😺The 50+ AI tools Neuron readers ACTUALLY pay for...

PLUS: VCs back an AI to "Cheat on everything"?!

Welcome, humans.

People are REALLY into having ChatGPT generate images of their conversation dynamic. We gotta be honest: while we WISH this one was ours, it was not.

As fun as these trends are, one cool thing GPT did recently was help someone “cure” their jaw clicking—something they couldn’t resolve after two MRIs, dentist referrals, and an ENT visit.

The even cooler part is the multiple people in the comments trying the fix for themselves and being shocked by the results.

Now, if you want to see the dark side of AI, check out what happened when someone asked “the real intention behind releasing AI to the public” and ChatGPT gave the darkest answer possible. TBH, we find this answer a bit more realistic.. if that helps?

Here’s what you need to know about AI today:

We cover the 54 AI tools Neuron readers ACTUALLY pay for.
ChatGPT search use in Europe grew 4x over six months.
Google paid Samsung A LOT to pre-install Gemini.
A suspended Columbia student raised $5.3M for an AI cheating startup.

Advertise in The Neuron here.

Here’s what AI tools your fellow Neuron Readers Are ACTUALLY paying for…

We love hunting down new AI tools every day and telling you about the latest releases, free or paid. But let's be real—knowing the cost is one thing; knowing what people get for their money is where the real insights are.

After our recent poll showed nearly half of you spend around $20/month on AI (shoutout to 858 voters!), the comments revealed exactly which tools made the cut.

The results:

ChatGPT is King: Unsurprisingly, OpenAI's chatbot dominates with 65 comments. It's the go-to for general tasks (if you pay for one, its usually GPT).
Claude & Gemini Close Behind: Anthropic's Claude (29 mentions) and Google's Gemini (21 mentions) form a clear second tier, often paired with GPT for writing or integrated workflows.
- This suggests users like having at least two different options for different tasks.
Specialists Emerge: Tools like Perplexity (AI search, 8 mentions), Cursor (AI code editor, 7 mentions), and Midjourney (AI images, 7 mentions) show strong niche adoption. Coding tools like Replit and Lovable got 3 mentions each.
The Long Tail: Beyond the leaders, readers mentioned over 38 other tools just once or twice—from Runway (video) to Eleven Labs (voice) to Gong (sales).

The list goes on, too: other single mention tools included Notion AI (AI within the notes app), Grammarly (writing checks), Otter.ai (meeting summaries), Gamma (AI presentations), Canva (design platform AI), Sudowrite (creative writing aid), Suno (AI music generation), and Leonardo AI (AI art/assets). See all 50+ of the tools here.

Builder platforms like Hugging Face (the central AI model/dataset hub) and cloud services for running AI models like Fireworks and Together.ai also appeared, showing engagement across the entire AI stack.

It’s worth noting that many users said they access additional tools through work (for free), which would explain why Microsoft Copilot was underrepresented in the data at only 3 mentions (cause we know a good chunk of you use it, sometimes begrudgingly so, based on other polls).

So, what does this tell us?

ChatGPT is the anchor: Its massive lead shows the power of being first and widely accessible. Many build their stack around it.
Cost matters: Many stick to one or two $20/month subscriptions, usually ChatGPT plus one other (Claude or Gemini being common partners). The $200+ power users often listed extensive, specialized toolkits.
Specialization is key: Except those ONLY using ChatGPT, ppl don’t expect one tool to do it all. They pick Claude for its writing finesse, Midjourney for art, Cursor for coding, and Perplexity for research.
Experimentation is rampant: That huge long tail proves people who branch out from ChatGPT are constantly trying new things and finding niche tools that solve their specific problems.

Why this matters for you: If your core toolkit is ChatGPT plus Claude or Gemini, you're right in line with the crowd. But don't sleep on the specialists. That long tail is where you might find your next favorite tool for a specific workflow, whether it's coding, creating presentations, or generating audio.

See the rest of the 54 niche tools Neuron readers pay for here.

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Prompt Tip of the Day

There’s probably two main prompt tips that if you follow, will help improve your experience working with AI more than anything else:

Ask the AI tools to help you write better prompt. This video is a great (SHORT) explainer for how to do this.
Instead of trying to “one shot” tasks with a single prompt, get used to chatting with your tasks and working iteratively with AI to get what you want.

Treats To Try.

If you didn’t know, Google Sheets can now call Gemini AI in its functions with the =AI formula—try it out!

We cover a TON of practical treats to try in the main story, so let’s geek out with some nerdy stuff:
1. Dream 7B is an open-source AI model that generates text through diffusion rather than word-by-word creation, helping you plan complex tasks and control output order with performance comparable to top models of its size (Github).
2. Universal Memory MCP allows you to sync your memories (like in ChatGPT) across all AI you use (this video explains it well), allowing you to maintain context between different AI platforms with just one command setup—free + open source (docs).
3. ByteDance released Seedream 3.0, which creates crystal-clear 2K images with accurate text in English and Chinese in just 3 seconds—try it on—apply for early access here, but it’ll be available at Dreamina.
4. Wonder Sites helps you build websites from Notion docs—free 7-day trial, then paid only.
5. Shotup turns your mobile screenshots into a searchable knowledge base where you can ask questions about any image you've saved (free up to 300 screenshots atm).
6. Summarization AI is the easiest to use free chrome extension for summarizing any web content; just throw in the API key of your favorite tool and you’re good to go (we tried it, it’s legit). Some guy named Shohei made it because he was too lazy to open NotebookLM lol (read more here).

See our top 51 AI Tools for Business here!

Around the Horn.

OpenAI says ChatGPT search has grown from ~11M average monthly active users in Europe to ~41M+ over the last six months (as of March 31).
Instagram will use AI to identify teens who lied about their age and then change their accounts to the teen one w/ stricter safety + privacy settings.
Google apparently paid Samsung “enormous sums” to pre-install its Gemini app on Samsung phones—the court docs didn’t say how much, but if it’s anything like the $8B Google paid to install Search, Play, and Google Assistant… it’s probably a couple billi’
1K international students in the US had their visas revoked or immigration statuses terminated, which is “harming the talent pipeline” for AI students.
A Columbia student who built an AI tool to cheat on code interviews (and got suspended for it) just raised $5.3M for a new startup to “Cheat on everything.”

Tuesday Tube

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These guys are like the bear case against the AI 2027 report that we covered a few weeks ago (here’s the interview w/ the AI 2027 crew for comparison). That said, they’re still somewhat bullish on AI as they just started a new company to “enable the full automation of the economy.”