42 AI tools and models run my business. Here's the exact order I use them in: Step 1: Start with the idea dump Ideas come from two places: ↳ Socials (what's actually landing) ↳ My own head (what I keep circling back to) Both get dictated straight in. - Wispr Flow turns talking into text. - Claude is the daily thinking partner. - Opus 5 takes the idea apart. - Fable 5 plans the build, never builds it. I switch between these constantly. Step 2: Build the thing Claude Code runs almost all of my business. - Sonnet 5 does the cheap passes. - Haiku 4.5 handles anything bulk. - Codex reviews the bits I'm unsure about. Step 3: Make it look like something - GPT Image 2 for stills that actually ship. - Higgsfield for B-roll I never had to shoot. - Kling for video when Higgsfield is busy. - HyperFrames renders HTML straight to video. Occasional only, when I'm not in Code: ↳ Claude Design ↳ Canva ↳ Gamma Step 4: Video when it matters Every YouTube starts in Tella. - VEED handles the editing. - ElevenLabs does the voice. - HeyGen for talking heads at scale. Complex editing kills momentum. Simple tools ship content. Step 5: Check the facts before publishing - Perplexity for research with sources. - NotebookLM to interrogate a document. - Granola for notes from every call. - Apify for the real numbers on a post. Never trust one model on a claim you publish. So I keep a second opinion open: ↳ GPT-5.6 Sol ↳ ChatGPT ↳ Gemini 3.7 Flash ↳ GPT-5.6 Terra for enormous inputs Step 6: The cheap bench Local and open weights, near zero spend: ↳ Ollama ↳ DeepSeek (the model behind Hermes) ↳ GLM-5.3 ↳ Kimi K3 Step 7: Ship it and hand it over Everything lives in Notion. My team's single source of truth. - Zapier connects the pieces. - Hermes is my WhatsApp bridge to the team. - ManyChat runs the comment gate. On X, and nowhere else: ↳ Grok 4.6 ↳ Grokbot Here's what this system really does: Removes decision fatigue. Each tool has ONE job. - Wispr Flow captures the thinking - Claude Code builds the thing - Notion stores everything - Zapier automates the handoffs - Apify measures what landed - Hermes reaches the team What I dropped this year: ↳ Claude Cowork ↳ OpenClaw ↳ Qwen3.8 Max ↳ CoPilot ↳ LinkedIn AI The hype beat the output on all five. Nano Banana is off the board completely. I posted about it 25 times and haven't opened it in months. The tools don't create the content. They amplify how much I can ship. Two of mine if you want the detail: My full Claude Code guide → 100+ more guides and skills → Which tool is in your S-tier?