts at €20 a month billed annually for its cloud Starter plan, and you can run the community edition on your own server for free. Perplexity answers research questions with source links, and Manus runs multi-step tasks in a browser as an AI agent.

What it means for you

If you pay for a year upfront, you save about 15% at Claude, 20% at Runway and half the price at Otter. If one assistant covers most of your day, start there and add a single tool for your main function. In our AI catalogue you can filter all 64 services by function and by what each one can do.

Prices come from vendors’ pricing pages checked on 2 to 5 November 2026 and exclude taxes. Vendors change plans often, and some set prices by country.