Ethan Mollick's opinionated guide to which AI to use for real work

Ethan Mollick published an opinionated guide arguing that using AI now means running agentic systems that combine a model with tools, not just chatting with a chatbot. He recommends ChatGPT (Work and Codex modes) or Claude (Cowork and Code modes) at $20/month for real work, starting with GPT-5.6 Sol or Fable/Opus at High thinking levels, and keeping approval prompts on to guard against prompt injection. He also says Google currently has no leading frontier model or Codex/Code equivalent, though Gemini Notebook and Gemini Omni remain useful for research and video editing.