About The Practical AI

Most AI content is useless. This is the fix.

There are roughly ten thousand blogs telling you about AI tools right now. Most of them have never paid for the software they're recommending. They scraped the features list from the product website, added some affiliate links, and called it a review.

I got tired of reading them.

The Practical AI exists because I run several publishing businesses simultaneously — newsletters, blogs, a SaaS product — and I actually need these tools to work. I pay for them out of my own pocket. I test them under real conditions. When something doesn't work or isn't worth the money, I say so.

That's it. That's the whole editorial policy.

What you'll find here

Reviews of AI tools for writers, publishers, and one-person businesses. Not for developers, not for enterprise teams, not for people who want to talk about AI in the abstract. For people who need to ship things and want to know what actually helps.

Every review ends with a clear verdict: Recommended, Conditional, or Not recommended. No hedging. If I'm not sure, I say I'm not sure and explain why.

Comparisons between tools, because knowing a tool is good in isolation is less useful than knowing which one to pick when they overlap.

Stack posts: what I'm actually using, what it costs, and why. Updated when things change.

About Ellis

I've been building things online for years — writing, publishing, building software. I've used a lot of tools. Most AI tools are fine. A few are genuinely excellent. Several are expensive and disappointing. I know which is which, and I'll tell you.

No background in tech journalism. No corporate relationships. Just someone who uses these tools seriously and writes clearly about what he finds.

Affiliate disclosure

Some links on this site are affiliate links. If you buy something through one of my links, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I only link to tools I actually use and recommend.