2026 edition
The 2026
Report
What 716 AI tools cost, what they do, and how to assemble a stack that isn’t three subscriptions quietly doing the same job.
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ArtificialIntelligences.com
The full version
The Wrapper
Question
How to Buy AI Software, Value an AI Company, and Know What It Actually Owns
417 pages · 19 chapters · 8 appendices
Buy on Amazon, from $12.99Our own book. We earn a royalty, and a referral fee if you buy through this link.
The report is the short version. What is in the book
Why we wrote it
Almost every “best AI tools” list you have read was ranked by who pays the most per click. That is not a conspiracy theory, it is the business model. We run affiliate links too: the difference is that ours are disclosed, they never move a tool up a list, and the scoring is published so you can disagree with it.
This report is the same data, written down. It is free, it takes an email, and there is no upsell at the end of it.
Read the methodology →Contents
The duplication audit
Most teams pay for three tools that do one job. A one-page audit that finds the overlap in your current stack.
What the models cost
Every frontier model on one page: context window, input and output price, and the arithmetic that turns tokens into a monthly bill.
Buy, wrap, or build
The three ways to add AI to a workflow, what each really costs over eighteen months, and how to tell which one you're looking at.
Category by category
Coding, writing, image, video, audio, search, data, security. The shortlist in each, and the specific reason each one made it.
The procurement questions
Eleven questions to ask a vendor before signing. Most of them are about what happens to your data when you leave.
Assembling the stack
Three worked reference stacks, solo operator, ten-person team, mid-market, with real monthly numbers.
Send me the report
One email, one download, and a short note every couple of weeks when something in the index genuinely changes.
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