AI Tools That Actually Save You Time (And Which Ones Don't)

You know that feeling when you install yet another AI tool, get hyped for 20 minutes, then never use it again? Yeah. We're done with that.

I've spent the last few months legitimately trying everything—from coding assistants to writing tools to productivity apps with "AI-powered" slapped on them. Some are genuinely useful. Most are solving problems you don't have.

Here's what actually works if you're a developer building real things.

1. GitHub Copilot for Boilerplate (Still King)

Look, it's not sexy to say the obvious winner is still obvious. But Copilot remains the best tool for one specific thing: making repetitive code disappear.

Test setup? Boilerplate? Config files? Copilot tanks those tasks by like 70%. You describe what you want, and it's done.

The catch: it's terrible at understanding your business logic. If you're writing anything that requires domain knowledge or complex algorithms, Copilot will confidently generate garbage. I use it for the dumb stuff and write the important bits myself.

Real example: Setting up a new Express server with middleware, error handling, and logging. Without Copilot: 20 minutes. With Copilot: "set up an express server with auth middleware" → 90% there, 3 minutes of tweaks. Worth it.

2. Claude for Thinking Through Problems (Actually Different)

Okay, this one's less obvious because you can't just use it like Copilot. But here's the move: paste messy requirements, a half-baked idea, or code that's making you feel dumb, and Claude will actually think about it.

I've used it to:

• Talk through architectural decisions (should this be a monolith or microservices?)
• Untangle spaghetti code I inherited
• Debug gnarly concurrency issues by explaining them out loud
• Refactor without losing my mind

It's not magic. It's thinking partner. You have to actually engage with the response, push back, iterate. But that process of articulating the problem? That's where half the solution comes from.

Real example: Had a race condition in a payment processing job queue. Spent an hour stuck. Dumped the code into Claude with "this is breaking intermittently and I don't get why." Got back three different explanations of what could be wrong, including one I hadn't thought of. Turned out to be the one I missed. Saved me from shipping broken code.

3. Perplexity for Research (Better Than Google for Technical Stuff)

Not using this one to code, but to understand. When you need to grok something new—new framework, library, concept—Perplexity is faster than Reddit diving or blog hopping.

It synthesizes multiple sources and actually answers your question instead of giving you 12 tabs to read.

Used it recently to understand how LLM quantization works. Could've read papers and docs separately, or I could ask Perplexity and get a coherent explanation in 30 seconds.

Trade-off: It hallucinates sometimes. Always verify critical info. But for "what is this?" questions, it's genuinely faster.

4. Figma's Design Tools (Not Technically AI, But Works)

Okay, I'm sneaking this in because generative design is actually useful if you hate design (like me). Sketch something rough, let it clean up your wireframes, generate variations.

Not for final designs—they still look AI-generic. But for getting from "blank canvas" to "something I can iterate on" in 5 minutes? Yeah.

Tools That Suck (And Why)

Rytr, Jasper, other AI writing tools: These have a sound. You can smell the AI on them. They work if you're writing marketing copy that doesn't need to sound human. For actual communication (emails, documentation, blog posts)? You still have to rewrite everything. Why not just write it?

Notion AI: Mostly useless. Summarizing existing notes and writing templates—things you could do faster yourself. Skip it.

"AI-powered productivity apps": Most are just productivity apps with a chatbot bolted on. They solve the same problems the base app solves, just slower.

The Rule

If a tool saves you more time than it costs to learn and maintain, use it. If you're thinking about using it more than actually using it, delete it.

Right now that's:

• Copilot for code generation
• Claude for thinking
• Perplexity for research
• Figma generative design for prototypes

Everything else I've tried sits there mocking me.

What Actually Works

The AI tools that stick around aren't the ones promising to replace you. They're the ones that handle the tedious stuff well enough that you have more brain cycles for the thing only you can do: deciding what to build and why it matters.

Use them for that. Everything else is just expensive friction.

Looking to stay on top of what actually works in AI and development? Check out LearnAI Weekly—real tools, real examples, no hype. Worth your Friday morning coffee read.