Learn AI The Easy Way: A Complete Visual Guide to All 16 of the Best AI Models In the World, Including ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and More!

This one is for anyone who's ever had trouble picking an AI model. Now you can! I have printable cue cards, exercises for kids and adults alike, and an overview of the 16 best models in the world!

I want to make you a promise: at the end of this guide, you won’t be confused by which model is which, and which model to pick for what task. You’ll actually know.

This is a bit of an unusual piece. I’ve received several requests from teachers for some material that will help in the classroom. Ages vary, so I have to think about ages roughly 10-99 when trying to tackle this.

Also, I’ve had a ton of requests from people who want to understand which model they should pick. In fact “which model does this?” is like one of my top questions I get via email, DM, carrier pigeon, sonic spacehat vibe, etc.

And you know what, even though I’ve written about it—here, here, here, and here—the models keep changing. That makes it hard for educators to keep up. It makes it hard for learners here on Substack to keep up. When I want to send someone a piece I feel like I have to update it.

And everyone is left pulling out their hair because the model names are terrible. Like ffs who decided o3 was smarter than 4o? What kind of parallel universe is this and where can I get a better one. And what are these models good at? It should not take 10,000 words to explain.

Below is the vibe for model makers these days when they introduce yet another model with a name I do not understand—and most people are more confused than me lol

teachers don’t print this one

So what’s a Nate to do? Give up? Not my jam. I stay with it until I find a solution. And I think I have one now. It’s time to play cards. Yep. I made actual printable model cards that look like playing cards (if that’s your thing), or maybe a touch tarot, or maybe a bit of a baseball card vibe. You get the concept.

The subtle typos are vintage AI lol

I figured it was just easier with visuals. Each card has a single word that expresses what that model is really good at, plus there’s a model card with it that gives you a brief summary of key model facts. And that’s not enough! I also grabbed tables of stuff to try for grownups and big kids, and gave you my own personal model stack too. Plus I wrote a special introduction for folks new to AI that can be printed by teachers for kids and grownups.

Because why shouldn’t we have fun learning about models? Why can’t we play games?! We get to have fun around here.

And you know what’s fun? This is an extensible system. Sort of like those geeky card games some of us enjoy. So when a new model comes along, I can just create a new card for the deck and update you all! And then we can play the game of adding cards to (and discarding card from) our personal stacks.

So which cards do we have? Well there are hundreds of AI models, so I had to stop somewhere. But I do have a card for every single one of the top 15 models on the AI arena leaderboards. These include some models I don’t talk about often, and I love that these cards are giving me a way to introduce some of the more obscure top 15 in ways that are hopefully really easy to digest.

So let’s play cards!