I Ranked the Best AI Tools to Make Money in 2026

I rank the best and worst AI tools to

get rich in 2026. Some of these tools

can 10x your business and income, while

others are just a massive [music] waste

of time. And I've personally tested more

than 500 AI tools at my company, Martell

Ventures, because we're an AI incubator,

and we launch a new company every single

[music] month. So, I have to test them

and know if they're going to create

value. And I'm going to rank the most

popular AI tools that everybody's heard

about that can actually make you money

and build wealth in 2026. We got the S

tier, that's non-negotiable for the

future. The A tier, which is widespread

but not universally known. B tier, which

is niche but valuable. The C tier might

work in the rare cases, but most people

won't see consistent ROI. And then

finally, the F [music] tier, essentially

don't bother. It might be flashy,

but honestly, there's no real value.

Number one is MidJourney. Essentially,

it allows you to take prompts and

generate images. It was like one of

those early apps that when Chad GPD came

out, people were using it because it

essentially used the same prompt

structure [music] to create images. Can

you make money? Yeah. A lot of people

use Midjourney and act as a service to

create brand packages or website designs

or any visual Photoshop type thing. Easy

to use, super simple. I just don't think

long term it'll be there. Where do I

think this one sits? It is kind of

niche.

>> [music]

>> You can do a lot of this in other tools.

I'm going to put it in B. Number two is

Runway ML. Essentially, this is an AI

powered video generating tool. You can

use it to like create marketing

collateral, walkthroughs. Think of any

video generation. So, you can get paid

to do it for other businesses. You can

also use it in your business to [music]

create marketing collateral. I think the

easy use, it's not there. It's a lot

harder to use than most of these tools.

But, I think like long-term, it's pretty

good. I would probably put it in a B.

Every business, no. Video creators for

sure, but it's less for like everyday

use. I'm going to put runway in front of

Midjourney because video is more

interesting to me than photos. Number

three, 11 Labs. Now, they're kind of OG

AI. They've been around for a while.

Produces uber realistic AI voices. We

use it all the time for this very

specific use case where if I

mispronounce a word like regularlessly,

yes, make fun of me, I don't care. Then

the team can actually use it to create

what's called pickups rigorously. So

yes, this is Dan. Ouch, I'm pinching

myself, not AI. But sometimes the voice

has to be AI because it saves me time

from having come back into [music] the

studio. If you're in a business that

generates a lot of creative that has

voiceovers,

super [music] powerful, huge opportunity

to make a ton of money, do it for

yourself as a marketing thing, easy to

use. And then also like [music] the

future of voice, I think they will be

potentially the winner in that category

[music] cuz it's nuance and you think

it's easy, but it's not. So, I'm going

to give it a high score. I'm actually

going to put [music] this into A. It's

fantastic for content creators. It's not

essential for every business, but it's

like right on the edge. Before I go any

further, I know that most entrepreneurs

are literally struggling trying to

figure out what are the tools, how do I

use them, how do I actually use them to

grow my business. So that's why I built

the AI company OS. Essentially, it's the

exact system my team and I use to

automate and scale every department

across a $und00 million portfolio. So if

you want a copy of that, just click the

link or scan the QR code and I'll get

you a [music] copy for free. That's my

gift to you. Number four is Hey Jen.

Another tool that's been around since

the beginning. It allows you to create

AI avatar videos from just [music] text

and it's kind of leading the front.

There's a few other ones that are like

coming up and they still are in private

beta. But hey genen is really cool and a

lot of people are using it for creating

training videos, product explainers,

marketing videos. Essentially, it's a

way for you to scale [music] your

content output. Moneym. If you can

convince a business owner to actually

use the tool, they'll pay you to set it

up. The easy use is high. So, that's

good. I'd give it like an 8 out of 10.

And then I would say the future of it

being that platform is pretty high.

Although there's a lot of other tools

come in. It's a fun tool but limited use

depending on your business. So I'm going

to give it a B right [music] next to

Runway cuz Runway actually has a better

product suite. It's not as good as

Runway, better than Midjourney. Number

five, gamma.app.

If you've never heard of it, let me tell

you about it cuz I use it every week.

Essentially, it's like having a

full-time designer on your team to

generate reports and proposals and

outputs. And it's awesome. I think the

money-making is there. I just think that

most people can use this tool, so

they'll just do it themselves. But I

have friends that use it to create pitch

decks for clients, proposals for

clients, essentially visualize output so

that the team doesn't have to like stop

and get distracted. Easy to use, high.

