AI is no longer a "bonus" feature inside creative tools: in 2026, it **is** the tool. Editing a video, producing a slide deck, generating a voice-over, running a model on your own machine — every category has its winners, its licensing traps and its quiet price hikes. Here is the cross-category comparison, figures verified on July 3, 2026, with a top 3 per category and a one-page state-of-the-art recap at the end.

:::note[Method and data freshness]
Prices and licences verified on **July 3, 2026**, against official pages whenever possible. SaaS pricing moves fast (CapCut doubled its annual plan in early 2026, Descript changed its model in September 2025): double-check before buying. Benchmarks **self-reported by vendors** are flagged with an asterisk (\*).
:::

![Recap card: the winners of the July 2026 AI productivity comparison, by category.](/articles/outils-productivite-ia-le-comparatif-2026/fiche-recap-2026.svg)
*The recap card at a glance — details and justifications below.*

## Video editing: AI makes the first cut

The market has split into two families. On one side, **traditional NLEs** that absorbed AI (DaVinci Resolve 21, Premiere Pro 26.2); on the other, **AI-native** editors where AI is the interface itself (Descript and its Underlord agent, CapCut Auto-Edit, Opus Clip). Most teams keep one of each. The other strong 2026 signal: **AI-credit** monetisation is now everywhere… except at Blackmagic, which holds out with its perpetual licence.

| Tool | The AI, in short | Price (07/2026) | Platforms |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DaVinci Resolve 21 | IntelliScript (timeline from a script), SmartSwitch multicam, IntelliSearch | Free · Studio **$295 one-time** | Windows, macOS, **Linux** |
| Premiere Pro 26.2 | Generative Extend (Firefly), semantic search, Enhance Speech | from $22.99/mo + Firefly credits | Windows, macOS |
| CapCut "2026 AI Suite" | Auto-Edit, captions in 130+ languages, AI avatars | Free · Pro $19.99/mo | Windows, macOS, mobile, web |
| Descript | Text-based editing + the **Underlord** agent | Free · Creator $24/mo (annual) | Windows, macOS, web |
| Runway (Gen-4.5, Aleph) | Video generation + prompt-based editing of existing footage | Free · from $12/mo (credits) | Web (so Linux works) |
| Filmora 15 | AI Mate + built-in Sora 2, Veo 3.1 and Kling | from $49.99/yr · $79.99 perpetual | Windows, macOS |

Three profiles, three picks. The **professional editor** should take DaVinci Resolve Studio 21: AI at every post-production stage, reference-grade colour tools, the only major NLE on Linux — and $295 once, where the Adobe equation (subscription + credits) exceeds that in year one. The **short-form creator** stays on CapCut: the shortest path from footage to TikTok/Reels, at the cost of credit dependence and a brutal price hike (the annual Pro plan jumped from about $78 to $179.99). The **podcaster** picks Descript: editing video by fixing the transcript is still the most productive idea of the decade, and Underlord (best-take selection, social clips, Studio Sound cleanup) makes it a genuine agentic co-editor.

:::verdict[🏆 Top 3 video editing]
1. **DaVinci Resolve Studio 21** — the pro pick: $295 for life, AI everywhere, alone on Linux.
2. **CapCut Pro** — the creator pick: fastest social pipeline, generous free tier.
3. **Descript** — the podcast/talking-head pick: text-based editing + the Underlord agent.

*Runway (Aleph) is a separate case: not an editing bench but the reference for generative editing — add it to one of the three, not instead of them.*
:::

## Presentations: from prompt to PPTX… everywhere, Linux included

Generating a full deck from a prompt is now table stakes — the real 2026 topic is **portability**: what is a deck worth if it won't open on your client's machine? Two facts structure the category. First, every serious SaaS exports **PPTX**, with varying fidelity (fonts, gradients, animations). Second, **no AI SaaS exports ODP natively**: the OpenDocument format requires going through Google Slides (File → Download → ODP) or through LibreOffice/OnlyOffice, which write it natively.

