My Top 7 AI Tools in 2025: From Efficiency Boosters to Money Makers
🛠️ My Top 7 AI Tools in 2025: From Efficiency Boosters to Money Makers
Keywords: 2025 AI App Review, Personally Tested, genstory, AI Side Hustle, ChatGPT, Productivity Tools
💡 Introduction: My Digital Survival Guide for 2025
Looking back at 2025, if AI was my "toy" in the previous two years, this year it has completely embedded itself into my workflow.
As a heavy tool enthusiast and content creator, I have intensely tested over a hundred AI applications this year. I discovered a clear trend: The best AI no longer just helps me "save time," it helps me "produce finished products."
Before, I used AI to write jokes or draw illustrations; now, I use AI to write code, analyze data, and even directly generate commercially sellable picture books.
Today, I have filtered out the flashy "one-hit wonders" to review the 7 AI artifacts that truly stayed on my computer and became indispensable this year. Whether you want to free yourself from tedious work or start a high-income side hustle, this list is my sincere recommendation.
I. My "Digital Brains": Thinking and Planning
These two tools are the first things I open in my browser every day; they handle 80% of my mental labor.
1. ChatGPT (OpenAI)
My Experience: Still the unshakable king. With the release of GPT-5.2, it has become "scarily" smart.
How I use it: I rarely use it just as a chatbot anymore. Through the latest Apps SDK, I treat it as an operating system. For example, booking tickets or invoking data analysis tools directly within the dialog box.
Favorite Feature: The "Thinking" Mode released in 2025. When encountering complex logical problems, it "thinks" for a few seconds like a human before answering. The logic is so rigorous it surprises me, and the "confident nonsense" of the past is almost gone.
2. Claude (Anthropic)
My Experience: If ChatGPT is a STEM student, Claude is a Liberal Arts student. It is the AI with the most "human touch."
How I use it: I throw any long documents, book PDFs, or complex project manuals directly to Claude. Its ultra-long Context Window is incredibly powerful, capable of remembering content from hundreds of thousands of words ago. When writing emotionally nuanced blogs or emails, Claude is my first choice.
II. My "Monetization Engine": From Inspiration to Product
This is the discovery that excited me the most in 2025. I am no longer satisfied with AI generating materials; I started using AI to generate products.
3. genstory.app (Surprise Recommendation of the Year)
My Experience: This is the only tool I found this year that truly offers a "one-stop" solution for story and picture book monetization.
I previously wanted to sell children's picture books on Amazon KDP as a side hustle. I tried using Midjourney to draw, but it was too painful—the protagonist had curly hair in the previous image and straight hair in the next; it was impossible to make a consistent book.
Then a friend recommended genstory.app, which perfectly solved my pain points:
Character Consistency Lock: If I input "a little bear wearing a red hat," it truly ensures that this little bear looks exactly the same across 20 pages! This is simply a rigid demand for making picture books.
DeepSeek-V3.2 / GPT-5.2 Dual-Core Drive: The generated stories have very rigorous logic, unlike some AI stories that don't make sense.
Direct Product Delivery: The best part is, after generation, it gives me a PDF with text and images fully laid out. I download it, make slight adjustments, and can upload it for sale or print it out as a gift for my nephew.
One-sentence Summary: It not only saved me the money of hiring an illustrator but also gave me my own "Personal Publishing House."
III. My "Content Assembly Line": Marketing and Writing
To maintain activity on social media, I need stable, high-quality output. These two are my capable assistants.
4. Jasper
My Experience: The AI that understands marketing best, bar none.
How I use it: When writing copy that needs a strong "sales feel," Jasper is the most useful. I trained it to learn my "Brand Voice," so what it writes sounds just like I wrote it myself, without needing me to spend a lot of time editing the tone.
5. Notion AI
My Experience: The seamless fusion of note-taking and creation.
How I use it: All my workflows are in Notion. The most convenient thing about Notion AI is "using local materials." After a meeting, I let it organize notes into to-do items; if I get stuck writing an article, I press the spacebar to let it continue writing a paragraph. It's not the strongest, but it's definitely the smoothest to use.
IV. My "Automation Steward": Connecting Everything
With a brain and limbs, I also need a nervous system to connect them.
6. Zapier
My Experience: It is the glue of the internet, saving me countless Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V actions.
How I use it: I built an automated workflow—when I generate a new picture book on genstory.app, Zapier automatically saves it to my Google Drive for backup. Not only that, but it also automatically posts a tweet to promote my new work.
2025 Changes: The AI Actions feature this year is so easy to use. I just tell it in plain language "I want to pass A to B," and it configures the flow itself.
7. Otter.ai
My Experience: Meeting terminator, life-saver.
How I use it: As long as there is a Zoom or Teams meeting, I have it running. It automatically records, transcribes, and extracts meeting summaries. With it, I haven't taken notes in a meeting ever since, focusing entirely on listening and discussing.
🚀 Conclusion: My 2025 AI Legion
After using them for a year, my realization is: It's not about the number of tools, but the combination.
Use ChatGPT as the brain to help me make decisions.
Use Zapier as the nerves to help me run errands.
Use genstory.app as the monetization engine to help me turn ideas into money.
This is my "Ace Combo" for 2025. I hope this list gives you some inspiration. Don't just be an AI spectator; try using them to create something!
👉 Want to try the most potential-filled creative monetization? Visit genstory.app now to generate your first AI picture book for free!