Tom's Guide Awards 2026: Our favorite AI tools, devices and features

(Image credit: Tom's Guide) This year, AI became so much more useful and integrated into our lives. The best AI products of 2026 can create music and videos, turn piles of research into something genuinely interesting, see the world through a pair of glasses and even take action on your behalf.That shift has made choosing our Tom's Guide Awards winners more exciting than ever. Our team has spent the past year putting the biggest models, features and AI-powered devices through their paces, from chatbots that can reason through difficult problems to creative tools capable of turning a few sentences into an entire song or cinematic video.We've also watched AI move beyond the screen. Smart glasses can translate conversations and answer questions about what's in front of you, while AI agents can now tackle tasks that once required jumping between multiple apps and browser tabs. At the same time, tools like AI notebooks are changing how we research, learn and get work done.Below you'll find our picks for the Tom's Guide Awards 2026 — the AI products and features did so much more than impress, they actually changed how we use the technology every day.Best AI chatbotClaude (Image credit: Tom's Guide)Claude is my pick for the best chatbot because it often feels like I’m working with an actual assistant or a smart colleague. I brainstorm with it, ask it for feedback and I even use it for fact checking.What I appreciate most is that Claude doesn’t automatically assume I’m right. If there’s a hole in my logic, it will point it out. It will even call me out if I get off track within the current conversation. If it isn’t confident about something, it’s more likely to say so rather than confidently push ahead with a questionable answer. For example, it will call me out such as “is there a reason why you’re switching topics?” That matters when I’m using a chatbot for research or trying to think through a complicated problem. Because it can help me stay on track, it is so much more than an answer machine.I also keep coming back to Claude for editing. Its responses tend to sound more natural and less formulaic than what I get from many other chatbots, and it’s particularly good at understanding tone. I can give it a rough paragraph, explain what isn’t working and usually get something back that feels closer to what I need — not for it to do the writing for me, but to assist with editing and grammar. What it produces feels much less like something that screams AI-generated. .It’s also become much more useful beyond the basic chat window. Anthropic has steadily added features that make Claude feel more like an everyday productivity tool, including web search, memory, file creation and integrations with other services.Claude is especially strong for reasoning, writing and coding, but the biggest reason I recommend it is simpler: I trust it to challenge me. I don’t always want an AI that agrees with whatever I say. Sometimes I want one that catches what I missed — and Claude is particularly good at that.— Amanda Caswell, AI EditorSign up to the Tom's AI Guide weekly newsletter summing up all the biggest AI news you need to know. Plus, analysis from our AI editors and tips on how to use the latest AI tools!Best AI image generatorChatGPT Images (Image credit: Shutterstock/ChatGPT)With the most recent rollout of the ChatGPT Images 2.5 update, OpenAI’s chatbot photo-creating and editing capabilities have gotten even better. It certainly excelled as one of the better AI image generators before, but now its latest rendition puts it even higher than the rest of the competition. Prompting the chatbot with a myriad of image creation requests is done even faster now that ChatGPT Images can produce the finished results 50% faster. The before-and-after images produced by ChatGPT look even more impressive—with more natural lighting and richer textures on display, your AI-generated images and the transformed photos you give the chatbot to work with get the finest treatment.Everything from childhood portraits to group photos comes out looking even more refined and free of the usual AI image-generating blemishes now that ChatGPT Images has entered its 2.5 era. And with its additional ability to better comprehend more complex visual requests and the newly added “Sketch” feature that lets you doodle directly into ChatGPT & turn it into something far better, ChatGPT Images is recognized by us as a step above its AI image-generating competitors.— Elton Jones, AI writerBest AI video generatorVeo 3.1 (Image credit: Tom's Guide)Veo 3.1 is one of those AI tools that still manages to surprise me, even after seeing how quickly generative AI has evolved. Google's video model can take a simple idea, image or prompt and turn it into a polished video clip, complete with motion, dialogue, sound effects and background audio.What makes Veo 3.1 stand out for me is how little technical knowledge you need to get started. I don't need to understand video editing, animation or complicated production software. I can describe the scene I have in my head, including the characters, camera angle, lighting and overall mood, and let Gemini handle much of the production work.It's also incredibly fun to experiment with. A still image can become the starting point for an entirely new scene, while a detailed text prompt can create something that looks surprisingly cinematic. Veo 3.1 is particularly good at understanding filmmaking language, so I can ask for things like a close-up, sweeping camera movement or a specific visual style without manually creating those effects myself.The addition of native audio makes the experience even more impressive. Instead of generating a silent clip that I then have to finish elsewhere, Veo can create dialogue, ambient noise, music and sound effects as part of the video. That makes the finished result feel much closer to an actual piece of content rather than an AI animation waiting to be edited.I wouldn't use Veo to replace every part of video production, but that's not really why I like it. It's the ability to turn an idea into something I can actually watch within minutes that keeps me coming back.For creators — or anyone who has ever had a great visual idea without the skills or resources to make it — Veo 3.1 dramatically lowers the barrier between imagining something and seeing it on screen.