It's like a 9 out of 10. Is it going to

be relevant for the future? They seem to

be the category winner in the space. So,

I'm going to give them a good score

there. This one's going to be

controversial. I'm going to go S tier. I

think every business could use it. I

think they should make everything they

produce as an output prettier. I think

visuals are good. I think teams

communicate better. Number six, it's

Leonardo.ai.

Essentially generates concept art and

branded visuals. So, if you ever had the

idea of like, oh, I want to start my own

like Nike, you could do this really

easily. The problem is when you generate

branded material, you'll have sometimes

hallucination. So, the consistency is

not there. So, it's known for that. The

styles, the flexibility, it makes it

ideal for designers. Designers love this

tool. But, can you make money with this?

For most people, you kind of need to be

a designer. So, I'm going to give you a

low score there. Is it easy to use? Yep,

relatively easy. Is it going to be

relevant for the future? Again, it's

competitive. It has a strong niche

appeal. Like, designers do love it, but

limited to broad use. So, I'm going to

put it in B. It's very niche, but

valuable. And I'm going to put it third

in the list. Number seven, Zapier. This

one is really [music] cool. It's a tool

that helps you automate your business

processes. They've been around forever,

way before AI. I've been using it for, I

think, close to a decade now. 6,000

[music] apps to automate your workflow.

The cool part is no code required. I

know hundreds of agencies that are using

Zapier to make a ton of money, automate

business processes. It's relatively

easy. When you get into more

sophisticated stuff, it's there. And

they've been around for so long. They

have the enterprise space and they've

added the tools and they were quick to

adopt AI. I'm giving this S tier. This

one is one that's foundation to any

modern business. I'm going to put it

above Gamma. Now, we've got a

competitor, Gum Loop. I love it because

I am a sucker for good user experience.

It's a visual AI workflow builder. So,

same thing, automate workflows. It's

visual, a lot more visual than Zapier.

We built a whole bunch of financial

automation using Gum Loop, recruiting

processes using Gum Loop. So, I'm I'm a

fan. It's a solid option. I think you

can make money with this. It's a lot

higher on ease of use even though it's

newer in a smaller community, but it's

it's ah making a bet long term. I just

don't think you need it if you've got

Zapier. So, I'm going to put it in the A

tier. We're going to put it in front of

11 Labs. You got to automate your

business. Number nine is N8N. What I

love about it, it's open source. I'm a

big fan of open source. Open source

essentially means that the code base is

available for anybody to look at it. So,

you don't have to worry if the company's

doing things right because you can

actually audit the code. You don't have

to pay for licenses. It's essentially

[music] free if you can set up your own

servers. It's a little best suited for

like developers. You can make money

because it's automation. A lot a lot of

people use it for more complicated

workflows, but the learning curve is a

lot harder. So, it's got a low score

there. And I think it's going to be

relevant cuz it is the open-source

[music]

tool of choice right now amongst

technical people. So, I'm going to give

it a

You need a tool for workflow, but you

don't need that tool. So, I'm going to

put it on the end of an A. Number 10,

your.com. Essentially, anything voice

and phone call, it can automate and act

as like a revenue tool for you. We use

it for outbound qualifying. We use it

for inbound responses. Full disclosure,

this is one of my portfolio companies at

Martell Ventures, but it's a tool that

not only do we use in all my portfolios,

but also my brother uses it, my friends

use it. It is a really cool tool. Big

fan. Obviously, I'm a little biased, but

let me tell you why I think it's cool.

Number one, a lot of people are using

Atlas to get paid to set this up for

companies so you can make money really

quick. The learning curve is not that

high. I mean, you just need to

understand basic prompt engineering. And

then the future of voice and AI. I think

every interface in the future will go

away and it'll all be voice. You're

probably doing this right now with AI.

You're talking to it a lot. If you look

inside of some of the top tech

companies, they have these like little

mics with a long pole and a little mic

and everybody's whisper prompting their

prompts on their computer. It's really

interesting. The world's probably going

to go there. And your list.com is the

platform right now, I think, to do that.

You should just try it out. Go check out

youratlas.com and just like have it call

you. It's really cool. as a business

tool. I just don't see you doing things

that don't involve calls. I know it

sounds self- serving, so I don't want

you to take it the wrong way, but I'm

going to put it at the top. [music] It's

an S at the end of S. Number 11,

Fixer.ai. Fixer AI is essentially an

email AI tool. So, it'll help you like

categorize your email, get sorted. It's

a tool to help you be more productive in

your inbox. Clever idea. Super cool. Can

you make money with it? It'll save you

time. I don't think you can like get

paid from other people to set it up.

Learning how to use it is always a

little bit difficult with kind of

workflows because you probably have a

certain way you like to use your inbox.

