How Founders Use AI

How people use AI, and the tool for each job.

The AI map of which tool is for which job, checked on 29 October 2026, what changed since July, and every video, thread, guide, podcast and tool behind 360 answered questions on putting AI to work.

The AI map: which tool is for which job, as of 29 October 2026

Models and assistants AI assistants Frontier models Open-weight models Decision models

Building with AI Coding agents App builders Design and presentations Spreadsheets, data and internal tools

Agents and research Agents that do tasks for you AI browsers No-code automation with AI steps Research and search Meeting notes and everyday productivity

Making media Video generation Images Avatars and voice Music and audio Video editing

AI at work Prospecting and sales Marketing, ads and AI search Customer support agents Legal and contracts Finance and accounting Hiring and HR

What changed since July

  1. 28 Oct 2026 GitHub began including Copilot with GitHub Enterprise licences and added projects to the Copilot app, where several agents work across repositories. Coding agents github.blog
  2. 27 Oct 2026 n8n released the 3.0 beta, a reliability and security release with breaking changes; self-hosting now runs on Docker only and the stable release is due in early December. No-code automation with AI steps blog.n8n.io
  3. 27 Oct 2026 Hex released Hex 4.0, rebuilt for analysts and AI agents working together, with a $100 million raise. Spreadsheets, data and internal tools hex.tech
  4. 26 Oct 2026 Replit launched Replit for Business, and the next day Cloud Agents that let non-engineers propose changes to a company codebase. App builders blog.replit.com
  5. 26 Oct 2026 OpenAI released GPT-6.1 Terra at $1 / $5 per million tokens, half the price of GPT-6.1 Sol. Frontier models openai.com
All 108 changes

What founders use most, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

  1. System requirements and the other install routes (Homebrew, WinGet, apt, dnf), plus how to fix a PATH that cannot find claude. code.claude.com Guide Advanced setup Anthropic
  2. Installing and using the VS Code extension for anyone who would rather not work in a bare terminal. code.claude.com Guide Use Claude Code in VS Code Anthropic
  3. A free course on steering long sessions with plan mode, writing a lean CLAUDE.md, and verifying what Claude did. anthropic.skilljar.com Course Claude Code in Action Anthropic Academy
  4. Google's explainer, with a table separating agents, assistants and bots by how much they decide on their own. cloud.google.com Article What are AI agents? Google Cloud
  5. A free course unit that explains an agent as a model that reasons, plans and acts through tools, with simple diagrams. huggingface.co Course What are agents? (Hugging Face Agents Course) Hugging Face
  6. $50 of free credits that last 7 days, then Team from $29.99 a month for 3,000 credits. lindy.ai Tool Lindy pricing Lindy
  7. Priced per workflow run rather than per step, with agents and MCP on every plan and a self-hosted option. n8n.io Tool n8n pricing n8n
  8. The open-source Python library for building agents with tools, handoffs and guardrails once you are ready to write code. openai.github.io Guide OpenAI Agents SDK OpenAI
  9. The library behind Claude Code, for building your own agent that reads files, runs commands and uses MCP tools. code.claude.com Guide Claude Agent SDK overview Anthropic
  10. The specification itself, the source to read when you need exact behaviour. modelcontextprotocol.io Guide MCP specification (2026-07-28) Model Context Protocol
  11. How to add an MCP server to Claude, which plans allow it (Free users get one), and the security points to check first. support.claude.com Guide Get started with custom connectors using remote MCP Anthropic
  12. How OpenAI's models call remote MCP servers, showing the standard works across companies. developers.openai.com Guide MCP and connectors (OpenAI API) OpenAI
  13. The official directory of public MCP servers, the place to look before you build one. registry.modelcontextprotocol.io Tool MCP Registry Model Context Protocol
  14. Gamma's own account of each plan: Free with credits that do not refresh and up to 10 slides a prompt, Plus with 1,500 credits a... help.gamma.app Guide Gamma plans: Free, Plus, Pro and Ultra Gamma
  15. What uses credits (generating, AI edits, images) and what is free (editing by hand), and how a free account earns 200 credits... help.gamma.app Guide How do credits work in Gamma? Gamma
  16. Confirms Gamma takes UPI in India as well as cards, which matters when an international card is declined. help.gamma.app Guide What payment methods does Gamma accept? Gamma
  17. Go at $10.75 a month billed yearly for iPad and web, Pro at $33.25 with the desktop modeller and 2D documentation, and Studio... sketchup.trimble.com Tool SketchUp plans and pricing Trimble
  18. The paper that named RAG: a model paired with a retriever over a document index, answering more factually than the model alone. arxiv.org Article Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Tasks Patrick Lewis et al.
  19. A plain explainer of how retrieval, augmentation and generation fit, and why RAG is cheaper than retraining a model. aws.amazon.com Article What is RAG? AWS
  20. Anthropic's measured fix for the weak step in RAG: contextual chunks cut failed retrievals by 49%, and by 67% with reranking. anthropic.com Article Introducing Contextual Retrieval Anthropic
  21. The quickest hosted RAG: upload files to a vector store and let the model search them, with no database of your own. developers.openai.com Guide File search (OpenAI API) OpenAI
  22. Video What is Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)? IBM Technology
  23. Google's explainer, including when RAG beats fine-tuning and how grounding reduces made-up answers. cloud.google.com Article What is retrieval-augmented generation? Google Cloud
  24. Google's steps to create a key in AI Studio, what happens for new and existing Cloud users, and how to keep it safe. ai.google.dev Guide Using Gemini API keys Google