— Amanda Caswell, AI EditorBest AI music generatorLyria 3 (Image credit: Future/AI)Lyria is one of those Gemini features that I didn't expect to use very often, but once I started playing with it, I immediately understood the appeal. Instead of asking Gemini to write something or answer a question, I can describe a song I want to hear and actually get music back.And I can get surprisingly specific. I can give it a genre, mood, subject, instruments and vocal style, or even upload an image and ask Gemini to turn what it sees into music. It's particularly fun for making songs about personal things — a family joke, a pet, a birthday or some random moment that would never normally have its own soundtrack.The original Lyria 3 brought music generation directly into Gemini and could create lyrics automatically, which meant I didn't need any musical ability to get started. Google has since upgraded Gemini to Lyria 3.5, which improves the vocals and musical arrangements and lets users choose between shorter and longer tracks.That's where I think Lyria really works. I'm not a musician, and I don't want to spend an hour figuring out complicated music-production software just to experiment with an idea. With Gemini, I can describe what I hear in my head in normal language and let the AI take it from there.There are practical uses, too. Lyria can generate background music for a video, a birthday song, a jingle or even a personalized ringtone. But I think its biggest strength is simply that it's fun.We've spent years talking to AI. Lyria gives Gemini an entirely different creative outlet: you can ask it to make something you can actually listen to.— Amanda Caswell, AI EditorBest AI device (Image credit: Tom's Guide)Meta Ray-Bans are the kind of technology that can almost disappear while you're using it, and that's exactly what makes them so useful. They look and feel much like a regular pair of sunglasses, but put AI, a camera, speakers and a microphone right on your face without requiring you to constantly reach for your phone.That opens up all kinds of possibilities. Meta AI can translate conversations in real time, answer questions about what you're looking at and help identify landmarks, objects and things around you. You can ask a question simply by saying, “Hey Meta,” snap a photo without pulling out your phone or listen to music and podcasts through the open-ear speakers while still hearing what's happening around you.The built-in camera is one of the features I find most useful. Being able to quickly capture a photo or video from my own point of view means I can stay in the moment rather than watching everything through my phone screen. The glasses can record videos up to three minutes long, and they can also be used to livestream to supported social platforms.What makes Meta Ray-Bans particularly compelling, though, isn't any single feature. It's how naturally all of those features fit into something you're already wearing.There's very little learning curve. Put them on, say what you need and keep going. Whether you're traveling, running errands, listening to music, taking photos or simply curious about something you see, the AI is right there when you need it.That's ultimately what I want from a wearable. Instead of giving me another screen demanding my attention, Meta Ray-Bans let technology fade into the background — while still making it incredibly easy to access when I need to.— Amanda Caswell, AI EditorBest AI phone featureGemini Notebooks (Image credit: Tom's Guide)Gemini Notebooks on mobile is a game changer for anyone who wants to get real work done without being tied to a desk. Formerly known as NotebookLM, the feature takes the documents, websites and research you give it and turns that information into something far more manageable — and, importantly, something you can take with you.Instead of digging through a pile of tabs, PDFs and notes every time I need to find something, I can create a notebook around a project and let Gemini help me make sense of it. It can pull out key points, create summaries and study guides, generate quizzes and flashcards, and help answer questions based specifically on the sources I've provided.But Audio Overviews are probably my favorite part. Gemini can turn research into an AI-generated conversation that feels surprisingly similar to listening to a podcast. On mobile, that becomes much more useful because I can essentially take my research with me. I can listen while I'm driving, walking or doing something else instead of finding another block of time to sit down and read.It's also not limited to documents you already have. Gemini Notebooks can help find sources from the web, while letting you add websites, PDFs, documents and other material to build a much deeper collection of research around a particular subject.That's what makes the feature stand out for me. It's not simply summarizing a document. I'm essentially creating my own personalized knowledge base around whatever I'm working on and then choosing how I want to interact with that information.Putting all of that on mobile makes NotebookLM much more than a research tool I occasionally open on my computer. It turns it into something I can actually use throughout my day, and makes all the research I've already done considerably more useful.— Amanda Caswell, AI Editor Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Tom's Guide upgrades your life by helping you decide what products to buy, finding the best deals and showing you how to get the most out of them and solving problems as they arise. Tom's Guide is here to help you accomplish your goals, find great products without the hassle, get the best deals, discover things others don’t want you to know and save time when problems arise. 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