The whole field on one page. Pick the right model, the right generator, and the right prompt structure — without the trial and error. Current as of May 2026.
| Model | Best for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| Claude 4.7 | Code, agents, careful long-context work, instruction-following | Not for image generation |
| GPT-5 | General chat, multimodal, the most familiar UX for non-technical users | No single permanent quality edge |
| Gemini 2.5 | Massive context (2M tokens), native video understanding | Best when you need to dump everything in at once |
| Llama 4 | Self-hosting, fine-tuning, data that can't leave your servers | You run the infrastructure |
| Mistral | EU data residency, GDPR-friendly, strong open weights | Geography is the moat, not raw benchmarks |
| Grok 4 | Real-time X/Twitter data, fewer guardrails | Optional for everything else |
| Tool | Best for |
|---|---|
| Midjourney v7 | Beautiful by default — mood, art direction, concept art, style refs (--sref) |
| Ideogram 3.0 | Anything with readable text — logos, posters, ads, signs. The only one that nails text. |
| Imagen 4 Ultra | Photorealism + clean text — product shots, ads |
| DALL·E 3 | Complex multi-element prompts where every detail must land |
| Flux 1.1 Pro | Open weights — run locally, fine-tune, no platform rules |
| Tool | Best for |
|---|---|
| Sora 2 | Cinematic, physics-rich, long hero shots |
| Veo 3 | The only one with native synced audio — dialogue scenes, ads |
| Runway Gen-4 | Control + iteration — image-to-video, motion brush, camera nodes |
| Kling 2.0 | Wild dynamic motion and physics |
| Pika | UGC vibe + lipsync |
| Hailuo | Cheap, fast b-roll volume |
| Tool | Best for |
|---|---|
| ElevenLabs | Voice generation + cloning, 30+ languages, inline emotion tags |
| Suno / Udio | Full songs with vocals from a prompt; stems for remixing |
Replace "write something good" with five concrete asks. This single habit is the highest-leverage AI skill.
A naive AI integration runs 5–10× more expensive than necessary. Pull these:
This cheat sheet is the surface. Neuron is 89 lessons that make it stick — spaced repetition, a real Claude tutor, AI-graded projects, and certificates that verify.
Start free → 18 lessons, no card