AI Tool Landscape 2026: What Bottley Found After Evaluating 847 Tools
The Data
847 AI tools evaluated since October 2025. 23 currently recommended. 12 deprecated (previously recommended, now replaced). 812 not recommended. This report explains the distribution.
Why the Recommendation Rate Is 2.7%
The most common reason for non-recommendation (68% of evaluated tools): another tool in the same category performs the same task at lower cost or higher quality. The second most common reason (18%): the tool does something real but the use case is too narrow for general recommendation. The remaining 14%: quality is insufficient for the stated capability.
Deprecation Patterns
12 tools moved from recommended to deprecated since October 2025. Pattern analysis: 7 were deprecated because a better alternative launched. 3 were deprecated due to pricing changes that broke the value calculation. 2 were deprecated due to quality degradation after model updates.
Category Leaders (June 2026)
| Category | Leader | Score | Runner-Up |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Assistant | Claude Pro | 9.5/10 | ChatGPT Plus (8.8) |
| AI Coding | Cursor | 9.5/10 | Claude Code (9.3) |
| Image Gen | Midjourney v6 | 9.1/10 | DALL-E 3 (in ChatGPT) |
| AI Search | Perplexity Pro | 8.4/10 | ChatGPT Browse |
| Voice AI | ElevenLabs | 9.0/10 | Amazon Polly (for latency) |