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. A serving-infrastructure company's practical map of the open-weight landscape. bentoml.com Article The Best Open-Source LLMs BentoML
  2. A decision framework for the open-vs-closed call, written for teams shipping to customers. techcommunity.microsoft.com Article Comparing Open-Source vs Closed LLMs for Enterprise Apps Microsoft
  3. Covers the hybrid pattern most teams actually land on: closed for frontier tasks, open for private or high-volume ones. hakia.com Article Open Source vs Closed LLMs: Technical Comparison Hakia
  4. From an India-founded ML platform: how gateways make model choice reversible. truefoundry.com Article Helicone vs OpenRouter: Key Differences TrueFoundry
  5. The lock-in insurance layer compared hands-on, including India-built Portkey. klymentiev.com Guide LLM Gateway guide: OpenRouter vs LiteLLM vs Portkey vs Helicone Dmytro Klymentiev
  6. A second, eval-minded view on routing layers so you can switch providers in an afternoon. braintrust.dev Article 6 best LLM gateways for developers Braintrust
  7. Video How I use LLMs Andrej Karpathy
  8. A regularly refreshed plain-English rundown of the current frontier models and their sweet spots. codingscape.com Article Most powerful LLMs (Large Language Models) Codingscape
  9. The most-cited year-in-review; explains why the leader changes constantly and why lock-in is a trap. simonwillison.net Article Things we learned about LLMs in 2024 Simon Willison
  10. YC partners on how model progress should shape what founders build now versus wait on. creators.spotify.com Podcast The 10 Trillion Parameter AI Model With 300 IQ (Lightcone) Y Combinator (Lightcone Podcast)
  11. The essay that made evals a founder-level topic; failed LLM products almost always skipped this. hamel.dev Article Your AI Product Needs Evals Hamel Husain
  12. A free written masterclass version if you want the method without the course fee. aakashg.com Guide How to Master AI Evals: Step-by-Step with Hamel and Shreya Aakash Gupta (Product Growth)
  13. Open-source, config-file evals that run in CI; used by OpenAI and Anthropic themselves. github.com Tool Promptfoo Promptfoo
  14. Gets your first automated eval running in under an hour. datacamp.com Guide Promptfoo Tutorial: A Hands-On Guide to LLM Evaluation DataCamp
  15. A current map of the eval tooling landscape so you pick once, correctly. braintrust.dev Article Best Prompt Evaluation Tools (Tested and Compared) Braintrust
  16. Video AI Engineer World's Fair 2025: Evals track AI Engineer conference
  17. A conversational companion to Hamel's essay with concrete team workflows. humanloop.com Article Why Your AI Product Needs Evals, with Hamel Husain Humanloop
  18. A live-demo episode: watch error analysis actually being done on screen. podcasts.apple.com Podcast Evals, error analysis, and better prompts | Hamel Husain How I AI (Claire Vo)
  19. Distils the conference's eval takeaways, including hunting implicit user feedback signals. vellum.ai Article Big Ideas from the AI Engineer World's Fair Vellum
  20. How to make your AI coding tools carry the eval workload for you. hamelhusain.substack.com Article Evals Skills for Coding Agents Hamel Husain
  21. Turning evals into a deploy gate so a bad prompt change never reaches users. braintrust.dev Article Best AI Eval Tools for CI/CD Pipelines Braintrust
  22. A vendor-neutral ranking to cross-check the tool vendors' own comparisons. techsy.io Article 8 LLM Eval Tools Ranked: No Product to Sell TECHSY
  23. A trusted independent voice explaining why iteration speed is the whole game. simonwillison.net Article Simon Willison on "Your AI Product Needs Evals" Simon Willison
  24. How to use one model to grade another without inheriting its biases. deepeval.com Article LLM-as-a-Judge: Top evaluation techniques and best practices Confident AI (DeepEval)

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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