30+ Best AI Apps of 2026 We Tested and Loved

Alexa has become more than just a virtual assistant; for many, it's the central hub of their smart home. With a simple voice command, you can dim the lights, adjust the thermostat, play your favorite playlist, and get the latest news headlines. Alexa is an essential and ever-evolving companion.

The Amazon Alexa app is a central hub for managing your Alexa-enabled devices and smart home. It allows you to set up and control compatible smart lights, locks, and thermostats from anywhere.

The app also serves as your command center for daily tasks, letting you create and edit shopping and to-do lists, manage timers and alarms, and get news and weather updates. You can also use the app to discover and enable new Alexa skills, connect to music streaming services like Spotify and Amazon Music, and create speaker groups for multi-room audio.

For communication, the app enables features like "Drop In" for instant two-way intercom with your Echo devices and allows you to make calls or send messages to other supported Alexa devices.

If you live in Google's world, Google Assistant is the ultimate AI companion. It's like having the power of Google search in a conversational, easy-to-access format. It's incredibly intelligent, able to understand complex questions and maintain the context of a conversation.

As one of the best free AI apps for Android, Google Assistant has solidified its position as a go-to tool for hands-free productivity and smart home management. This powerful AI assistant seamlessly integrates with your device and the broader Google ecosystem to help you streamline your day.

Going far beyond simple queries, it allows you to get directions, send text messages, and set complex, location-based reminders with just your voice. Its true power lies in its deep smart home integrations, enabling you to control compatible devices like thermostats, lights, and cameras to create custom "Routines" that automate your daily life.

Whether you're checking your calendar, queuing up a playlist, or using its robust voice typing and text-to-speech features for accessibility, Google Assistant provides a comprehensive, conversational experience that makes navigating your digital and physical world effortlessly intuitive.

Fotor is like a magic wand for your photos. Whether you want to quickly touch up a selfie, add a creative filter, or create a stunning photo collage, Fotor has all the tools you need.

Fotor is a comprehensive AI photo editing toolbox that brings advanced, AI-powered features to your fingertips. The app's core purpose is to simplify photo editing and design with the help of an AI Agent.

With Fotor, you can use voice or text commands to tell the AI what edits you want, and it will intelligently apply multiple changes at once. The app's powerful AI tools include a Photo Enhancer to fix blurry images, a Magic Eraser to seamlessly remove unwanted objects, and an AI Retouch feature for professional-grade skin smoothing.

Additionally, Fotor allows you to transform text into images, create unique AI avatars from selfies, and generate artistic 3D effects. Beyond its AI capabilities, it includes traditional editing features, a Collage Maker, and a wide variety of design templates for social media, posters, and flyers, making it a versatile tool for creators of all skill levels.

Tired of frantically typing notes during meetings? Otter.ai is your new best friend. This AI-powered assistant joins your online meetings and provides a real-time transcript, so you can focus on the conversation instead of the keyboard.

As one of the best AI apps for iPhone and Android, Otter.ai has become an indispensable tool for anyone who needs to capture and review conversations. This AI-powered transcription service automates the tedious process of note-taking during meetings, interviews, and lectures by providing real-time, high-accuracy transcriptions.

Going beyond a simple voice recorder, Otter can import audio and video files, summarize key points, and identify different speakers, making it an essential tool for both individuals and teams.

Its AI Meeting Assistant can join your live sessions on platforms like Zoom to take notes for you, allowing you to focus on the discussion. With its robust search functionality, you can easily find and revisit specific moments in the conversation, making it a powerful resource for streamlining your workflow and boosting productivity.

Trint takes transcription to the next level. It’s not just about turning audio into text; it’s about making that text searchable, editable, and collaborative. The platform is incredibly intuitive, allowing you to quickly clean up transcripts and find the moments that matter.

Trint is a powerful tool for content creators and journalists. It utilizes "super-powered AI" to automatically transcribe audio and video files in over 34 languages, turning spoken words into editable, searchable text.

The mobile app allows you to record new audio or upload existing files directly from your phone, and then instantly transcribe and share the content. This allows for seamless content creation and collaboration on the go.

