AI insights, guides, and comparisons
Explore the latest articles on AI tools, workflow trends, product comparisons, and practical use cases.
Why I Kept the Dumb Tool
I almost cancelled a plain text expander and realized it did one thing no AI did: it fired instantly, offline, with zero ambiguity. The AI version waited and sometimes got the shortcut wrong.
Delegate the Draft, Not the Decision
The most productive use of AI I've found is narrow: let it draft, never let it decide. The draft is cheap to redo; the decision is the part that's actually yours.
The PDF Is Still King, and I Stopped Fighting It
For all the talk of new formats, the PDF refuses to die, and the tools that read it are more useful than any app that wants you to switch.
Your AI Summary Is Wrong in a Specific Way
AI summaries smooth over the uncertainty the source actually had. A hedged report becomes a clean claim, and the hedge was the truth.
The AI Tools That Died Quietly Taught Me More Than the Launches
For every model that launches with a splash, a tool dies without a sound. The quiet deaths teach more than the launches, if you keep a list.
Stop Fine-Tuning When a Prompt Already Works
Someone wanted to fine-tune a model for our tone and I talked them out of it. The prompt already did 90%, and the fine-tune would have cost a week we didn't have.
The 'AI Saves You Time' Pitch Is Half a Lie
Every tool promises hours back. Some deliver them. Most relocate the time to a new place you didn't budget for: prompting, reviewing, fixing mistakes.
Use AI for the One Task You Hate Most
Trying to 'use AI for everything' fails because everything includes things you're good at. The win is narrower: find the one task you dread and hand it over.
A Screenshot Beats a Paragraph of Prompt
I spent an hour describing a UI bug in words and got fixes that missed. Then I pasted a screenshot and the model found it in one try.
The Small Model Won My Workflow
The frontier models get the headlines, but the small, cheap, fast model quietly took over my daily work. For summarization and extraction, it's all I need.