Choosing artificial intelligence is not an easy task…
Believe me, I personally feel how difficult it is to give you advice. Over the past week, several people have approached me with the question: “What’s going on with GenSpark? You praised it just three months ago, and now you stopped using it?” In reality, I no longer use this service as actively, but I still consider it one of the best neural network aggregators. The problem lies elsewhere: AI is developing at a fantastic pace, and the market is changing literally before our eyes. Recently, I became interested in agents like OpenClaw and Claude Code – and here, the usefulness of GenSpark has become almost zero. But let’s figure out where and which services can actually be useful right now.
OpenClaw and its analogs (NanoBot, NanoClaw, and others)
Here, the key is a model that is good at programming, including in agent environments, capable of following instructions, and protected against hacks. The best option is Claude Opus 4.6 with OAuth connection via Claude Code. However, OpenClaw consumes tokens quite heavily, and the limits on the Anthropic Pro subscription for $20 can quickly run out. If you’re a beginner and not ready to spend $125 on the Max version, try starting with Claude Sonnet 4.6 — once you master the principle of operation, you can ask the agent to create a router where complex tasks are handled by Opus.
GPT-5.4 with OAuth connection via Codex is also suitable. With a ChatGPT Plus subscription for $20, you can handle most everyday tasks, and Codex limits do not consume the regular chatbot interface limits. I found that OpenClaw running on GPT-5.4 worked no worse than on Opus — only the style of responses sometimes seemed less rich. It feels like the Anthropic model is significantly more mature in terms of development.
Coding agents
Claude Code is truly a gold standard among similar solutions. It offers maximum functionality: many skills, MCP (Master Controller Pattern), guides, and instructions. However, limits on the Pro subscription are quickly exhausted. You can ease the workload a bit by using Opus 4.6 for project planning and result verification, and Sonnet 4.6 for coding.
Codex based on GPT-5.4 for the same $20 per week can handle several projects — in terms of speed, it’s comparable to Opus, only the interface appears simpler: diagrams, visual components, and other details look slightly worse. Functionally, it is close to the best models or even surpasses them in some aspects — for example, it has computer vision capabilities.
Chatbots
Brief overview:
ChatGPT in Thinking mode is excellent for information retrieval — with few hallucinations and good computer vision capabilities. However, it poorly writes in English and sometimes responds slowly.
Claude is a workhorse. It will prepare a presentation well or help find key insights in data, suggest ideas. It writes well in English. But it has strict limits — to use it effectively, you’ll need to learn how to juggle between Opus and Sonnet both in normal mode and during reasoning.
Gemini 3 Thinking and Gemini 3.1 Pro also work well with English; plus, they have excellent computer vision (can analyze even 20-minute videos). They can tell engaging stories and are generally quite smart. However, they sometimes exaggerate or create hallucinations — such sophisticated fantasies happen often. Additionally, access to Gemini from certain regions can be more complicated compared to other AIs.
Grok 4.20 is used solely for search via X — it’s best specifically for that.
Aggregators
GenSpark remains an excellent tool for testing many models simultaneously under one subscription: it includes GPT, Gemini, Claude, and Grok — with a variety of drawing and video models as well. But once you decide on a preferred model or service, it’s better to get a dedicated subscription for that specific one; for example, GPT-5.4 in ChatGPT performs slightly better and more accurately.
Perplexity offers a set of somewhat simpler models: instead of Claude Opus, it only has Sonnet. However, this service is well-suited for information retrieval — almost like ChatGPT.
Drawing tools
I most often use GPT Image 1.5 — it creates very beautiful and neat images. Nano Banana 2 is slightly more realistic; it’s excellent for infographics or more technical images — pictures tend to be less dull.
Chinese AIs
There’s not much to say here — many models exist, and time is limited. But thanks to free access, Chinese solutions can be tested without significant costs: DeepSeek V3.2, Kimi K2.5, GLM-5, or Qwen3.5 are worth exploring.
They have a free reasoning mode (must be enabled for complex tasks), making them even more attractive for experiments.
This is what the current landscape of neural networks looks like: some models are better suited for programming and technical tasks, others for search or image generation; some excel with English or video content.
The main thing is to understand your tasks and choose the right tool for each specific case!
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