AI Model Type Overview
This page covers the most common text, image, and video models to help you quickly understand the differences between model types and choose the right one for your first use.
Not sure where to start? We recommend reading the beginner's guide first — it'll help you make a more informed decision.
Best for article writing, customer service, Q&A, document processing, and coding assistance.
Best for illustration generation, social media assets, concept art, and visual design work.
Best for short video generation, animated content, dynamic ads, and motion graphics.
Text Models
The most widely used AI model type for content generation, translation, summarization, coding, and conversational AI.
Image Models
Primarily used for illustration, social media assets, design drafts, and visual content creation. Essential for anyone needing high-quality visual output.
Video Models
Primarily used for AI video clips, image-to-video, and dynamic ad content creation. Ideal for anyone needing AI-generated motion content.
Common Questions About Model Types
If you're just getting started with AI, we recommend first identifying what you want to do — not just memorizing model names. You can look at the model categories (text, image, video), then read the beginner's guide on AI Token King. From there, you can try a few models and compare outputs before committing.
The beginner's guide also includes a decision tree to help you pick a starting point based on your specific goal.
The three model types handle fundamentally different kinds of output:
- Text models — Read text input, generate text output. Used for Q&A, writing, summarization, translation, and code.
- Image models — Generate images from text prompts or other images. Used for design, illustration, and visual content.
- Video models — Generate short video clips from text or images. Used for ads, animation, and social content.
Video models are generally the most expensive; text models tend to be the cheapest and most versatile.
No — you don't need to know every model. Think of it like a menu: you don't need to try everything, just the dishes that match what you're hungry for. For most beginners, picking 2–3 models from the same category and comparing them is more than enough. The table is a reference, not a curriculum.
If your primary need is written content (blogs, emails, scripts, SEO), start with text models. We recommend beginning with established models like GPT-4o or Claude Sonnet, as they have the best documentation and largest community support.
Once you're comfortable with text generation, you can layer in image or video models for visual assets. But for pure content creation, text models alone will cover the vast majority of your needs.
Not always. Price and performance are important, but other factors matter too:
- Context window — How much text can the model handle at once?
- Language support — Some models are stronger in specific languages.
- API reliability — Uptime, rate limits, and latency matter for production apps.
- Fine-tuning availability — Can you customize the model for your use case?
AI Token King covers all of these dimensions in our comparison tool — not just price per token.
Yes — in fact, many production workflows chain multiple model types together. A common pattern: use a text model to generate a script or description, pass that to an image model to create visuals, then feed the image into a video model to animate it. This multi-model pipeline approach is increasingly common for content teams and agencies.
Ready to compare API pricing?
Now that you know the model types, see exactly how much each one costs per million tokens — and find the best fit for your budget.