How are AI coding assistants shaping your side projects?

I've been using several AI coding tools—such as Copilot Edits, Claude 3.5 Sonnet (preview), GPT-4, I also have option to use o3-mini preview, o1 preview, and Gemini 2.0 Flash (but not tried).

I’ve noticed that using very long prompts can be time-consuming and still might not deliver the perfect result, while shorter prompts often need to be refined 2–4 times. How have these trade-offs affected your side projects? Do these tools ultimately boost your productivity, or do they sometimes create more challenges than benefits?

And if you have option to choose llm from above 5 for Copilot Edits then which one you will use? Assuming if you have unlimited access with $0 cost?