Compare AI tools
Side-by-side: what they do, what they cost, what Kai actually thinks. Pass up to 4 tools via ?tools=claude,chatgpt,gemini.
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DeepSeek S | Perplexity S | Ask YouTube A | Claude Code S | |
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| Tagline | Chinese open-weight powerhouse. Crazy cheap, genuinely smart. | AI search done right. Cited answers, not chat theater. | YouTube's Gemini-powered conversational search lets you ask natural language questions and get answers drawn from videos, Shorts, and the web — without ever leaving the platform. | Anthropic's CLI agent. Opus-powered, operates on your repo directly. |
| Category | Chatbots | Research | Research | Coding |
| Pricing | Free web + ultra-cheap API (~$0.14/M input tokens) | Free + $20/mo Pro | Included with YouTube Premium ($13.99/mo); expanding to some free users | Part of Claude Pro/Max/Team plans |
| Best for | Developers + cost-conscious builders. Anyone fine with self-hosting. | Replacing Google for any question where you want a cited answer in seconds. | YouTube heavy users who want to discover content through conversation rather than keyword guessing, especially for learning, research, or planning-style queries. | Developers who want an agent, not autocomplete. Large refactors, tests, docs. |
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| Kai's verdict | S-tier for price/performance. A-tier for consumer use. If you build apps, this is the budget pick. | S-tier for search. I use it before Google now. If you're still Googling everything, try this for a week. | A genuinely interesting evolution of video search that could make YouTube feel more like a knowledge engine, but it's still early-stage, US-locked, and paywalled behind Premium — watch this space rather than rerouting your workflow around it yet. (Verdict pending Phi's full review.) | S-tier if you live in the terminal. Different shape than Cursor — complementary, not replacement. |
| Link | Open → | Open → | Open → | Open → |