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Hello...Hello! 👋🏻
You may have noticed I've been talking about tools less.
Fundamentally, they're shiny AI baubles that distract me from spending more time with the core LLMs of ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude…
However, I am updating you on a few tools that do continue to add value.
Let's look at the three tools that I'm spending more time with…
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What Is It? Google's AI research assistant that turns your documents into conversational podcasts, study guides, and interactive Q&A sessions. Think ChatGPT but specifically trained on 300 pieces of YOUR content.
How I Use It: I dump conference presentations, research papers, and course materials into NotebookLM, then generate "Audio Overviews" (AI podcasts) for the car. The audio helps me understand complex topics.
Why Test It: If you're drowning in PDFs, research, or need to onboard team members fast, NotebookLM creates instant audio summaries. Free, no waitlist, and the audio quality is scary good.
Notion ✔️
What Is It? My second brain that just went full AI-native. Their new AI assistant can write, analyze, and automate across your entire knowledge base.
How I Use It: My "second brain" for everything MarketingAlec, 200+ SOP’s for ScaledOn, and how I store 1,000 of emails, notes, and PDF’s. Notion helps me turn a yard sale of scattered info into structured newsletter outlines, course from rough ideas, and creates meeting agendas that don't suck. It's become my default work partner. I use it for close to an hour a day or more.
Why Test It: If you're juggling multiple projects and need AI that understands your context (not just isolated prompts), Notion is the glue between a lot of randomness. The AI features are $10/month on top of regular Notion, so upgrade only if you have a large set of notes/pages to work with. Otherwise you can connect ChatGPT via the desktop as a cheaper route (I do both).
Sider.ai 🔑
What Is It? A browser sidebar extension that puts most AIs on every webpage. No copy-pasting, no context switching. Just select text and get AI insights instantly.
How I Use It: This is how I test new AI models. Want to test Deep Seek? Don't want to pay for Gemini Pro? I also use it to summarize YouTube videos, PDFs, and any long web data source. It's also how I've been testing ChatGPT 4.1 on various content types.
Why Test It: If you spend time researching online (marketing, anyone?), Sider eliminates the friction between finding insights and acting on them. Free tier includes 30 daily queries. You can use your own API keys too 🙌
Quick Win Challenge 💥
Pick ONE tool above and test it for 30 minutes this week.
Report back » which one clicked for your workflow? I’d love to know.
The tool landscape is noisy, but these three actually save me hours weekly. Unlike many AI tools that promise everything and deliver a nothing burger.
Alec
P.S. The AI tool graveyard is real. I've tested over 200 AI Tools, and I've wasted more time than I can count. On Friday, I'm going deep on all the ones I'm no longer using, so you don't have to waste your Sunday.
