The AI Tools I Actually Use Every Day (Not Hype)
Cutting through the noise. These are the tools that survived daily use and became essential. Everything else is marketing.
Mike Smith
@MikeSmithShowThe Survivors
I've tried 100+ AI tools in the last two years. Maybe 8 stuck. The rest were impressive demos that didn't survive contact with real workflows. Here are the ones that earned daily use through sustained value, not novelty.
The pattern: tools built directly on frontier models with minimal abstraction layers tend to win. Thin wrappers over APIs with pretty UIs tend to lose. The model is the product. Everything else is packaging.
For Building
Claude Code for development is non-negotiable at this point. It understands full codebases, makes multi-file changes correctly, and its code quality is high enough that I review rather than rewrite.
GitHub Copilot for in-editor autocomplete. It's the least flashy tool but saves the most keystrokes over the course of a day. The combination of Copilot for small completions and Claude Code for larger changes covers the whole development spectrum.
For Thinking
Claude for analysis, strategy, and writing. I have ongoing conversations about business strategy, product direction, and market analysis. The model's ability to hold context and reason about complex tradeoffs makes it genuinely useful as a thinking partner.
Perplexity for research when I need current information with citations. It's replaced Google for most of my research queries. The answer format — synthesized with sources — is what Google should have built.
For Operations
Telegram bots built on our own AI infrastructure for monitoring and alerts. These are custom-built, not off-the-shelf, because operational workflows are too specific for generic tools.
The lesson: for operations, you often need to build your own AI-powered tools. Generic AI tools are great for generic tasks. Your specific business operations need specific tooling.
What Didn't Survive
AI writing assistants (Jasper, Copy.ai) — Claude does it better. AI image tools beyond occasional use — they're impressive but I don't need daily image generation. AI meeting assistants — the transcription is good but I rarely reference the output.
The common thread: tools that solve a narrow problem I don't have daily aren't worth maintaining a subscription. Tools that amplify something I already do every day are indispensable.
Key Takeaways
- →The Survivors
- →For Building
- →For Thinking
- →For Operations
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