# 143 The Only 6 AI Tools You Need In 2026 (Full Walkthrough)

# 143 The Only 6 AI Tools You Need In 2026 (Full Walkthrough) Speaker 2: In this episode, Ryan Doser is going to break down the exact AI tools that he uses every single day to run his marketing and content. And he's going to cut through the noise because 95% of AI tools out there are just ChatGPT or Claude wrappers. So we're going to get into why he ditched ChatGPT entirely, why he's all in on Google's ecosystem long-term, and how he built a make.com automation that runs his entire social media content calendar. He also walks us through his full Claude code setup live on screen. We're talking everything from the skills he uses to the way he manages his files, API integrations, even how he generates YouTube thumbnails for 14 cents a pop. And then towards the end, he shares a mindset shift around how most people are approaching AI completely backwards. And honestly, I think that part alone is worth sticking around for. So with that said, let's jump right into the episode. All right, Ryan, what are we learning today? Speaker 1: Corey, thanks for having me on, bro. So today we're going to be learning about my favorite AI tools that I use all the time for marketing and content creation. Speaker 2: Awesome. I'm excited to dive in there. And I know you've got some super tactical tips for us on those tools. So there's a lot to flesh out and we will get going in a second. But before we do, why should people listen to you? Like what's your background? What's your credentials? Speaker 1: Absolutely. So I've been in marketing for over 10 years now, marketer by trade. And I kind of just got into the AI stuff by default. As if you leave my YouTube channel in the description, you'll notice I have over 31,000 subscribers at this point. I've really figured out how to build a YouTube channel and how I've used AI to help me do that in the process here. But I've just kind of tinkered with probably hundreds of different tools at this point. And the reality is Corey that I would say 95% of AI tools are just rappers white labeled open AI white label Claude. So I'm going to help try to debunk all that hype in this video and just give you like, I don't know three to five tools that anyone can get started on. Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's exactly what we're looking for because I feel like, like you said, most tools are just kind of a regurgitated version of ChatGPT. They don't do much, anything much different than what you could do in like a ChatGPT or a Claude. So yeah, let's dive into your list and kind of see what you got and how they can help the everyday business owner. Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll do some screen sharing action here in a little bit, but I'm first going to list off kind of what those tools are, and I guess how I'm using them. So first and foremost here, Corey, I've actually made a big switch lately to Claude Code. So I was originally using the Claude web app with projects and even GPTs when I was still using ChatGPT a few months ago. But Claude Code is really my daily driver for all things copywriting, research, technical assistance, really just general business tasks. And I can screen share my Claude Code setup later on, just go through the different skills I'm using, the structure, etc. But I think first it's important for people watching or listening to this to understand that you should install an IDE like Cursor, VS Code or Google's Anti-Gravity. And then install something like Claude Code or OpenAI's Codex if you're in OpenAI's ecosystem, and then just start plugging away with Claude Code or Codex because that's where all of this is going, at least in my opinion. Speaker 2: A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, Claude Code is one of those things where, again, it sounds intimidating, especially if you don't have a tech background. I mean, I was very intimidated myself as a non-technical person, but like you said, it's like just download. Cursor, install Claude Code and start messing around with it. So we'll definitely go deeper into Claude Code. We'll maybe even have you screen share your setup later in the video, but that's a great one to start with because that's something that I'm trying to learn a lot more about. And I think everybody would make a lot more money if they started to master tools like Claude Code. Speaker 1: Absolutely. That's just where everything's going. But in addition to Claude Code, Corey, I'll just kind of go down this list too. I'm also still using Google Gemini. Now, I am using the API to help me with Nano Banana Pro and some of the more detailed models they have, but I'm still using the Gemini interface. I'm on Google's AI Pro plan for 20 bucks a month, mainly because I'm still generating images and sometimes videos inside the Google Gemini interface. I just think that Nano Banana Pro is The best image model right now by far. There's no really second comparison. And so I'd rather be on that paid plan to get more high-quality images, whether that's YouTube thumbnails. Sometimes I'm generating a lot of infographics as well inside Gemini with Nano Banana Pro and also to what people need to realize is that the reason that I ditched ChatGPT recently about a month ago is I'm so bullish on Google's AI ecosystem. Think about all the data and the knowledge that they have behind that. I would rather be invested 20 bucks a month in Gemini Pro. If I can use things like Gmail, Drive, my YouTube history and then pair that with some of the best AI