I tested the top 6 AI writing tools in 2026 (here’s what I found)

AI writing tools are popping up everywhere. What used to be a niche gadget is now a go-to for marketing, sales, and content teams. They all promise to make your life easier, speed up your work, and help you pump out more content.

But with so many choices, it's hard to tell which ones create good content and which just spit out generic AI fluff. The market is packed, and everyone claims to be the best. I decided to test the most popular platforms myself to see which ones actually hold up for creating solid, SEO-focused content.

Here’s my hands-on review of the top 6 tools I tested. We’ll cover what they’re good at, where they miss the mark, and who should use them. I’ll also show you the platform we use at eesel AI, the eesel AI blog writer, which took our organic traffic from 700 to 750,000 daily impressions in only three months.

What are AI writing tools?

At their core, AI writing tools are apps that use large language models (LLMs) to help you create, rewrite, or polish text. You can think of them as a writing partner that has read a huge chunk of the internet. Whether you're exploring AI for writing for the first time or looking to scale your content production, these tools can transform your workflow. They use that knowledge to follow your instructions and write surprisingly human-like text on just about anything.

The tech behind them is complicated (usually built on models like OpenAI's GPT series), but using them is pretty simple. You give them a prompt and some background info, and they give you back text.

It helps to think of them in three main groups:

• AI content generators: These tools build original content from the ground up. Give them a topic or a keyword, and they can produce entire blog posts, social media updates, or ad copy.
• AI writing assistants: These are for improving text you've already written. They include tools for grammar checks, paraphrasing sentences for better flow, or summarizing long documents.
• AI-powered optimization platforms: These are built to help your content rank in search engines. They look at what's already ranking and give you data-backed tips to optimize your writing for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization).

  

Many new platforms mix these functions, but most still have a primary strength that makes them a better fit for certain jobs.

How we evaluated the best AI writing tools

To make this review genuinely useful, I didn't just read through feature lists. I got my hands dirty and actually used these tools to create content. I judged them based on a few key things that matter to anyone doing content marketing for real.

Here’s what I focused on:

• Output Quality: Is the content ready to go, or does it need a ton of editing? How accurate is it, and does it sound like a human wrote it? The key question is how do I write a blog post like a human through AI — and which tools help you achieve that natural voice.
• Ease of Use: How fast can a new user jump in and create something? A confusing interface slows you down, which defeats the whole purpose of using an AI tool.
• SEO & AEO Features: Does the tool help you create content that's built to rank? This means features for keyword optimization, proper structure, and formatting for things like Google's AI Overview. A critical question is does AI content work for SEO — and the answer depends heavily on how you use these tools.
• Workflow Integration: Does it just dump a wall of text on you, or does it offer a more complete workflow? I looked for tools that also create assets like images and tables to make a blog post feel finished.
• Pricing: Is it affordable, and is the price fair for what you get? I also checked for a free trial or plan so you can test it before you buy.

AI writing tools comparison

Here's a quick look at how the top tools stack up against each other.

The 6 best AI writing tools we tested in 2026

Now, let's get into the details of each tool.

1. eesel AI blog writer: One of the best AI writing tools for complete blog posts

The eesel AI blog writer is built to do one thing really well: turn a single keyword into a complete, SEO-optimized, and media-rich article that’s good to go. It's less of a simple writer and more of an AI teammate that handles the whole content process, from research to the final draft. A great feature is its ability to automatically scan your website to learn your brand context. This makes any product mentions or brand voice feel natural, not tacked on.

Pros: The context-aware research is a huge plus. It digs deeper than surface-level info to create content that’s actually relevant to your topic. The tool automatically adds assets like AI-generated images, tables, and infographics, which saves a lot of time. It also pulls in real Reddit quotes and YouTube videos to add some social proof and a human touch. Another big advantage is its focus on Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), which structures content to have a better shot at being featured in AI answers from Google, Perplexity, and others.

Cons: This tool is very specialized for long-form blog content. If you mainly need short copy for social media posts or ads, it might not be the most direct tool for the job.

Pricing:

• It's completely free to try, so you can generate a full article and judge the quality yourself without needing a credit card.
• The paid plan is simple: $99 for 50 blog credits, which you can buy as you need them.

2. Jasper: A top choice among AI writing tools for marketing automation

Jasper is one of the most recognized AI content platforms out there, and for good reason. It’s made for marketing teams that need to create a lot of on-brand content for different channels. Its main feature, "Jasper IQ", learns your brand voice from your style guide and product info to keep everything consistent. It also has "Content Pipelines" that let teams automate the content process from idea to distribution.

Pros: Jasper is a great all-around tool for creating different types of marketing content, from blog posts to emails and ad copy. Its collaboration features are good for teams, letting multiple people work on projects together. The platform is strong at maintaining brand consistency since it can learn from text, video, and images. For bigger companies, its SOC 2 compliance is a nice bonus for security.

Cons: While Jasper is good at generating on-brand text, it provides a draft that serves as a strong starting point. You will need to find and add your own images, videos, and tables to make it a complete article.

Pricing:

• The Pro plan starts at $59 per seat, per month when billed annually.
• You can test it with a 7-day free trial.
• Custom Business plans are available for larger teams.

3. Writesonic: Using AI writing tools to track brand visibility

Writesonic has found a unique niche for itself, shifting from an AI writer to an "AI visibility platform." It focuses on helping marketers track and improve their brand’s presence on traditional search engines like Google and AI search platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity. It combines Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) into one workflow.

Pros: Writesonic's standout feature is its ability to track where your brand gets mentioned in AI chat answers, along with sentiment analysis. This gives you a clear idea of how AI models see your brand. It offers practical insights, like finding "citation gaps" where your competitors are mentioned but you aren't. The platform also has an "AI Article Writer" to create fact-checked, SEO-optimized content to help you fill those gaps.

