A Guide to Which AI to Use in the Agentic Era
One Useful Thing Ethan Mollick
The article discusses how AI usage has shifted from chatbot conversations to autonomous agents performing multi-step tasks, requiring users to evaluate three components: underlying models (GPT-5.2, Claude Opus 4.6, Gemini 3 Pro), apps (websites and specialized tools), and harnesses (systems enabling tool use and task automation). The frontier models now cost at least $20 monthly and differ mainly in bundled features and accessible tools, with OpenAI and Anthropic offering more capable harnesses for document creation and research than Google's comparable model. As a result, selecting AI for specific work depends less on model choice and more on which app and harness provides the required functionality, making the decision more complex than during the chatbot-only era.
Why it matters
It's not just chatbots anymore
