Stop guessing which AI to use.
There are now dozens of AI models, and they all claim to be the best. This plain-English guide shows you how to choose the right one for each task, how to read the benchmarks without being fooled, how to test the models on your own work, and how to run models privately on your own machine.
Every term explained · No assumed knowledge
The map, in plain English.
The four families of model · how to read a benchmark · building your own ten-task test · the one-key way to try them all · a task-to-model cheat sheet · the privacy traffic-light · local models explained.
The right model per task
Documents, tables, writing, numbers, coding, translation and confidential files.
Test them yourself
A one-afternoon method that ranks models on your own work, not someone's leaderboard.
One key, every model
Sign up once, compare dozens of models for a few cents each.
The complete model-selection system, $49
The named models of late 2026 · the full task router · a hardware guide · local setup, step by step · the honest pros and cons of going local · a cost calculator · and a quarterly update plan.
- Frontier, open and local, with real numbers
- What to run on a 16 GB laptop, a 24 GB card, or a modern Mac
- Privacy, cost and speed, side by side
Which AI?
- The named models of 2026
- The full task router
- Hardware guide
- Local setup, step by step
- Cost calculator
Want models chosen and set up for you?
We benchmark the leading models on your real tasks and, if you need it, install a private model on your own machines.