So, I'm going to put it in C. I think

it's cool. I've mentioned it before, but

it's not a must considering the other

tools. Number 12 is Notion AI. Notion is

a project management workspace for

businesses. The AI specific is their

assistant. It's built into Notion that

helps you with writing and taking notes

and organizational. So that's what I'm

essentially assessing. Cool part is it

integrates naturally with your existing

workspace within notion. So if you use

notion, thumbs up. Money making and save

you time. It's cool. It's still not

where I need it to be. And I don't think

anybody's going to pay you just for the

AI part. They might pay you to set up

notion for them. Ease to use, super

easy. Love the interface integrated.

Long-term, is this the tool? Well, if

you didn't see that OpenAI launched

company knowledge, which is this new

product that is going to try to be the

search or the brain on top of your

business knowledge, that's where I think

like a notion AI might lose some ground.

I'm going to put it C. It's cool. I just

think it's tough to justify, but I am

going to put it in front of fixer. I

think check out the notion AI. It

actually can do some cool stuff,

specifically if you're a notion company.

Number 13, buddyro.ai. Think of it this

way. If you had a knowledge base or a

brain, an AI brain that was specifically

trained on just your company's

information and then your clients

instead of calling you, they could call

Buddy Pro or instead of your team asking

you, they could ask Buddy Pro. That's

what it does. Do I think it'll save you

money? Hell yeah. Think about all those

support emails, [music] right? The

support emails only work if they've been

properly trained. So now all of a

sudden, Buddy Pro can power the

response. I think every business can use

it. I think it'll save you a lot of

money and I think the way they built it

technically because I know the founders

it's a really smart way to solve this

problem long term that's completely

different than just like a custom GPT.

I'll rank it in tier A but at the end

number 14 granola.ai the category of

recording calls is big. Okay, you see

them all the time. You get on a Zoom

call and you got the thing recording and

you're like whose Firefly is this? I

just don't let them into my meetings.

I'll tell you why Granola is cooler.

Granola actually records on your end,

meaning that people that are on the call

don't know that you're recording. It's

not meant to be sneaky. It's meant for

you to take notes so that you have clear

understanding of what's been said,

recaps and action items and all that

stuff. And it does it automagically. And

the cool part is it works across all the

major video platforms. Do I think it'll

save you money? If you're not the kind

of person that writes things down, yes.

If you don't have somebody in your

meetings, yes. Easy for you to use? Yep.

Literally click, click, install, it

starts working. Is it going to be the

one that's going to win the future?

Amongst all my smart technical AI

people, it's their favorite and that's

usually a good sign. [music] So, I'm

gonna make it mandatory. I think it's S.

I think everybody should use Granola. I

think it's in front of your atlas for

sure. And honestly, even in front of

Gamma. If you don't use it, check it

out. I think you'll be happy you do.

Number 15, we got Chat GPT. The big dog,

the one that started it all, okay, 2 and

a half years ago. Did you know close to

700 million people use CHBT every week

is bananas. Conversational [snorts]

AI for writing, coding, automation. It

does more than most people realize.

Obviously, it's going to make you a ton

of money. It's incredibly easy to use.

Literally, if you want to learn how to

use AI, ask AI. It'll tell you. Wild, I

know. They've raised so much money that

they're at the point where they're too

big to fail. So, [music] where do I put

GPT? At the very, very, very front. It's

dominating the market. It's number one

s. Use it. If you're not using it, learn

it. I created a whole master class video

on Chad GBT. You can search for that.

It'll teach you how to become next

level. It's number one. Number 16,

Claude, which is the AI by Enthropic. I

use all the AIs and I'm going to rank

them today, but Claude's one

specifically for writing and for code.

Yes, GPT5 is getting better, but still

on certain types of projects, it's still

winning there. Will it make you money?

less than Chad GBT because I think it's

a use case if you're not using as much.

Very easy to use. Are they going to be

around long term? Yeah, they're not

going anywhere. They'll probably get

bought by somebody. I'm going to put it

in front of Zapier. Number 17, we've got

Perplexity.ai.

This is like the battle of the language

models. Perplexity was the first search

engine that was powered by AI. Now it's

kind of [music] like everywhere. GPT

launched Atlas, their own browser.

Google's got the AI answers integrated

into search results, but Perplexity was

the first one. And what's unique [music]

is that feedback is verified sources,

which is cool because sometimes you have

hallucination with the other language

models. In many ways, it's kind of a

novelty. I'm not going to put it even

after granola. We're going to go zap

your granola perplexity. Some of you

guys are going to be like, "Oh, I

disagree." That's cool. My ranking,

that's where I'm going to put it. Number

18, Gemini. Google. What Google is doing

that it's got an advantage over is that

it integrates all of its existing tools.

