Tried 16 AI Tools Recently, Here’s What’s Actually Useful

I went down a rabbit hole trying a bunch of AI tools recently instead of just watching hype videos. Here’s an honest breakdown of what I actually used: * ChatGPT – my daily go-to for coding, debugging, and understanding concepts. Super useful but still makes mistakes, so you need to verify. * Claude – feels better for long responses, explanations, and writing tasks. Sometimes gives more structured answers than ChatGPT. * Cursor – probably the most useful coding tool I tried. It actually understands your codebase and helps write/edit code inside your project. Way better than basic autocomplete. * GitHub Copilot – good for speeding up coding with suggestions, but not as smart as Cursor when working on bigger logic. * Perplexity AI – like a smarter Google. I use it when I want quick answers with sources instead of opening multiple tabs. * Midjourney – best for high-quality artistic images. Takes time to learn prompting, but the results are crazy good. * Leonardo AI – underrated image generator, especially for game-style or character visuals. * DALL·E – simple and easy for quick image ideas, but not always very detailed. * Runable – used it for creating dark aesthetic wallpapers and edits. More of a creative tool than productivity. * Canva AI – super useful for quick designs like posters, thumbnails, and presentations. * Notion AI – helps summarise notes and organise content. Useful during study sessions. * Grammarly AI – fixes grammar and improves writing tone, especially for emails and assignments. * ElevenLabs – insanely realistic voice generation. Sounds almost human. * Pictory AI – converts text into videos. Decent for basic content creation. * Remove .bg – a simple but very useful tool for removing image backgrounds instantly. * Lovable – tried it for building simple apps/projects using AI. Still feels early, but interesting direction for no-code + AI. My takeaway: Most AI tools feel cool at first, but only a few actually stick in your daily workflow. For me, ChatGPT + Cursor + sometimes Claude are the only ones I keep coming back to. Everything else is situational. Curious what tools you guys actually use daily vs just tried once and forgot.