The AI tool gold rush is over. It’s time to get practical.
Every week, a dozen new AI apps promise to revolutionise your workflow. Most disappear within months. The real challenge isn’t finding AI tools—it’s knowing which ones will actually save you time, boost creativity, and make your work easier without adding complexity to your life.
After testing hundreds of tools and watching the market evolve, here’s what works. These 60 AI tools are organised by real use cases, with honest pros and cons to help you build a stack that matters.
Writing & Content Creation
Whether you’re crafting blog posts, ads, or product descriptions, these tools handle the heavy lifting.
ChatGPT remains the Swiss Army knife of writing. It’s incredibly flexible, integrates with nearly everything, and handles quick tasks and complex projects. The downside? Sometimes the output feels generic, especially for specialised content.
Claude excels at long-form writing and can digest massive documents without breaking a sweat. If you’re working with research papers, legal documents, or lengthy reports, Claude processes them better than anything else. Just don’t expect lightning speed for quick tasks.
Perplexity bridges the gap between AI creativity and factual accuracy by combining language models with real-time search. When you need current information or want to avoid hallucinations, Perplexity delivers reliable facts. It’s less creative than pure language models, but more trustworthy.
For specialised use cases, it instantly automates email outreach with impressive personalisation at scale. It’s a game-changer for sales teams, but limited outside email marketing. Gemini integrates seamlessly with Google’s ecosystem and handles summaries quickly, though it’s still evolving. La Growth Machine automates copy across email and LinkedIn specifically for B2B teams. At the same time, Winn uses data to test which sales messages actually resonate—though you need significant traffic to make it worthwhile.
SEO & Ranking
Getting found on Google requires both art and science. These tools provide the science.
Ahrefs and SEMRush remain the gold standards for comprehensive SEO analysis. They offer massive databases and trusted insights that professionals rely on daily. The investment is significant, but the data quality justifies the cost for serious SEO work.
Surfer SEO takes a different approach by helping you write SEO-optimised articles with clear scoring systems. It removes guesswork from content optimisation, but it can feel rigid if you prefer more creative freedom.
Also, ask Google Maps’s “People Also Ask” questions, providing brilliant content ideas by showing exactly what searchers want to know. It’s narrow in scope but incredibly valuable for content planning.
AIPRM offers a marketplace of ready-to-use prompts for SEO workflows. The quality depends entirely on the prompts you choose, but it saves time for common SEO tasks.
All-in-One Sales & Marketing
These platforms handle everything from lead generation to deal closure.
Outreach and Salesloft represent enterprise-grade sales engagement with sophisticated tracking and automation capabilities. They’re powerful but require investment in training and setup. For teams serious about scaling sales operations, they’re essential.
ZELIQ combines prospecting and engagement in a single AI-powered platform. It offers all-in-one simplicity without the complexity of larger systems, though it lacks the advanced analytics that enterprise teams often need.
Sales Enablement
Modern sales require more than cold calls and email blasts. These tools create better buyer experiences.
Trumpet, Dock, Flowla, and Aligned all tackle the same problem: creating digital deal rooms and proposal sharing experiences that actually help close deals. They improve the buyer experience significantly, but adoption requires both sides of the transaction to embrace new workflows.
Video Creation & Editing
Professional video production is now accessible to anyone with the right tools.
Pika Labs creates stunning AI animations that would have required expensive studios just years ago. The results are impressive, though the technology remains experimental and occasionally unpredictable.
Synthesia generates polished corporate videos using AI avatars, which are perfect for training content and announcements. The speed is remarkable, but despite technical improvements, the output sometimes feels robotic.
Runway offers powerful video editing capabilities enhanced by AI. It’s excellent for creators willing to invest time in learning the platform, though that learning curve can be steep.
Luma AI specialises in 3D and cinematic rendering with high-end visual results, but demands significant hardware resources. Veed.io AI handles editing and transcription with an easy interface, though it’s not designed for complex projects.
