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Friday, May 22nd, 2026
Happy Friday!
Welcome back to HOW TO // AI — glad you're here!
Here's what we've got for ya:
🧰 The AI Tool I Use Most (And the Five Others I Use Too)
📥 Free Download: The Right Tool Cheat Sheet (Notion Template)
🎯 Are You an AI Amplified Professional? — Take the Free Quiz
Let's get started!
Speak messy. Prompt clean.
Go on tangents. Change your mind mid-sentence. Say "um" twelve times. Wispr Flow doesn't care — it takes everything you say, strips the filler, and gives you clean, structured text ready to paste into any AI tool.
The result: prompts with the full context your AI tools need to give you useful answers. Not the abbreviated version you'd type because typing is slow.
Works inside ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, and every app on your screen. Millions of users worldwide, including teams at OpenAI, Vercel, and Clay.
🧰 The AI Tool I Use Most
Beginners have one AI tool. Amplified AI pros have a stack.
It took me about six months to figure that out. For a long time I was loyal to one — first ChatGPT, then Claude — and tried to use it for everything. The results were fine. But "fine" is what most people get from AI, and it's not what I wanted.
Today, I’d like to share the stack I actually use now, in hopes that it helps you!
🎁 Free download: The Right Tool Cheat Sheet
A decision tree, a comparison table, and the sanity check prompt pack — for picking the right AI tool every time.
1. Claude Code — for building anything real
When I'm creating a new app, redesigning a website, or building something with actual code, Claude Code is what I open. It CAN run in a CLI terminal but lately I’ve enjoyed running it in the Claude Desktop App. Claude Code sees your whole project, and writes code that actually fits what you're building. The HOW TO AI site you visit if you tap any of these links was built with help from Claude Code.
If you don't write code, you can ignore this one for now. If you do, it's the difference between "AI helps me code" and "AI builds with me."
2. Claude Cowork — for anything with big files
For anything involving long documents, research, or content I'm developing over time, I use Cowork. It connects directly to a folder on my computer and works through whatever's in there. Last month I used it to organize three months of newsletter drafts into a single editorial calendar. It would have taken me an entire afternoon. Cowork did it in twenty minutes.
If you've ever tried to write a book, build a research project, or wrangle a folder of documents — this is the tool.
3. Claude Chat — “your thinking partner”
When I'm out and need to think through something quickly or get a draft going, I use Claude in the mobile app. The voice mode makes it feel like a conversation, and the answers are clean and direct without being overly hedged.
This is my default for anything that doesn't need a full setup and it’s excellent for brainstorming!
4. ChatGPT — for general questions and generating graphics
ChatGPT is my second opinion on most things. I use it when I want a different angle or when I need to generate an image. Most of the graphics in recent newsletters came out of ChatGPT.
For pure writing or thinking, I still prefer Claude. For visuals and quick general queries, ChatGPT wins.
5. Gemini — for graphics that need a different style
When ChatGPT gives me an image that's not quite right, I try Gemini. It tends to be stronger at certain styles, and the results vary enough between the two that having both options is genuinely useful.
I switch between them depending on what I'm trying to create.
6. Grok — for real-time and sanity checks
Grok has two things the others don't. It's connected to real-time information, so it's what I use when I need to understand something happening in the news right now. And because it tends to push back more confidently than Claude or ChatGPT, I use it to sanity check anything important.
This is the prompt I use for that — works whether you're verifying a fact, an opinion, or a decision:
I want to sanity check this. Another AI told me [paste
the answer or claim].
Tell me:
- Where this might be wrong, exaggerated, or one-sided
- What a smart skeptic would push back on
- What's the strongest counter-argument
- What I should verify before treating this as true
Don't agree just to be helpful. Push back where it matters.
I run this maybe three times a week. Some of those times it confirms what the first AI said. The other times it saves me from being confidently wrong.
💡 "The AI tool I use most isn't a tool. It's the habit of picking the right one for the job."
The full decision tree — which tool to use for which task, a comparison table of strengths and weaknesses, the sanity check prompt pack, and a quick reference you can print — is in the free download above.
If you want to see what other tools you might want to add to your stack, you'll also like learning anything faster and last month's piece on unexpected uses where I covered voice mode and camera capabilities.
🎯 Try this today: Take a question you asked AI in the last week. Ask the same question to a different AI tool. Reply and tell me whether the answers matched — I read every email.
📬 In Case You Missed Our Last Few Issues
🤯 AI does THAT?
Five professional AI uses most people never discover — voice mode, vision, roleplay, and more. Free AI Unexpected Uses Kit included.
🚨 Your AI is lying to you
How to catch AI hallucinations before they cause a problem. Three prompts I use every time. Free AI Fact-Check Kit included.
☀️ What I do before 8am
A 10-minute AI routine that changes how the whole day goes. Free AI Daily Habit Kit included.
Here's the bigger pattern behind this issue.
Most people are still using AI like a search engine — one tool, one question at a time. Amplified pros build a stack and use the right tool for the right job. That's the gap, and it's the difference between "AI is fine" and "AI is genuinely changing how I work."
I built a free 5-minute quiz to help you figure out where you actually sit. Seven questions, no email required, you get your result instantly. It tells you which level you're operating at right now, what's working, and the one shift that would move you forward the fastest.
People keep replying with "this is uncomfortably accurate," which is exactly what I was going for.
What did you think of this newsletter?
🤔 Got Questions?
Have a question you want answered? Email [email protected] and you just might be featured in an upcoming issue!
This newsletter is your starter kit for mastering AI with confidence. We keep things simple, show real examples, and focus on quick wins you can repeat.
Stay curious, stick with it, and watch your skills grow week by week!
Until next time :)
— David
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