My Favourite AI Tools and When They Actually Deliver (From My Personal Experience)

I get asked almost every week about the AI tools I use to run my company more efficiently. I have tested well over fifty tools over the past year, and most of them looked exciting during the trial, but only a few stayed in our stack long enough to prove real value.

Below is a personal breakdown of the tools that genuinely made a difference for my team and me. I am sharing not only what they do, but exactly where they helped, the results we saw, and where they are not the best fit. My goal is to help you avoid unnecessary subscriptions and focus on what will actually move the needle.

1. Perplexity

I use Perplexity almost daily as my research and thinking partner.

Where it helped me the most:
• Speeding up market and competitor research when preparing strategic decisions.
• Turning long articles, reports, and interviews into short and actionable insights.

Personal outcome:
What used to take me two to three hours of reading now takes about fifteen minutes. It helps me stay informed and confident when making decisions in fast-moving markets.

Not ideal for:
Storytelling or opinion-driven writing. I only rely on it for research, not for crafting the final message.

2. Claude

Claude is my go-to tool for deep thinking and long-form writing.

How I personally use it:
• Drafting thought leadership and newsletters.
• Preparing investor and board communication.
• Working through complex ideas and decisions that require clarity.

Personal outcome:
I treat Claude as a strategic co-founder in written form. It helps refine my thinking, not just my words.

3. Notion AI

This became a central part of how our team documents and shares knowledge.

Where it helped us:
• Turning messy internal notes into structured documentation and playbooks.
• Generating clear meeting summaries and action lists that keep projects moving.
• Creating onboarding material that helps new team members ramp up quickly.

Personal outcome:
Reduced the time I spend repeating information across the team, which freed up more of my time for strategy.

4. Superhuman

Superhuman has become essential for keeping my inbox manageable and my communication fast.

Where it helped me the most:
• Processing emails significantly faster with AI summaries, instant triage, and priority filtering
• Reducing cognitive load by highlighting the emails that actually need my attention
• AI-assisted replies that maintain my writing style while speeding up response time

Personal outcome:
Email went from feeling like a drain to a channel I can clear quickly. I reclaim at least one hour per day that I used to lose in my inbox.

Best for:
Founders, executives, and managers who receive high volumes of email and want to stay responsive without burning hours.

5. Loom with AI

Loom helped us reduce meetings and make communication much clearer.

How we use it:
• Recording product updates or feedback instead of holding another meeting.
• Helping new team members or customers understand processes visually.
• Sharing context across time zones without delays.

Personal outcome:
I cut several recurring meetings and still improved clarity. The team prefers watching a five minute video over sitting in a thirty minute call.

Personal tip:
Keep videos short and to the point. Long Looms get ignored just like long meetings.

6. Gamma

This has saved me countless hours preparing presentations.

Where it helped:
• Turning ideas and frameworks into clean slides for internal strategy or customer-facing decks.
• Creating content for workshops, pitches, and team updates.

Personal outcome:
I no longer lose time formatting slides. The speed at which I can turn a rough idea into a clear visual narrative increased significantly.

Not for:
Data heavy investor decks that require custom visuals or advanced storytelling.

7. Miro AI

Miro became a core part of how we plan and align as a team.

How we use it:
• Quarterly planning and cross-functional workshops.
• Visualising ideas before moving them into execution mode.
• Aligning product and go to market teams around the same picture.

Personal outcome:
Team alignment improved, especially for remote contributors who need a shared visual to think together.

8. Trupeer

Trupeer replaced a lot of manual work for our product education and training content.

Where it helped us:
• Turning screen recordings into polished product walkthroughs with voiceover and text.
• Creating onboarding and training videos for new customers and new product releases.
• Producing multilingual content without needing a video team.

Personal outcome:
What used to take half a day of editing now takes less than one hour, and we maintain consistent branding across all videos.

Best for:
SaaS teams that produce regular product training content for customers or internal enablement.

9. HeyGen

HeyGen helped us scale video communication across markets.

How we use it:
• Personalised sales videos that include the prospect's name or company details.
• Converting onboarding and product content into multiple languages.
• Creating marketing and social videos without recording myself every time.

Personal outcome:
This made it easier to communicate with international audiences and deliver personalised content without being on camera for every video.

Important note:
The video is only as good as the script, so I still spend time crafting the message before generating it.

10. Tome

Tome helped with early product storytelling and idea validation.

Where it helped:
• Showing an early product concept visually to the team before development.
• Gathering feedback from customers and advisors to refine direction.

Personal outcome:
It helped us avoid building features that sounded good in writing but were not compelling once visualised.

How to Choose the Right First AI Tool

After testing so many tools, I learned that the best place to start is with the tool that delivers the highest return on effort. A good first AI tool should meet at least two of these criteria:

✅ Saves at least two hours per week
✅ Improves clarity, quality, or speed of output
✅ Reduces repeated work across the team
✅ Benefits more than one person or department
✅ Works without complex onboarding or configuration

Whichever tool checks the most boxes for you is the one to start with. Begin there, feel the impact, and only then consider adding the next tool.

Final Thoughts

My biggest lesson after experimenting with many AI tools is that more tools does not mean more productivity. The real value comes from choosing one tool that removes friction from a recurring workflow inside your company. Start small, make one meaningful improvement, and build from there.

If you found this helpful, I would love to hear which tool you are most interested in trying next.

Reply and tell me the one tool that would make the biggest difference for your workflow right now. I read every response.