Show the next 24

Playbooks

A goal, and the route through it a step at a time.

Start using AI well Pick an assistant, learn with it, hand it real work, and keep yourself and your data safe. 5 steps Build your product with AI From a prompt to a shipped product: prototype, build, and wire AI into what you ship. 6 steps Code and ship with AI Write, ship, and maintain real software as a founder, with AI as your pair. 4 steps Design and prototype with AI Go from idea to a clickable prototype without a designer. 3 steps Build AI agents and automations Wire up agents and internal tools that do real work for you. 3 steps Put AI inside your product Ship AI features users actually feel, not a bolted-on chatbot. 3 steps Research your market with AI Size the market, study competitors, and read data in hours, not weeks. 3 steps Market and grow with AI Content, creative, and distribution: fill the top of the funnel without a big team. 5 steps Create content with AI Write, film, and design a content engine that runs without a team. 3 steps Get found in AI search Show up when founders and buyers ask AI, not just Google (AEO/GEO). 3 steps Run ads with AI Brief creatives, read the numbers, and optimize spend with AI. 3 steps Find and serve customers with AI Research the market, prospect, close, and support, with AI doing the heavy lifting. 4 steps Sell and prospect with AI Find leads, personalize outreach, and run better sales calls. 3 steps Support customers with AI Answer faster and deflect tickets without losing the human touch. 3 steps Run the back office with AI The unglamorous grind: workflows, finance, legal, and hiring, automated where it counts. 5 steps Automate your workflows Stitch your tools together so the busywork runs itself. 3 steps Hire and manage your team with AI Source, screen, and onboard faster, and keep the team in sync. 3 steps Handle legal and finance with AI Draft contracts and stay on top of the numbers without a big spend. 2 steps Be more productive with AI Get more done and think sharper with AI as a daily habit. 3 steps Become an AI-native founder The meta-skills: build your stack, prompt well, and use AI to research, think, and decide. 6 steps Build your AI stack Pick the tools worth paying for and the prompts worth reusing. 3 steps

The questions, by topic

Building & Product

Vibe Coding 20 Databases & Internal Tools 11 AI Agents 15 Design & Prototyping 14 AI in Your Product 15

Research & Knowledge

Search & Research 16 Market Research 13 Data Analysis 13

Marketing & Growth

Content Creation 14 Video, Image & Audio 27 Getting Found in AI Search (AEO/GEO) 12 Ads & Performance Marketing 14 Social & Community 12

Sales & Customers

Sales Prospecting 13 Customer Support 6 CRM & Sales Calls 12

Operations & Back-office

Legal & Contracts 13 Finance & Accounting 3 Hiring & HR 3 Productivity 5 Workflows & Automation 3

Strategy & The AI-Native Founder

Fundraising 6 Prompting 4 Building Your AI Stack 5 AI as a Thinking Partner 5

Everyday AI

Choosing Your AI Assistant 15 Learning with AI 8 Working with AI Agents 8 Using AI Safely 9 AI in Indian Languages 8 Quick Fixes for Files, Photos and Video 26 AI for Your Line of Work 12
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