The AI tool landscape looks a lot like the martech boom of 2015. Thousands of point solutions. Every week a new one. Every pitch sounds revolutionary.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most of them won’t be around in 18 months.
The squeeze
The foundation model labs are absorbing what used to be product categories. Writing tools, transcription, image generation, summarization — all of that is getting baked into ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini by default. A standalone tool charging $49/month for “AI-powered meeting notes” is racing the clock.
The filter
Before you sign up for anything, ask three questions:
- What would it take for the foundation model to do this natively? If the answer is “not much,” you’re buying a tourist trap.
- Does this tool have proprietary data or workflow integration I can’t get elsewhere? That’s a moat.
- If this vendor disappears tomorrow, what’s my fallback? Short answer matters.
The Monday test
Pull up your SaaS subscriptions. For each AI tool, run the three questions. If the answer to #1 is “basically just wraps GPT” and #2 is “not really,” cancel it this week. You’ll save $200/month and lose nothing.