The AI Tools I've Tested and Rejected (And What I Actually Use Instead)

I’ve tested a lot of AI tools over the past two years. Probably more than I should admit. Some of them I bought into completely, paid for annual subscriptions, watched all the tutorials, tried to make them work. And then I walked away.

This article is for my paid subscribers because I want to be specific. I’m going to name names, tell you exactly why I rejected certain tools, and show you what I actually use instead. Just my honest experience.

The Tools I Walked Away From

Jasper

Jasper was one of the first AI writing tools I tried, back when it was still called Jarvis and everyone in the online business space was losing their minds over it. The promise was compelling: train it on your brand voice, generate marketing copy fast, never stare at a blank page again.

The reality was different. The output felt generic no matter how much I tried to “train” it. The brand voice feature overpromised and underdelivered. And the price kept climbing while the core product remained what it always was: a ChatGPT wrapper with a nice interface and a lot of marketing behind it. I couldn’t justify the cost for output I still had to heavily rewrite.