The 8 AI tools I actually use every day, nothing hidden
Most “best AI tools” lists are written by people who don’t use the tools. This one is just my actual toolbox — the eight things I open every day as a solo founder, product manager, mom, and MBA student. No sponsors, nothing held back. Between them they cover the whole path from research to a shipped product: planning, writing code, hosting, image and video generation, and knowledge management.
What the video covers
- Why I only pay for Gemini and Claude — where the subscription money actually goes, and why two is enough.
- Gems, NotebookLM, and Deep Research — the three parts of Gemini I lean on, and what each one is genuinely better at than the others.
- Vibe coding with Claude Code — how the coding work actually happens day to day.
- Zero-cost hosting: GitHub, Netlify, Cloudflare — the stack that puts a site online without a hosting bill.
- Image and video generation: pick the model, not the app — why I go through fal.ai instead of committing to any one product’s UI.
- OpenRouter as an API hub — routing model calls through one place, and how that saves money.
- Notion — where everything lands so it’s findable later.
The through-line
Nothing here is exotic. The stack works because each tool has one clear job and they hand off cleanly: Gemini for thinking, Claude Code for building, GitHub/Netlify/Cloudflare for shipping, fal.ai and OpenRouter for generation, Notion for memory. That’s what makes it possible to run several roles off one setup.
If you want to see one of these tools taken all the way, the Claude Code auto-editing workflow is the build side, and the AI storyboard workflow is the generation side.