:::warning[The Tome lesson]
Tome, the generative-deck pioneer (a claimed 20M users), **shut down on April 30, 2025** — decks that hadn't been exported were permanently deleted. The moral: whatever SaaS you pick, **export what matters to PPTX/PDF**.
:::

| Tool | Type | AI generation | Exports | Price (07/2026) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Gamma | SaaS (web) | full deck in ~30 s | PPTX, PDF, PNG, Google Slides — from the free plan | Free (400 credits) · Plus $9 · Pro ~$18–25/mo |
| Plus AI | Slides/PowerPoint add-in | inside the host app | **native PPTX**; ODP via Google Slides | from $10/mo |
| Presenton | **open source (Apache 2.0)**, Docker/desktop | prompt → deck, your choice of LLM (local Ollama, OpenAI, Claude…) | **editable PPTX**, PDF | Free self-hosted |
| Presentations.ai | SaaS (web) | business decks | high-fidelity PPTX, PDF | Free · Pro $20/mo |
| Beautiful.ai | SaaS (web) | Smart Slides (auto design) | PPTX, PDF — no free plan | from $12/mo (annual) |
| OnlyOffice / LibreOffice | free software, desktop | in-editor assistants (AI plugin, Ollama possible) | **native PPTX + ODP + PDF** | Free |

Gamma remains the best all-rounder: the most polished first draft on the market, exports available even on the free tier — but converting its web-native "cards" to classic 16:9 needs cleanup, and the 400 free credits never renew. For a company that lives in PowerPoint, Plus AI wins by construction: it works *inside* Google Slides or PowerPoint, so the output file is natively clean — and it's the only near-direct path to ODP. On the open-source side, Presenton is the genuine surprise: Apache 2.0, desktop apps for Windows/macOS/**Linux** or Docker, fully editable PPTX, and any LLM you like — including 100% local via Ollama for full confidentiality. Finally, if native ODP is non-negotiable, OnlyOffice and LibreOffice Impress remain the only ones writing it directly, with in-editor AI assistants (OnlyOffice's plugin accepts a local model) rather than full deck generation.

:::verdict[🏆 Top 3 cross-platform presentations]
1. **Gamma** — the all-rounder: best first draft, PPTX/PDF exports from the free tier.
2. **Plus AI** — the enterprise pick: native PPTX with zero conversion, ODP path via Google Slides, $10/mo.
3. **Presenton** — the open-source pick: Apache 2.0, Linux/macOS/Windows, local LLM support, editable PPTX.
:::

## Text-to-speech: premium cloud vs. free local

Two worlds coexist: cloud APIs, which dominate on expressiveness, and open-source models that have become **genuinely production-ready locally** — they all run effortlessly on a recent computer; the podium's largest model weighs 1.7 billion parameters. No four-figure GPU required.

### Paid (APIs)

| Service | Edge | French | Price ≈ / M characters |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| ElevenLabs (Eleven v3) | 70+ languages, emotional "audio tags", cloning | excellent | $50–100 |
| OpenAI gpt-4o-mini-tts | prompt steering, floor pricing (~$0.015/min) | decent | $12–15 |
| Cartesia Sonic-3.5 | 40–90 ms latency (real-time voice agents) | native (42 languages) | ~$38 |
| Hume Octave 2 | contextual emotion (the text is "understood") | yes (11+ languages) | ~$50 |

### Local (open source)

:::danger[The "open source" licence trap]
Check the licence **of the weights**, not the code. **F5-TTS**: MIT code but **CC-BY-NC** weights → no commercial use. **Fish Speech / OpenAudio S1-mini**: CC-BY-NC-SA. **XTTS-v2**: non-commercial licence *and* Coqui shut down in 2024 — there is nobody left to sell you a licence. All three are excellent, and all three are off-limits for a product.
:::

| Model | Size | Licence | French | Voice cloning |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Chatterbox Multilingual V3 (Resemble) | 0.5B | **MIT** | 23 languages, FR included | from 5 s of audio |
| Qwen3-TTS 1.7B (Alibaba, 01/2026) | 1.7B (MLX ports) | **Apache 2.0** | native (10 languages) | 3 s + prompt-based "voice design" |
| Kokoro-82M | 82M (~350 MB!) | **Apache 2.0** | 1 voice only, B− quality | no |
| Orpheus 3B | 3B (GGUF) | Apache 2.0 | FR as a *research release* | yes |
| NeuTTS Air (Neuphonic) | 748M | Apache 2.0 | yes (EN stronger) | 3 s |

