The hottest AI models, what they do, and how to use them

Summary

AI models are being cranked out at a dizzying pace, by everyone from Big Tech companies like Google to startups like OpenAI and Anthropic. Keeping track of the latest ones can be overwhelming. Adding to the confusion is that AI models are often promoted based on industry benchmarks. But these technical metrics often reveal little about how real people and companies actually use them. To cut through the noise, TechCrunch has compiled an overview of the most advanced AI models released since 2024, with details on how to use them and what they’re best for. We’ll keep this list updated with the latest launches, too. There are literally over a million AI models out there: Hugging Face, for example, hosts over 1.4 million. So this list might miss some models that perform better, in one way or another. AI models released in 2025 Google Gemini 2.5 Gemini 2.5 Pro Experimental, a reasoning model, excels at building web apps and code agents according to Google. It underperforms on one popular coding benchmark compared to Claude Sonnet 3.7, however. The model requires a $20 monthly Gemini Advanced subscription. ChatGPT-4o image generator OpenAI has upgraded its existing GPT-4o model to generate images, not just text. The souped-up model soon went viral for transforming images into Studio Ghibli-style anime, despite obvious copyright concerns. Accessing GPT-4o requires, at minimum, a $20 per month ChatGPT Plus subscription. Stability AI’s Stable Virtual Camera Image generation startup Stability AI has launched a model that the company says can generate 3D scenes and camera angles from a single 2D image. However, it still struggles with scenes featuring more complex elements like humans and moving water. The model is available for noncommercial research use on HuggingFace. Cohere’s Aya Vision Cohere released a multimodal model called Aya Vision that it claims is best in class at doing things like captioning images and answering questions about photos. It also excels in languages ...