My actual AI tool stack (one tool per job)

Hey,

If you search “best AI tools,” you’ll drown. Every list has fifty of them, half are clones, and nobody admits they only really use five. So let me do the honest version: the actual tools I open every day, and the one job each one does.

Because here’s the thing, a tool is only useful if it owns a specific job. A pile of tools that all sort of do everything is just noise and monthly charges. Today, my stack, organized the way you should organize yours: by job, not by hype.

IN THIS EMAIL

» The “one tool per job” principle » My stack, by what it’s for » Why you shouldn’t copy it

🧰 One tool per job

The mistake is collecting tools by category, “I need an AI writing tool, an AI video tool, an AI image tool.” You end up with twelve subscriptions and no system.

The better way: list the jobs you actually do, then assign one tool to each. A job is a verb, write, edit video, design, automate, run ads. When each job has a clear owner, you stop tool-hopping and start getting fast, because you’re not relearning a new app every week. Depth in five tools beats dabbling in fifty.

🛠️ My stack, by job

Thinking and writing → a frontier model. Claude (and ChatGPT) does the heavy lifting: drafting, planning, pulling my messy thoughts into shape. This is the brain of the whole thing.

Video → DaVinci Resolve, plus AI for the hard parts. Resolve for the actual edit, and AI video tools when I need something I can’t shoot. The edit still lives with a real editor’s eye, the AI just removes the impossible parts.

Design → Photoshop and Canva. Photoshop for the precise work, Canva when I need something clean, fast. Right tool for the stakes.

Automation → n8n and GoHighLevel. This is where hours come back, wiring up the repetitive stuff so leads and follow-ups don’t depend on me remembering. The unglamorous tool that quietly does the most.

Ads → Meta Ads Manager. Where the content actually meets an audience at scale.

Five-ish jobs, five-ish owners. That’s a stack you can actually master, not a graveyard of trials.

🧠 Don’t copy my stack

Seriously, don’t just clone this list. Copy the logic, not the tools. Your jobs are different from mine. Write down what you actually do every week, assign one tool per job, and ruthlessly cut anything that doesn’t own a clear role. The goal isn’t my stack, it’s a small stack that’s yours.

🧩 The full breakdown

I wrote up each tool, what it’s genuinely best at, and where the free options beat the paid ones, as a free resource:

→ The AI Tools I Actually Use

Read it, then audit your own stack this week. Cut one tool you haven’t opened in a month. That’s a win on its own.

• László

P.S. If your business is paying for a stack of tools that still don’t add up to a system that brings in clients, that’s the exact thing we fix at Growth Lab Studios, one system, not five vendors. Start here.

P.P.S. Want the back catalog? Every past issue lives in the newsletter archive.