Chatterbox V3 ticks every box: MIT (the only top-tier model truly free for commercial use), 23 languages, zero-shot cloning from 5 seconds, a unique open-source "emotion exaggeration" control — plus a built-in neural watermark, a welcome ethical touch. Qwen3-TTS, released in January 2026, is technically the most complete (3-second cloning, natural-language voice design, streaming, MLX ports for Apple Silicon) with only six months of community track record. Kokoro remains the fascinating outsider: 82M parameters, faster than real time **on CPU** — perfect for a lean automated pipeline, as long as the single French voice is enough.

:::verdict[🏆 The two voice podiums]
**Paid**: 1. ElevenLabs v3 (quality reference) · 2. OpenAI gpt-4o-mini-tts (~7× cheaper) · 3. Cartesia Sonic-3.5 (real time).
**Open source, local**: 1. Chatterbox Multilingual V3 (MIT + FR + cloning) · 2. Qwen3-TTS 1.7B (most complete) · 3. Kokoro-82M (tiny, real time on CPU).
:::

## Local LLMs: what to run under 36 GB

Let's set expectations first: the open-weights stars of 2026 (DeepSeek V4, GLM-5.2, Kimi K2.6) weigh 300 to 750 billion parameters — **out of budget** for a personal machine. Under 36 GB of memory (unified RAM or GPU VRAM), the competition happens between 20–35B models, with a simple trade-off: **MoE** models (few active parameters) favour speed, **dense** ones favour raw quality. Mind the Mistral Small 4 trap: despite the name it's a 119B MoE — about 60 GB at 4-bit, it does not fit.

| Model | Params (active) | Q4 ≈ | Indicative speed | Strength |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | 35B (3B) | 22 GB (Q6: 29 GB) | 35–50 tok/s, up to ~112 with MLX | the generalist: quality + speed + 262K context |
| Qwen3.6-27B (dense) | 27B | 17 GB (Q8 possible) | 10–25 tok/s | quality ceiling: SWE-bench 77.2\*, GPQA-D 87.8\* |
| Gemma 4 31B | 31B | 20 GB | 8–25 tok/s (×3 with MTP) | 140+ languages, vision, now **Apache 2.0** |
| gpt-oss-20b | 21B (3.6B) | 12 GB | **150–170 tok/s** | speed and tool use; collapses at 128K context |
| Magistral Small 1.2 | 24B | 14–15 GB | ~20 tok/s | reasoning + vision + very good French |

\* Self-reported by Alibaba — the "a dense 27B beats a 397B MoE at coding" claim has no solid independent verification yet.

On the runtime side, 2026 reshuffled the deck: **Ollama now uses MLX as its backend on Apple Silicon** (since 0.19, March 2026), and both LM Studio and llama.cpp shipped MTP *speculative decoding* — up to three times faster on Gemma 4.

```bash
# Ollama ≥ 0.19 (MLX backend on Apple Silicon)
# Pulling straight from Hugging Face avoids guessing tags:
ollama run hf.co/unsloth/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-GGUF:Q4_K_M   # ~22 GB — the generalist
ollama run gpt-oss:20b                                  # ~12 GB — 150+ tok/s, agents
```

:::tip[The hidden perk of a little memory headroom]
Compared with 24 GB setups, you don't just gain "a bigger model": you can serve 20–27B models at **Q6/Q8** instead of Q4 — higher quantization quality on the same model, often a better deal than a bigger model poorly quantized.
:::

:::verdict[🏆 Top 3 local LLMs ≤ 36 GB]
1. **Qwen3.6-35B-A3B** — the default pick: Apache 2.0, fast (MoE), 262K context.
2. **Qwen3.6-27B** — maximum quality for code and reasoning, when latency isn't critical.
3. **Gemma 4 31B** — the multilingual/multimodal pick: 140+ languages (excellent French), vision, MTP.