So, here's the thing is it would go

ahead of everybody if it was not

integrated, but if you're not a Google

ecosystem customer, then I'm going to

put it third behind claude. Number 19,

Notebook LM. Essentially, it's Google's

AI for analyzing and summarizing files,

information, research. There's one use

case that I think most people don't know

about where you can feed it to like

YouTube videos and actually tell it to

like talk to you through the videos, but

it generates like a narrative back and

forth. [music] It's like creating your

own podcast. And I think it's really

tailored for like researchers, writers,

and students. So, it's not an every

company. I wouldn't even say it's an A.

It's kind of a niche thing. If you want

to get nerdy on this stuff, it's in the

C. It's interesting, but it's not

necessarily needed. Number 20 is Grock.

[music] Elon buys X, takes the AI team,

spins it out as X AI, brands it as

Grock, raises a bunch of money, built

this crazy data center. The reason why

it's on this list is because I use

[music] it more and more. It keeps

getting better week over week. I

actually use Gro Heavy, which is the

$300 a month plan. It is the best one

for accuracy, [music] depth of research

that I found. I'm just looking longterm.

I'm thinking it's way better than

Gemini. I think he's going to beat

Claude and I think it's going to be

number two behind open eyes chat GBT.

That's where I'm putting it. I see the

updates. I see the focus. The first

principles [music] approach. It's one

I'm going to bet on. Number 21, Revio.

If you do any kind of selling over chat,

I'm talking support emails, LinkedIn,

Instagram, Facebook, then having an AI

sales assistant is key. Revio is one of

our portfolio company inside of Martell

Ventures. We use it all the time. I use

it. My wife uses it. Can it make you

money? Ton of money. Most people don't

know that if you talk to your followers

on social media, those are called leads.

You make money with leads. Is it going

to be relevant long-term? I think so.

I'm going to put it in C. So, it's tough

to justify, but here's the deal. If you

use Instagram for business, it's a must.

Okay. So, it's niche. Number 22.

Lovable. Now, this is one of my

favorites. Lovable has been around for a

while. It helps people that are not

technical build apps. All my friends

that come to me with they're like, "I've

got a tech idea, Dan." I say, "Just go

play with Lovable." The cool part is you

can use ChatgBT to write the prompt to

then insert it into Lovable so that it

can create the app the way you want. I

think the future of business is these

disposable apps that help run

departments. Right now, we use [music]

spreadsheets. In the future will be

apps. Lovable is that platform. I know

people that make a lot of money selling

Lovable apps to businesses and charge

$10,000, $15,000 for these apps that AI

generated. And I know a lot of

businesses that are using it for that

disposable idea to save time to build

automation. You need to know how to

prompt, so it's not as easy to use, but

they're wellunded. I think they'll be

around for a while. The future's going

there, but there's other tools that

everybody should be using before then in

your business. So, I'm going to put it

at the end of the row B. Number 23 is

Cursor AI. If you're a technical person,

Cursor is crazy cool. It's an AI coding

assistant. It's an IDE, an integrated

development environment for you to write

code. It's super technical, super nerdy.

I'm going to put it at the end of C.

It's really cool. It's just super niche.

Number 24, Apple Intelligence. I love

that Apple branded AI. Apple

intelligence. Like, if you saw their

ads, they were like, "Apple

intelligence." AI for the rest of us. If

you didn't know this, it sucks. It has

always sucked. Nobody uses it. People

that tried it go back to the other AI

tools. They focus on privacy, which is

kind of a cornerstone to Apple's brand.

The problem is this is not good. Crazy.

I'm doing this cuz it's an Apple

product. Apple hasn't innovated in a

while. So, I'm putting it into F. Run

away. Until they launch something way

better. Don't use it. Use any of the

other tools. So, we've ranked all these

tools. And I can understand it might

feel super overwhelming. Here's what I

want to encourage you to do now. Take

the one that you were like, "Oh, that's

interesting. I could see how I would use

that in my business." And then just

spend the next two weeks a installing

it. like right now, go install it, then

set it up, and then just like force

yourself to build the new habit to use

it. Cuz a lot of technology, it's not

can it do the thing, it's do you

remember to use it. Go do a project and

start trying to habit stack. [music]

Connect the using of that new AI tool to

another habit in your workday so that it

becomes second nature. That's how we

start the process of using these tools

to make you a lot more money and getting

a lot more time back. And again, if you

haven't grabbed the internal AI company

operating system doc that my team uses

with all of our AI prompts that you can

use by clicking the link below, just do

that. That is my gift to you at no cost.

Now, if you want to learn what are the

best businesses to start, click here and

I'll see you on the other