Skip the roundup of forty tools. Here's the test that matters: would I miss this if it disappeared next week? Most AI workflows fail it. A few pass, and those are the only ones worth writing down.
The format I use to evaluate one is simple: name the task, describe the old way, describe the AI-assisted way, then be honest about where it still falls down. If you can't name where it breaks, you haven't used it enough to trust it.
The failure modes are the most useful part. A workflow that's 90% great and 10% quietly wrong is more dangerous than one that's obviously bad, because you stop checking. Knowing exactly when to distrust the output is what makes it safe to rely on the rest.
So the keeper isn't a tool — it's the principle you extract. Name the task, automate the boring middle, keep a human on the edges where it fails. That outlives whichever model is in fashion this month.
