Too Many AI Tools?? Read This Tool Roadmap

And ChatGPT-5.1 Brings Some Changes

Author

Thaddeus Demeke
November 13, 2025

In partnership with

💼 In Today’s 5-min AI Brief

  • Your AI Toolkit: a16z's roadmap for picking the right AI tool (no more defaulting to ChatGPT for everything)

  • Prompt of the Week: The Idea Critic - stress-test ideas before building anything

  • Last Week in AI: GPT-5.1's updates + Kimi K2's benchmarks don't tell the whole story

  • What I'm Learning: Building AI projects seamlessly from laptop to phone

🛠️ Your AI Toolkit

The Silicon Valley Roadmap for Picking the Right AI Tool

If you have no idea what AI tool to use for what, I found something that actually helps.

a16z (the Silicon Valley investing firm behind Facebook, Airbnb, and OpenAI) put together this AI tool roadmap that shows exactly which tool to use based on your specific goal. Marc Andreessen (creator of the 1st web browser) contributed to it, along with the CEO of Figma, Grimes, and even the creator of the AI song BBL Drizzy.

Most of us are just defaulting to ChatGPT for everything, but the roadmap breaks down which tool is the best for each category - writing, coding, design, video, research. It also has descriptions for each tool so you can pick what actually fits your situation.

If you’re non-technical and curious about building your 1st AI agent, I recommend Lindy ai. Their user interface is clean and intuitive:

The Simplest Way to Create and Launch AI Agents and Apps

You know that AI can help you automate your work, but you just don't know how to get started.

With Lindy, you can build AI agents and apps in minutes simply by describing what you want in plain English.

→ "Create a booking platform for my business."
→ "Automate my sales outreach."
→ "Create a weekly summary about each employee's performance and send it as an email."

From inbound lead qualification to AI-powered customer support and full-blown apps, Lindy has hundreds of agents that are ready to work for you 24/7/365.

Stop doing repetitive tasks manually. Let Lindy automate workflows, save time, and grow your business

đź’­ Prompt of the Week

“The Idea Critic”

What it does: I've been using this custom instruction in Claude Projects for a few weeks now, and it's saved me from chasing at least two ideas that sounded good but had fatal flaws. It stress-tests business ideas by poking holes in your logic, asking for evidence, and forcing you to think through pricing, demand, and edge cases before you build anything. Think of it as having a sharp business partner who respects truth over optimism.

Here's the full prompt - save it as a custom instruction in a Claude Project:

You are Idea Critic, a rigorous but constructive partner. Your job is to stress-test ideas, not validate them. Operate like a sharp colleague who respects truth over optimism.

Default mode: skeptical, analytical, direct. Ask for evidence before accepting claims. Focus on what's missing before what's working. Push for specificity and quantified reasoning. When data is missing, use realistic heuristics or public-domain benchmarks to estimate. Stay concise and neutral; no cheerleading or filler.

Evaluate ideas across these areas:

1. Clarity: What exactly is being claimed? Who is it for?

2. Logic: Where reasoning breaks or depends on untested assumptions.

3. Demand: Is there plausible user pain or spending in this area? Use quick analogs or category benchmarks to test.

4. Pricing and value: Approximate viable pricing and expected willingness to pay using comparable products.

5. Feasibility: Delivery risk, operational complexity, or skill gaps.

6. Edge cases: Situations or audiences where the idea fails.

7. Refinement: Only after critique, identify what might hold up.

Tone: direct, evidence-seeking, specific. Never motivational, promotional, or vague. Critique first, then acknowledge what holds up.

đź’ˇ Last Week in AI

  • OpenAI Drops GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT. Top 3 takeaways for you:

    • Personality presets - Select tone once (Professional/Friendly/Efficient) instead of prompting every time

    • Better instruction following - Model now actually follows specific requests consistently (like "keep it to 6 words")

    • Immediate settings updates - Changes apply to all chats right away, including conversations already in progress

  • Kimi K2 Thinking Tops Benchmarks (But Read This First)

    • Kimi K2 beat GPT-5 on coding benchmarks. It's open-weights (no API costs) but Ethan Mollick found its business writing and analysis are much weaker. Benchmarks measure technical tasks, not real work.

    • So what: Test AI on YOUR work (client emails, reports, presentations) instead of just following the leaderboards. Models act differently even when benchmark scores are similar.

đź“– What I’m Learning

Building with AI from Laptop to Phone - Alex Finn’s Workflow

I’ve been looking into how I can work on AI coding projects seamlessly across my laptop and phone. I’ve mentioned before but I completely created my agency’s website with Claude Code all using AI (never wrote a line of code). I’ve always wished I could go on a walk, and just prompt my same coding session to make changes when ideas pop in my head. I came across Alex Finn’s tutorial on how he does this with Claude’s new web Claude Code, so I’ll be testing this out! Let me know if you find a better workflow for this :)

-Thaddeus

Reply

or to participate.