The 5 AI Tools I Actually Use Every Day
I test AI tools constantly. Most don't stick. These five have become essential to how I work—both in my day job and running my consulting business.
I experiment with new AI tools constantly. Most of them I try once and never open again. But a few have fundamentally changed how I work.
These aren't theoretical recommendations. These are the tools I open every single day—for my full-time job as a Product Owner and for running my AI automation consulting business on the side.
1. Claude Opus 4.5
Claude is my primary thinking partner. I use it for everything from drafting PRDs and user stories to working through complex business problems.
What makes Claude different from other AI assistants is the depth of reasoning. When I'm writing product requirements, I don't just want text generated—I want something that's thought through the edge cases, considered the user perspective, and structured the information logically. Claude Opus 4.5 does that consistently.
I also use Claude for strategic work: analyzing market opportunities, pressure-testing business ideas, drafting client proposals. The responses feel like working with a sharp colleague rather than a text predictor.
The longer context window matters too. I can paste in an entire document, a full conversation history, or a complex specification and get responses that actually account for all of it.
2. Cursor
Cursor changed how I build things. It's a code editor with AI built in—not as an afterthought, but as the core interaction model.
When I'm building automations for clients or prototyping tools for my own business, Cursor lets me move incredibly fast. I describe what I want, it writes the code, I review and iterate. What used to take hours takes minutes.
The key insight is that Cursor isn't just autocomplete. It understands your entire codebase. You can ask it to refactor across multiple files, explain how something works, or implement a feature that touches several components. It keeps the context.
For someone running a side business on limited hours, this kind of leverage is essential. I can build and ship things that would otherwise require hiring a developer.
3. OpenClaw
OpenClaw is my AI assistant infrastructure. It connects Claude to everything else—my calendar, email, files, task management. Instead of switching between apps, I can just ask for what I need.
The real value is in automation. OpenClaw handles my daily news digest, drafts content, manages prospect research, and keeps my systems in sync. It runs tasks overnight so I wake up to completed work.
Most AI assistants are isolated—they can chat but can't do anything. OpenClaw bridges that gap. It's the difference between an AI that talks about sending emails and one that actually sends them.
4. Claude Cowork
Claude Cowork is Anthropic's tool for everyday AI-powered productivity. Think of it as Claude Code for non-developers—it brings the same file management and automation capabilities to people who don't live in a terminal.
I use it to organize files, create new documents, and let Claude navigate the browser autonomously. When I need to restructure a project folder, draft multiple documents at once, or have Claude research something across multiple websites, Cowork handles it without me micromanaging every click.
The value is in delegation. Instead of describing what I want and then doing it myself, I can hand off entire workflows. Claude understands the goal, figures out the steps, and executes. It's the difference between an assistant you have to supervise and one that just gets things done.
5. NotebookLM
NotebookLM is Google's research tool, and it's become essential for how I process information. You upload documents—articles, PDFs, reports—and it creates an AI that's grounded in that specific content.
I use it for competitive research, digesting long reports, and synthesizing information from multiple sources. When I'm preparing for a client call or researching a new market, I'll load up the relevant materials and have a conversation with NotebookLM about what matters.
The audio summary feature is surprisingly useful. It generates a podcast-style discussion of your documents that you can listen to while doing other things. I've caught insights I missed in my initial read.
What Didn't Make the List
I use other AI tools regularly—Gemini for certain tasks, OpenAI's APIs for specific integrations, Antigravity for prototyping, Whisper Flow for transcription when I need quick demos. They're useful but not daily essentials.
The tools that stick are the ones that disappear into my workflow. I don't think about "using Claude" anymore—I just think through problems and Claude is part of that process. That's the bar: does it become invisible because it's so integrated into how I work?
The Compound Effect
These tools work together. I use Claude to think through a product requirement. Cursor to build it. OpenClaw to manage the ongoing operations. Cowork when I need collaborative problem-solving. NotebookLM to research and synthesize.
Each tool individually is useful. Together, they let a single person operate like a small team. That's the real unlock for anyone building a business on limited time.
The specific tools will change—something better might come out next month. But the pattern is what matters: AI for thinking, AI for building, AI for operating, AI for collaborating, AI for research. Cover those bases and you can move faster than seemed possible even a year ago.
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