A guide to AI models: Do you know your ChatGPT from your Grok?

Description

Artificial intelligence has moved from novelty to necessity. The systems we once treated as party tricks are now drafting essays, analysing data, generating code and even advising governments. But there is no single "AI." Instead, several rival models are competing for dominance: ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek and Claude. Each represents a different approach, ecosystem and vision of what artificial intelligence should be. Understanding these differences is not an exercise in brand-spotting. These models are gateways into wider ecosystems that carry distinct assumptions about data, privacy, cost and trust. The choice of tool is not trivial. It shapes how we work, how we learn and how information itself is filtered and presented.