Most AI products sound indispensable on their landing pages. Many become forgotten monthly charges because the purchase began with curiosity instead of a recurring problem.
Ask these five questions
- What exact task will it replace or improve?
- How often does that task occur?
- What does a correct result look like?
- What happens when the tool is wrong?
- Does a tool we already pay for do 80% of this?
Test with real work
Use five representative examples, including one awkward edge case. Record the time required, corrections made and whether the result was genuinely usable. A polished demo with invented data tells you very little.
Buying rule: the tool should save more each month than its price plus the time required to supervise it.
Cancel aggressively
Set a review date when you subscribe. If nobody can identify a measurable benefit by then, cancel it. Optionality is not value.