Great article as always. And yes, why are these companies SO bad with naming and explaining??? Just learned that Microsoft's new "agentic" thing that can use Claude but lives within their Purview protection is called....Cowork....kill me... Microsoft Cowork. That's not going to be confusing like AT ALL...sigh
Never mind that Claude has Haiku, Sonnet, Opus, and Fable models, with Low, Medium, High, Extra, and Max effort modes, plus the Thinking and Extended modes; I'm very confused about which of these to use and when to switch.
Google's response to Codex (now ChatGPT Work) and Claude Code is Antigravity 2.0. I've found it quite capable with the usage limits on a Pro subscription. I'd consider it near peer with it's competitors, even if it's a little behind.
I'm sticking with Google until 3.5 Pro releases, then I'll assess whether some of the bells and whistles like Dispatch in Claude Code warrant a switch in addition to the overall better model performance.
I find Antigravity not very useful for most people who aren't coders and I tried to aim for a non-technical audience in this guide. If you are a coder, Antigravity is a bit better (though the weakness of Gemini 3.1 Pro causes further issues), and there are also other choices you can make besides Codex and Code, including different CLIs and harnesses.
That was definitely true of Antigravity 1.0, but I find the feature set after the overhaul of 2.0 to be indistinguishable from the other two big players, at least in terms of design intent if not performance.
I'm a UX designer who has been reading your posts for years now (and am halfway through your first book). I'm very impressed by your decision to make an agentic version of your website for book purchases. I wonder when the design community is going to start saying "agent first" design like we said "mobile first" in the 2010s.
Thank you Ethan! As someone deep in the weeds with AI, I often struggle figuring out how to communicate the frustratingly nuanced and evolving ecosystem I deal with everyday to people in my family and friend circles. Great to have a simple guide I can forward to them on what they should do.
Excellent callout on Google, I 100% agree. Although an explainer of the AI Overview on Google Search could prove helpful here, as it is likely the most common touchpoint for folks to see AI in action. Google Overview is surprisingly good these days, and I often find myself defaulting to continuing the AI overview chat for simple research based tasks (where should I go for vacation, which US state has the best potatoes, etc).
"And for the technically inclined, Chinese open weights models like Kimi K3, DeepSeek, and Qwen are surprisingly capable, but do require expertise to use as agents."
I'm seeing a lot of news in the last week about the Chinese models. Do you think they are catching up to OpenAI/Anthropic/Google?
As creative workers we developed our skills by direct contact with the work medium. Later, as creative managers, we grow our skills by listening to those with tools in their hands.
Chatbot work can encourage such listening, but detached agentic delegation threatens to isolate us from sensing, even indirectly, the texture of work, which is the fertile soil of creativity.
Super helpful, Ethan! I would love to see your review of Perplexity, too: I've found it much better at "deep" research than other tools, including Claude.
Great article as always. And yes, why are these companies SO bad with naming and explaining??? Just learned that Microsoft's new "agentic" thing that can use Claude but lives within their Purview protection is called....Cowork....kill me... Microsoft Cowork. That's not going to be confusing like AT ALL...sigh
Never mind that Claude has Haiku, Sonnet, Opus, and Fable models, with Low, Medium, High, Extra, and Max effort modes, plus the Thinking and Extended modes; I'm very confused about which of these to use and when to switch.
Google's response to Codex (now ChatGPT Work) and Claude Code is Antigravity 2.0. I've found it quite capable with the usage limits on a Pro subscription. I'd consider it near peer with it's competitors, even if it's a little behind.
I'm sticking with Google until 3.5 Pro releases, then I'll assess whether some of the bells and whistles like Dispatch in Claude Code warrant a switch in addition to the overall better model performance.
I find Antigravity not very useful for most people who aren't coders and I tried to aim for a non-technical audience in this guide. If you are a coder, Antigravity is a bit better (though the weakness of Gemini 3.1 Pro causes further issues), and there are also other choices you can make besides Codex and Code, including different CLIs and harnesses.
That was definitely true of Antigravity 1.0, but I find the feature set after the overhaul of 2.0 to be indistinguishable from the other two big players, at least in terms of design intent if not performance.
Ethan, thank you for this excellent piece. Can't wait for the book. :)
Quick practical question:
You write "I have the systems connected to... a non-private part of my Google Drive." How? Is this an enterprise-level thing?
I'd love to segment my GDrive this way.
Thanks for your help.
I'm a UX designer who has been reading your posts for years now (and am halfway through your first book). I'm very impressed by your decision to make an agentic version of your website for book purchases. I wonder when the design community is going to start saying "agent first" design like we said "mobile first" in the 2010s.
Thank you Ethan! As someone deep in the weeds with AI, I often struggle figuring out how to communicate the frustratingly nuanced and evolving ecosystem I deal with everyday to people in my family and friend circles. Great to have a simple guide I can forward to them on what they should do.
Excellent callout on Google, I 100% agree. Although an explainer of the AI Overview on Google Search could prove helpful here, as it is likely the most common touchpoint for folks to see AI in action. Google Overview is surprisingly good these days, and I often find myself defaulting to continuing the AI overview chat for simple research based tasks (where should I go for vacation, which US state has the best potatoes, etc).
Great article. On this point:
"And for the technically inclined, Chinese open weights models like Kimi K3, DeepSeek, and Qwen are surprisingly capable, but do require expertise to use as agents."
I'm seeing a lot of news in the last week about the Chinese models. Do you think they are catching up to OpenAI/Anthropic/Google?
very helpful article
As creative workers we developed our skills by direct contact with the work medium. Later, as creative managers, we grow our skills by listening to those with tools in their hands.
Chatbot work can encourage such listening, but detached agentic delegation threatens to isolate us from sensing, even indirectly, the texture of work, which is the fertile soil of creativity.
Super helpful, Ethan! I would love to see your review of Perplexity, too: I've found it much better at "deep" research than other tools, including Claude.