By linking the audio to the transcribed text, Trint makes it easy to find key moments, edit with precision, and get your stories and content out faster.

Perplexity is like having a conversation with a brilliant research assistant. Instead of just giving you a list of links, it provides a direct answer to your question, complete with citations so you can check the sources.

Our team has been using Perplexity as a starting point for all our research tasks. It's amazing how much time it saves. Instead of opening a dozen tabs and trying to synthesize information from various sources, we get a concise, easy-to-read summary. We particularly love the "related questions" feature, which often leads us down rabbit holes of discovery we wouldn't have found otherwise.

We were recently working on a report about renewable energy, and Perplexity not only gave us a great overview but also pointed us to some key academic papers that we might have otherwise missed. It’s become an indispensable tool for our content creation process. It’s perfect for students, writers, and anyone who wants to go deeper than a standard web search.

The Google app is more than just a search bar. It’s your gateway to the world’s information, a personal navigator, and a visual search tool all rolled into one. With features like Google Lens, you can search for things you can’t even describe. It’s the ultimate tool for a curious mind.

It’s hard to imagine a day without using the Google app. Our team relies on it for everything from finding the nearest coffee shop for a team meeting to doing quick fact-checks for our articles.

The other day, one of our writers was trying to identify a plant in a picture, and Google Lens gave her the answer in seconds. It’s those little moments of magic that make the Google app so essential.

We've also found the personalized "Discover" feed to be a great source of inspiration, often surfacing articles and videos related to our current projects that we wouldn't have found otherwise. It’s a tool that’s so ingrained in our daily lives, it’s easy to take for granted how powerful it is.

The Bing app is a refreshing alternative to the usual search experience. With the power of Microsoft's Copilot AI, you can have a conversation with your search engine, ask follow-up questions, and get more nuanced answers.

Our team decided to give the Bing app a try as an experiment, and we were pleasantly surprised. The integration of Copilot is what really sets it apart. Instead of just getting a list of links, we were able to ask complex questions and get detailed, well-structured answers.

We were recently brainstorming ideas for a new marketing campaign, and we used the "Chat" feature to bounce ideas off the AI. It was a surprisingly creative and helpful process.

The Microsoft Rewards program has also been a fun little perk; a few of our team members have already redeemed their points for gift cards. It’s a small thing, but it makes the search experience a bit more engaging.

PicsArt is one of the most widely popular photo editing apps available to users. With a massive community of creators and an endless supply of editing tools, you can let your imagination run wild. Whether you want to create a surreal photo manipulation or a hilarious meme, PicsArt has everything you need to express yourself.

Picsart is a powerful, all-in-one AI-powered creative suite for photo and video editing, making it an essential tool for designers and content creators. It combines an intuitive user interface with advanced AI features, such as the AI-powered Background Remover for creating professional product shots and the Magic Eraser to effortlessly clean up images by removing unwanted objects.

The app also features an AI Image Generator that transforms text prompts into unique, customizable images and GIFs, and AI Enhance to instantly improve image quality. For video projects, Picsart provides an easy-to-use editor with trendy filters, effects, and a video collage maker.

With a massive library of over 60 million stickers and a comprehensive text editor, Picsart empowers you to bring your creative ideas to life on both mobile and desktop.

Canva is the design tool for the rest of us. You don’t need a degree in graphic design to create stunning visuals for your social media, presentations, or even your resume. With a massive library of templates and an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, Canva makes it easy to bring your creative ideas to life.

Canva is an all-in-one visual communication platform that leverages AI to simplify design for everyone, regardless of skill level, making it one of the best AI apps for designers. The app’s core purpose is to help users easily create professional content, from social media posts and presentations to videos and websites.

Its AI-powered features, collectively known as Magic Studio, are a game-changer for creators. These tools include Magic Write, which helps with copywriting; Magic Design, for creating custom presentations from a simple prompt; and Magic Media, which can turn your ideas into images and videos.

In addition to these advanced AI capabilities, Canva offers a massive library of templates, a user-friendly photo and video editor, and real-time collaboration features, making it an essential tool for both individual creators and teams.