Best AI Tools for Busy People Right Now

Over the last year, changes in how people use and view AI have dramatically increased. People are no longer using AI simply to demo their latest presentation to friends for fun AI experiments. AI tools are helping people complete actual working tasks.

People are even starting to miss certain AI tools when they go offline for a scheduled maintenance. We should stop focusing on tools that are easy to impress and focus on the tools that we miss and notice when we lack them.

This list includes tools in every category from writing to research, to scheduling, to automation. The tools are ranked and rated based on how valuable they were during the months of their actual use. There are 17 tools in total.

Writing and Content Creation

Claude

Claude does the best at keeping context over long stretches of text. Previous AIs were poor at keeping context for anything longer than a couple of sentences. On top of being able to edit long documents and keep the same tone through of the whole document, Claude is good at editing drafts and keeping the same argumentative tone throughout.

Claude is also great at rewriting things at different levels of complexity. It is able to rewrite things at a lower complexity in a way that is more than just using smaller words.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is the best tool for any type of writing or brainstorming. It is able to draft the first iteration of a document and edit through arguments. It is the best and the first tool you should try.

Notion AI

Notion AI is the best AI assistant for people who manage their projects and notes using Notion. It is able to pull out the important next steps from updates and meeting notes and even draft follow up emails from the context it has gathered. It is way better than other AI tools and having to copy and paste your notes into it.

Grammarly Advanced

Grammarly is more than just spell check. It analyzes your writing tone and idea clarity. It even has the ability to rewrite whole sections for you. Grammarly continuously checks for clarity improvements in every app and website you use, even the email and messaging tools you likely wouldn’t think to use a separate editing tool for.

Research and Information

Perplexity AI

There’s a saying that Perplexity AI is a search engine that reads the web pages for you. Basically, searching for anything and Perplexity AI will give you a summarized answer and even direct source links. If you struggle synthesizing information from eight web pages/tabs, Perplexity AI is an easy and great alternative. Many people even use Perplexity AI to get the general idea of something before going to actual primary sources (it is not a primary source competitor).

Google NotebookLM

NotebookLM allows you to build a knowledge base of all your uploaded documents and research notes and even allows you to ask questions about it. NotebookLM can sift through all your documents and reports to locate specific claims, summarize your information, and even cite its sources. It even has an audio feature that acts as a podcast to your uploaded documents and offers a summary, which at first seems like a gimmick. Once you use it on something that you could easily forget, it becomes very useful to your overall understanding.

Elicit

If you’re a heavy user of academic and scientific literature, Elicit is your best friend. Elicit allows you to search through a variety of literature, and extract important findings. You can even sift through the literature to find support and opposition to a variety of claims. Elicit is the most useful tool for literature, hands down.

Productivity and Time Management

Reclaim.ai

After connecting to your calendar, you can customize it how you want – block off 4 hours of deep work a week, 30 minute chunks of time to work on emails, and/or take lunch breaks. Reclaim finds the time and blocks it. If your calendar is updated, Reclaim will update protected blocks. People love using Reclaim and people who love it say they’ve accomplished so much more using it. Reclaim helps you do things you’ve wanted to accomplish but didn’t have the time for.

Motion

Motion integrates all your task and calendar needs into a single tool. You can input a task and a deadline and Motion will automatically add it to your calendar for that day. Motion will shuffle your day for you as new items are added. Motion does take some time to learn in the beginning while it calibrates to your preferences. Users say after that week, they will be using it for years.

Otter.ai

The transcription service everyone has wished for. It joins you and your coworkers in your meetings automatically and will transcribe in real-time. Otter will add a summary of the meeting and a list of action steps after the meeting ends. You’ll be surprised by how often you reference your past meetings in Otter.

Automation and Workflow

Zapier with AI Features

Zapier is great for automation. With its AI layer, Zapier is getting a big upgrade and will help its users set up automation at a blazing speed. Users can type out the full instructions for the automation in a message and Zapier will figure it out for them and set it up. Zapier also has the largest integration library, this will help a lot with niche tools that may not have a direct integration with other tools.

Make (formerly Integromat)

Make is a little harder to learn but is actually more flexible than Zapier. With its clear multi-step workflow builder, setting up automation is a lot easier and more understandable. For any automation that is more complex than a simple if-then Zap, Make is a good option.

Bardeen

With browser based automation, Bardeen connects directly with the web instead of using APIs. This makes it a great automation tool for web apps with no integrations, and makes it possible to automate the filling of forms, clicking buttons and scraping data from sites.

Image and Visual Work

Midjourney

Midjourney is a great tool to use to create high quality images. It’s perfect for quickly generating social media graphics to help visualize concepts or create assets for a presentation, rather than hiring a photographer or a designer.

Adobe Firefly

Adobe Firefly is the better option for Adobe users. In Photoshop’s Generative Fill, you can remove an object, expand a canvas, or add a new image. This option is great for users who edit several images and want to save time. You can use Firefly with existing Photoshop tools and avoid other workflows. Communication and Email

Superhuman

Emailing is faster using Superhuman, an email tool that incorporates AI to complete drafts, summarize emails, and manages your inbox. Superhuman is a huge time saver for frequent email users (over 100 emails per day). The AI draft tool creates a two-line response that you can edit before sending, which is likely the best feature (among other tools).

Loom with AI Summaries

Loom records videos and transcribes them automatically and even generates bullet-point summaries! For asynchronous teams, this feature solves video communications problems, because you can now skim! You can read summaries and decide if you need to expand and watch, or just pull the information you need from the transcript.

How to Incorporate These Tools

AI tools are nice in theory; the reality is that you will pay for multiple subscriptions and still be left with zero tools that you actively use. Find the three or four areas in your day that are the most time-consuming and disruptive, and select tools that will fill the gaps.

Use these tools for at least two weeks. Avoid adding more beyond those two weeks during this time.

Using tools is less about the number of subscriptions and more about establishing a habit with a small collection of tools at the right moment. Tools that you add to your collection will still have value after the novelty has worn off.

Pick a new tool that you want to add to your collection, use it, and don’t add more tools until it has become a habit.