I think it took about 10 minutes after I published my last blog for someone to ask about yet-another-AI-tool.
So here's two more. Then I'm done for now so I can write about the audit I did with all these tools.
This felt like Claude without the orange splat logo. With a fresh download I was on 5.6 Terra Medium.
Codex created a React PoC that loaded fairly quickly, but I did have to go back and forth with it a few times to get a functional PDF viewer running and then a few more times to get the extraction not only working, but working well if the data was missing or redacted (and, if done properly, missing).
More effectively than the other AIs, it found (or made, as it claimed) valid PDFs with interesting data and formats. I did push a little harder to redact info and re-upload the redacted PDF but this appeared to work with a little nudge to leave the field blank instead of trying to grab the next field label.
This was definitely the most seamless experience. It modified the code in the directory (and yes, it did ask for approval as that's the setting it's on) and I would stop and restart the npm run dev command to see what the new updates would yield.
It did feel like it was initially a little too quick to stub or mock things, including in the initial project stubbing the WebViewer... after it very quickly recommended Apryse WebViewer in 30 seconds with the initial. So why stub it? Maybe it was scared it needed a license key to function at all.
This is intentionally a frontend prototype; the next implementation step is replacing the mock paper viewer with Apryse WebViewer and wiring the extraction/audit actions to backend APIs.
Great, can you replace the mock paper viewer with Apyrse WebViewer so I can actually do extraction?
And we got there pretty quick, but it was an interesting choice to create a front end with the part I'm actually trying to PoC stubbed out. Very pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain if you ask me.
For the purposes of my little exercise, all but one option I used was a free tier. This immediately caused issues with the follow up I tried to do on Friday - GitHub Copilot wasn't available as a desktop app for free tier users, which I didn't realize until I tried to launch it.
Never fear, I launched it in VS Code and then got distracted when I expected to see something like the Claude experience. I assumed it just didn't work or install properly.
Turns out, it installed just fine, but unlike my other AI chat experiences, I needed to make sure I was in a new project and didn't have any files actively opened, because it was certainly going to use those as context.
Excuse me, Claude is back? Wild. For reference, I'm using Sonnet 5 with Claude on the desktop app.
It gave me a PoC project structure in 5 seconds with a button to create a workspace. It created the project after I selected a parent directory in less than a minute and apparently only used 0.2 credits, which I can clearly see on the screen.
Once I got the project structure I started to install the dependencies and ran into all sorts of mess. I continued to push on GitHub Copilot to help sort this. First it was let's adjust the WebViewer from 9.something to 10.0.0. Then it was like how about latest because this is a PoC anyway. Then it suggested I switch to pdf.js because I was having so many issues with the package.
The Apryse package isn't properly installed. Since we've been struggling with the package, let's use PDF.js instead—it's simpler and already works:
Dear reader, I was having no issues with the package. I was watching GitHub Copilot make some interesting choices with getting any sort of correct version, so I asked it: