#155 I Tested 50 AI Tools. I Kept 5. Here's Why.

In this episode of Future of UX, host Patricia, a UX designer and AI consultant, tackles the overwhelming influx of AI tools by sharing her personal journey of testing 50 tools and ultimately narrowing down to just five that have transformed her workflow. She argues that the real problem isn't tool abundance, but the habit of treating every new tool as a quick fix without defining the actual problem. Instead, she advocates for depth over breadth, emphasizing how using fewer tools deeply—especially as thinking partners, not just generators—leads to real productivity gains. She walks through her curated stack: Claude as a strategic thinking partner for research and synthesis, Notebook LM for cross-source analysis, Granola for automated meeting notes, Weavey AI for node-based creative automation, and Claude Code for building interactive prototypes. Each tool is tied to a specific workflow that enhances clarity, efficiency, and collaboration. Patricia underscores that true AI mastery comes not from tool-hopping, but from building consistent, integrated workflows. She shares how these tools have saved her hours, improved feedback quality, and changed how she approaches design work. The episode concludes with a call to action: slow down, pick one tool, build a real workflow, and use it consistently before adding more. She promotes her AI for Designers Bootcamp, highlighting a special upcoming cohort with exclusive training on Claude agents, Figma collaboration, and leadership in AI. The overall message is clear: depth, consistency, and intentionality beat novelty and quantity in the age of AI.