Cons: The platform's main value is in its advanced SEO and GEO tracking. If you're just looking to generate high-quality blog posts quickly, the detailed analytics might be more than you need.

Pricing:

• A free trial is available, and you don't need a credit card to sign up.
• The Lite plan for individuals and small teams starts at $39 per month when billed annually.

4. Copy.ai: Go-to-market automation with AI writing tools

Copy.ai calls itself a Go-to-Market (GTM) AI Platform for sales and marketing teams. Its real strength is in automating complex, multi-step tasks using "Workflows" and "AI Agents". This is great for things like building sales prospecting lists, handling inbound leads, and creating personalized outreach campaigns at scale.

Pros: Copy.ai is very powerful for automating the repetitive tasks that take up so much time in a GTM strategy. Its "Infobase" feature acts as a central knowledge hub, storing company info to make sure all generated content is accurate. The "Brand Voice" feature helps keep everything consistent. It’s also LLM-agnostic, meaning it uses a mix of models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Gemini to pick the best one for the task.

Cons: The platform is heavily focused on sales and marketing automation. While it can generate long-form content, its output serves as a starting point that may require additional editing to fully align with specific search intent and inject a unique brand voice.

Pricing:

• Paid plans start with the Chat plan at $24 per month (billed annually), which comes with 5 seats.
• There is no free plan listed on their main pricing page.

5. Surfer: An SEO assistant among AI writing tools

Surfer is a different beast. It's mainly an SEO assistant and content optimization platform, not a content generator. Its job is to analyze the top-ranking pages for your target keyword and give you a data-driven checklist to help you optimize your content. You write your article in its "Content Editor", and it gives you a real-time "Content Score" based on how well you've followed its suggestions.

Pros: Surfer does a great job of simplifying competitor analysis into an actionable, points-based system. It tells you which keywords to use, how long your article should be, and what topics to cover. Its integrations with Google Docs and WordPress make it easy to slide into existing workflows. It's a great tool for refining an article to help it rank higher and includes other useful features like an AI content detector and a humanizer.

Cons: It's important to know that Surfer isn't for creating content from scratch. It's for optimizing text that you or another tool has already written. It's also one of the pricier options on this list and doesn't offer a free trial.

Pricing:

• The Essential plan starts at $79 per month when billed annually.
• No free plan or trial is available.

6. QuillBot: One of the simplest AI writing tools for polishing text

QuillBot is a specialized AI writing assistant that focuses on improving text that's already been written. It’s not about generating new content from a prompt, but about making your existing writing better. Its tools include a powerful "Paraphraser", a "Grammar Checker", a "Summarizer", and a "Plagiarism Checker".

Pros: The tool is incredibly simple to use and has a generous free plan that you can use without even signing up. It’s great for making your writing clearer, rephrasing sentences to avoid repetition, and simplifying complex ideas. The different paraphrasing modes (like Formal, Creative, or Simple) give you a lot of flexibility to adjust the tone for your audience.

Cons: Its main job is paraphrasing and editing, so it can't generate original long-form content. The free plan is useful, but it limits the Paraphraser to 125 words at a time, which can feel a bit limiting when you're working on longer documents.

Pricing:

• A generous free plan is available.
• Premium plans with unlimited words and more advanced features are available for users who need more power.

Beyond generation: How to use AI writing tools effectively

No matter which tool you pick, just generating text won't be enough. AI is a powerful assistant, but it works best with a human guiding the strategy. Here are a few tips to get the most out of any AI writing tool.

• Know your goal before you start: Before you generate anything, understand the search intent for your keyword. What question is the user trying to answer? AI is a tool to execute your strategy, not create it for you.
• Give the AI good context: The quality of the output depends on the quality of your input. The more context you provide about your audience, brand, and key points, the better the result will be. Tools like the eesel AI blog writer make this easy by automatically pulling brand context from your URL, but you'll need to be descriptive with other tools.
• Fact-check everything: AI models can sometimes make things up or use old information. Human verification is a must, especially with stats, technical details, or recent events. Always double-check important facts before publishing.
  

  I like a mix of free Chat GpT and Jasper. Free Chat GPT is actually still better for brainstorming - Jasper doesn’t really always understand the same prompts, the same way. I could ask it to suggest an outline for an ebook blah blah blah and sometimes it takes a lot more correction than chat GPT.

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• Add your own voice: The final step is to inject the AI-generated draft with your unique brand voice and perspective. Add personal stories, original insights, and specific examples that only you can provide. This is what separates great content from generic AI text.

For a more visual breakdown of how these different AI writing tools stack up, the following video review provides a hands-on comparison of several top platforms. It’s a great way to see these tools in action and get another perspective on their features and user experience.

This video review provides a hands-on comparison of several top AI writing tools, offering a great way to see them in action.

Find the right AI writing tools for your team

The "best" AI writing tool really depends on what you need to do. After testing these platforms, it's clear that each has its own strengths for different tasks.

Here’s a quick summary to help you decide:

• For generating complete, SEO-ready blog posts with little effort, the eesel AI blog writer is a powerful choice that handles the entire workflow.
• For automating marketing campaigns with a consistent brand voice, Jasper is a solid option built for teams.
• For tracking your brand's visibility in AI search results, Writesonic is the specialist you need.
• For optimizing existing content to climb the search rankings, Surfer is built for that specific job.
• For polishing your own writing on a budget, QuillBot is an excellent and accessible assistant.

Ready to stop drafting and start publishing? Try the eesel AI blog writer for free and generate your first complete, SEO-optimized article in minutes.