Social Media Growth
Building an audience requires consistency and creativity. These tools provide both.
Taplio dominates LinkedIn with content creation and analytics specifically designed for personal branding. It’s excellent for professionals building thought leadership, but it’s limited to LinkedIn only.
AuthoredUp helps draft, schedule, and polish LinkedIn posts with time-saving features and a narrow focus on quality content.
SuperGrow, MagicPost, and EasyGen offer one-click posting and growth engines that generate quick content across platforms. They save time but risk creating generic-sounding posts that don’t stand out.
Prospecting & Outreach
Finding and engaging leads requires both volume and personalisation.
Sendler, Lemlist, and Smartlead automate cold email campaigns while maintaining high deliverability rates. They make scaling outreach effortless, though misuse can quickly cross into spam territory.
SendSpark, Loom, and HourOne focus on video-based outreach that adds personal touches to cold communication. The personal connection is powerful, but creating videos requires more effort than traditional text emails.
AI Agents & Automation
The future of work involves AI handling routine tasks while you focus on strategy.
Clay enriches data using AI workflows, transforming hours of manual research into minutes of automated insights. Setup requires an initial investment, but the time savings compound quickly.
11x and AI SDR function as virtual sales agents that prospect while you sleep. They handle basic qualification and outreach, though they still lack the nuance of experienced human sales professionals.
Bardeen automates repetitive tasks across applications with a Zapier-style approach. It’s excellent for workflow automation if you enjoy building systems and optimising processes.
Research & Insights
When you need to understand complex information quickly, these tools excel.
Consensus summarises research papers and academic content, making it invaluable for knowledge work that requires scientific backing. The scope is narrow, but the quality is trusted.
Humata lets you “chat with your PDF” by enabling conversational interactions with documents. It’s incredibly useful for long documents, though it occasionally makes interpretation errors.
Glimpse spots trends and makes predictions to give early-mover advantages in identifying market opportunities. It remains niche but valuable for trend-focused work.
Image Generation
Creating visual content no longer requires design expertise.
Midjourney produces the most artistic and detailed AI-generated images available. The creative results are impressive, but the Discord-based workflow feels clunky compared to traditional software.
DALL·E (accessible through ChatGPT) offers simple prompt-to-image generation with easy integration. The convenience is excellent, though the output can sometimes feel generic.
Ideogram specialises in logos and typography, effectively combining text and design elements. However, style variety remains limited compared to broader tools.
FluxAI provides advanced image editing capabilities with strong user control, though it’s less popular than established alternatives.
Meetings & Productivity
Transform meetings from time drains into productive sessions.
tl;dv summarises Zoom and Google Meet calls automatically, saving hours typically spent reviewing recordings. Accuracy varies depending on audio quality and conversation complexity.
Fathom records, transcribes, and summarises meetings with strong team collaboration features. The free tier offers basic functionality, but paid features unlock the real value.
Substrata and Sybill provide conversation coaching by analysing sales calls and suggesting improvements. They’re useful for specific sales scenarios but represent niche use cases.
Email Automation
Scale your communication without losing the personal touch.
Smartlead handles outreach campaigns while maintaining high deliverability rates. It’s reliable for scaling operations but pricing increases quickly with volume.
Lemlist combines personalisation with automation to create creative email sequences. It offers powerful features but can be overkill for occasional senders.
Building Your AI Stack
The secret isn’t using every tool—it’s choosing the right combination for your biggest challenges.
Writers should start with ChatGPT for versatility, plus Surfer SEO for optimisation. Sales professionals benefit from combining Outreach for engagement with Lemlist for personalised sequences. Creatives can pair Midjourney for image generation with Runway for video editing.
Pick your core tools first. Master them completely. Only then consider adding specialised solutions.
The AI tool landscape will evolve, but these fundamentals solve real problems today. Focus on tools, eliminating your biggest bottlenecks, rather than chasing the latest releases. Your productivity will thank you.
