Compare AI tools

	Perplexity S	Cursor S	Adobe Firefly A	Ideogram S
Tagline	AI search done right. Cited answers, not chat theater.	VS Code fork that made AI coding actually work.	Commercially safe image gen, deeply integrated with Photoshop.	The one that actually gets text in images right.
Category	research	coding	image	image
Pricing	Free + $20/mo Pro	Free + $20/mo Pro + $40/mo Business	Free + included with Creative Cloud	Free + $8/mo + $20/mo + $60/mo
Best for	Replacing Google for any question where you want a cited answer in seconds.	Developers. Non-developers who want to ship working code.	Anyone in Creative Cloud. Brands that need copyright clarity.	Anything with text — posters, ads, album covers, slide decks.
Strengths	Sources every claim Fast, current answers Pro Search runs multi-step research Spaces for persistent context	Tab completion feels like mind-reading Composer for multi-file edits Runs Claude, GPT, Gemini — you pick	Trained on licensed content — commercially safe Generative Fill in Photoshop is incredible Native to Adobe ecosystem	Best text rendering in the game Strong free tier Good for logos, posters, thumbnails
Weaknesses	Not a general chatbot Answers can be shallow on complex topics	Can feel overwhelming for non-coders Expensive at scale	Aesthetic ceiling below Midjourney Tied to Adobe subscription	Aesthetic ceiling below Midjourney Less style variety
Kai's verdict	S-tier for search. I use it before Google now. If you're still Googling everything, try this for a week.	S-tier for coding. If you write code of any kind, this pays back the $20 in a day.	S-tier inside Photoshop (Generative Fill). B-tier standalone.	S-tier for text-in-image. Use this for posters, Midjourney for art.
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