Every week brings another “game-changing” AI tool. New logos pop up on Product Hunt, Twitter threads hype fresh releases, and LinkedIn fills with screenshots of clever demos.
The feeling that you’re not across the latest app and that you're falling behind is heightened in this AI hype cycle. It’s the same treadmill social media marketers have lived through with every new platform. In the last couple of years we've had TikTok, then BeReal, then Threads. The difference is AI tools aren’t just shiny toys, they promise leverage. And that makes the fear of missing out stronger.
But the catch is that chasing tools doesn’t make you better at AI. It just keeps you busy. The people getting real results aren’t dabbling with 30 different platforms... Rather they're the ones who’ve picked one, gone deep, and squeezed every drop of value out of it.
The Tool Trap
Most solopreneurs and small teams fall into the same cycle:
Sign up for every new tool that gets mentioned in a thread
Play with it for an afternoon, maybe generate a couple of cool outputs
Abandon it once the next tool launches
End up with 40 logins, no integrations, and nothing actually saving time
^ I feel like I've summarised my own behaviour in some way! It feels productive in the moment: “I’m staying on top of AI!", but it creates two problems:
Shallow skills: You never learn how to really use any tool properly.
Workflow chaos: Everything is fragmented. Nothing connects.
Instead of leverage, you end up with overwhelm.
Why Depth Beats Breadth
Pick one core tool (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or whatever fits) and learn how to bend it to your processes.
That means going beyond casual prompting, and building AI workflows and behaviours:
Structured prompts: Build templates that reflect your voice and brand.
Systemisation: Use it to run parts of your process end-to-end (weekly reporting, onboarding docs, podcast notes).
Memory/consistency: Store your context so every output aligns, rather than starting from scratch each time.
One mastered tool becomes a compounding advantage. A solopreneur who knows how to make ChatGPT crank out consistent client proposals in minutes is ahead of someone dabbling with ten “specialised” proposal tools they don’t fully trust or understand.
Think of it like Excel. The people who got ahead weren’t the ones trying every new spreadsheet app. It was the ones who knew how to bend Excel to do whatever they needed.
One tool mastered deeply will give you more leverage than 20 tools you half understand.
A Framework That Works
Here’s how I think about it when people ask, “Where do I even start with AI?”.
1. Find One Bottleneck
Don’t start with “AI strategy". Start with one painful, repetitive task that eats time. For some, it’s writing follow-up emails. For others, it’s preparing weekly reports or pulling notes from meetings.
Example: A friend was spending two hours every Friday formatting client performance updates. That became the first candidate for automation.
2. Break It Down
AI doesn’t work so well on vague instructions. Break your bottleneck into micro-steps the same way you would explain it to an intern.
Instead of “make a report", it becomes: export data → identify top 3 metrics → compare week-over-week → write commentary → format for email. The smaller and clearer the steps, the better the AI performs.
3. Apply Your Chosen Tool
Now bring in your single AI tool of choice. Don’t overcomplicate it. Start with ChatGPT or Claude and ask it to take one of those micro-steps off your hands.
Example: Copy the data table in and say, “Summarise the top 3 insights for a client update, plain language, under 100 words".
This is where you stop chasing “the perfect tool” and instead bend one tool to your workflow.
4. Iterate Until It Feels Native
Run the process 3–5 times. Compare the AI’s output against what you’d normally do. Spot what’s missing. Then refine the instructions or add guardrails.
Maybe you add: “Always highlight positive movement first, then risks second.”
Or: “Keep the tone consistent with past reports. Professional but not stiff". Iteration is how AI shifts from “helpful assistant” to “almost like a teammate who knows how you like things done".
5. Scale Once It’s Locked In
Once you’ve got one system working (meaning it consistently saves you time and produces an output you trust) only then move on. Layer in the next bottleneck.
Example: The consultant who automated reporting later added “draft client check-in emails” to the same system. Both now feed into one smooth workflow.
The key is compounding. Each working system becomes a building block. Over time, you’re building an interconnected stack that runs itself in the background, all powered by one core tool you’ve mastered.
The Bottom Line
The individuals and businesses getting real wins with AI are the ones who avoid juggling the most apps, and make one tool work for them, build a system around it, and stack improvements from there. I'm not saying completely ignore all new tools. There's no problem spending an hour a week testing a new tool (in fact, I'd encourage it).
But to improve your AI fluency...
Ignore the noise. Master one tool. Build your leverage step by step.
Written by Mike ✌
Passionate about all things AI, emerging tech and start-ups, Mike is the Founder of The AI Corner.
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