Episode Description
Six AI subscriptions. Three I use regularly. That's what I found going through my own bank statement, and it's the whole reason this episode exists because collecting AI tools isn't the same thing as having an AI strategy, and I think a lot of us have basically mixed those two up.
This one's about where AI actually fits into creative work: research, ideation, production, distribution, and why spreading five tools across all four stages usually costs you more than it gives back. I walk through my own podcast workflow as the real example: what I use Claude for, where Audacity and Descript come in, and the six or more Claude skills I ended up building instead of adding more subscriptions. There's also a closet analogy in here that I didn't expect to lean on this hard, but it stuck.
If you've got a pile of AI logins and a nagging feeling that none of it's actually saving you time, this is the episode to start with.
RESOURCES & LINKS MENTIONED→ Claude (Anthropic) – used for research, ideation, and the six custom skills for repurposing
→ Previous episode on podcast production workflow
→ Bango, "Rise of the AI Subscriber" (May 2026) – average AI subscriber spend and churn behavior
→ Lokalise, "Too Many Tools, Too Little Time" – tool-switching time cost
→ MIT Project NANDA, "The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025" – AI ROI findings
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