*Mentions: gpt-oss-20b as an ultra-fast agent engine; Magistral Small 1.2 for French-language reasoning with vision.*
:::

## The top 10 LLMs, all categories — July 2026

The first half of 2026 was uniquely dense: five flagship models from Anthropic in six months, six weeks between GPT-5.4 and GPT-5.5, and Chinese open-weights joining the frontier on code. Composite ranking (Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, June 2026, plus Arena and SWE-bench Verified/Pro):

| # | Model | Vendor | Licence | Context | API price ($/M in/out) | Signature |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | Claude Fable 5 / Mythos 5 | Anthropic | proprietary | 1M | 10 / 50 | AAII 64.9 (record); SWE-bench 95% |
| 2 | Claude Opus 4.8 | Anthropic | proprietary | 1M | 5 / 25 | #1 Arena; best frontier reliability/price ratio |
| 3 | GPT-5.5 | OpenAI | proprietary | 1M | 5 / 30 (Pro: 30 / 180) | competition math, agents |
| 4 | Gemini 3.1 Pro | Google | proprietary | 1M | 2 / 12 | GPQA Diamond 94.3%; factuality |
| 5 | Qwen 3.7 Max | Alibaba | proprietary (API) | 1M | 2.50 / 7.50 | best intelligence-per-dollar |
| 6 | DeepSeek V4 | DeepSeek | **open weights (MIT)** | 1M | 0.44 / 0.87 | SWE-bench 80.6% at ~5% of closed-model prices |
| 7 | GLM-5.2 | Zhipu AI | **open weights (MIT)** | 1M | — | #1 SWE-bench Pro (62.1)\* |
| 8 | Kimi K2.6 | Moonshot | open weights | 256K | 0.60 / 2.50 | tool-assisted HLE 54%; agents |
| 9 | MiniMax M3 | MiniMax | open weights announced\* | 1M | ~5–10% of GPT-5.5 | low-cost multi-actor agents |
| 10 | Grok 4.3 | xAI | proprietary | 256K | ~1.25 / 2.50 | cheap real-time agents |

\* GLM-5.2 and MiniMax M3 scores are self-reported, without consolidated independent verification in early July; the actual publication of M3's weights was still to be confirmed. (And yes, in full transparency: the #1 model in this table helped write this article — the numbers come from independent leaderboards, not from us.)

Four underlying trends sum up the semester. **One**: the frontier is now decided on *agentic* benchmarks (SWE-bench Pro, Terminal-Bench 2.1, GDPval) — GPQA is saturated above 94%. **Two**: prices have forked — "GPT-4-class" now costs under $1/M tokens while the frontier premium climbs (GPT-5.5 Pro at 30/180). **Three**: frontier open-weights are almost exclusively Chinese (DeepSeek, Zhipu, Moonshot, MiniMax, Qwen) — to the point that the US NIST officially evaluates them; Meta pivoted to proprietary (Muse Spark) and Mistral remains the only Western open flagship. **Four**: 1M context is now the top-10 standard — only Kimi stays at 256K.

## The recap card — the state of the art on one page

| Need | The pick | The alternative | The open option |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Edit a video | DaVinci Resolve Studio 21 ($295 for life) | CapCut Pro (short-form) · Descript (podcast) | Resolve free edition |
| Generate slides | Gamma | Plus AI (enterprise .pptx) | Presenton (Apache 2.0) |
| Cloud voice-over | ElevenLabs v3 | OpenAI gpt-4o-mini-tts (budget) · Cartesia (real time) | — |
| Local voice-over | Chatterbox Multilingual V3 (MIT) | Qwen3-TTS 1.7B | Kokoro-82M (real time on CPU) |
| Local LLM ≤ 36 GB | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Qwen3.6-27B (quality) · Gemma 4 31B (FR, vision) | all Apache 2.0 |
| Frontier LLM (API) | Claude Fable 5 · Opus 4.8 (perf/price) | GPT-5.5 · Gemini 3.1 Pro | DeepSeek V4 (MIT) |

Three reflexes before pulling out the credit card: read the licence **of the weights** (not the code), convert "credits" into real cost at *your* monthly volume, and always export your content to an open format — Tome reminded everyone in 2025 that SaaS products die too.