models to date for research, video, photo, etc. So that's probably number two is just Google Gemini and then that $20 a month Pro version. Speaker 2: And that's a great point. I mean, just betting on Google's ecosystem and their capabilities. I mean, I agree. NanoBanana is by far the best model, I guess the best image model right now, right? I still use Gemini for some one-off things here and there, but overall, I think it's a smart bet to be betting on them long-term as probably being one of the leaders, if not the leader in this space and investing accordingly. So I think that's a great one to be second on the list. Speaker 1: I also think too, they're going to be the master generalist company. I don't really think OpenAI has a shot to beat them long-term and I could see Anthropic being more of that enterprise business company. Those are kind of my top two, but that's a whole separate rabbit hole. Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we can go on that maybe later on, but no, keep on going. This is a great list. It's off to a great start. Speaker 1: Yeah, and then in terms of automations, I use make.com. That might sound like an unpopular choice with all the YouTube gurus posting N8N 100 node screenshots everywhere, but make.com is kind of the driver for just some of my automation. So you want me to screen share now and I can just kind of show you what I'm working with here. Speaker 2: Yes, please. Yeah, that'd be great because that is the point of, you know, what we want to talk through here is kind of breaking down some of those automations, I think specifically in make, but Make's a great platform. I mean, it's really between Zapier and Make as far as the two big no-code builders out there. Obviously, N8n, but I consider N8n a bit more technical than like a Zapier or a Make. And I think whether you go with Zapier or whether you go with Make, you don't go wrong with either one. They're both fantastic. Speaker 1: I agree, and they can all accomplish the same thing. People need to understand that, right? They're just automation platforms with maybe some different integrations here and there, different pricing structures. But this automation right here, this is the one that I probably use the most. This automates my social media, entire social media content system. So I use a tool called Blottado. I'm not sure, Corey, if you're familiar with that one. I'm a content tool created by Sabrina Romanoff. She's one of the top AI creators I would say in the world. So I use that to kind of power the posting for my socials via API. But in addition to that, so what powers this automation right here is I'm using just a simple Google sheet. And the reason that I'm doing this versus just letting some agent or maybe even AI module take all of this by itself is I want to always ensure quality. So this just gives me a good overview here of what posts are going out what posts have already went out and then I have an editor who does all these short clips for me. He takes my long-form podcast or YouTube videos. You know chops them up makes them look good on a short form basis. So if you look at the shorts on my YouTube channel Instagram reels tech talk, you'll see all those short form videos and then I'm using Claude code to help me in column C to generate all the captions. And then this is being monitored by this automation right here to ensure that every single day a post is going out across all my relevant platforms that I have set on the schedule down here. So I know there's a lot. I have a full tutorial that covers this entire thing, but Corey, am I making sense here? Speaker 2: Yeah, you're making perfect sense. So what I love about this process is that you didn't just mindlessly automate this and hand it off to AI. Like there's still a human in the loop there at the end before you ultimately press post. And I think that's what prevents this from being more generic AI content is like Ryan is still there at the end of the day to verify that what the AI has created is quality and is on brand and is suitable for us to post. So I think that's what differentiates you from a lot of people doing this. A lot of people just have this set up to auto post, but I think human in the loop is key, especially when it comes to content. Speaker 1: I agree with you, bro. I can't preach that louder enough where, you know, all these YouTube gurus, they want to say, use this agent and we'll post a hundred times a day. But guess what? AI slop and pure volume does not move the needle whatsoever. So you have to include that there's always quality in there somewhere. Speaker 2: Yep, 100% completely agree. Speaker 1: And then just another really quick simple automation that I use all the time to help with research for my podcast and potential leads that come through from my marketing agency. This one is about as simple as it gets, but it's extremely useful. You don't have to use Calendly. You can use TidyCal, Cal.com, whatever your calendar app is. Well, I just have a webhook here where anytime someone books through a booking form on Calendly, that triggers this automation. And then I use something called OpenRouter, which is essentially a unique platform where we can use literally all these AI models like Google models, OpenAI models, Anthropic models versus going through one by one trying to sync those APIs individually. It's just a tedious process. So I like OpenRouter from an organizational standpoint. And then it goes through and researches that person based on the name, the website they provided, the company they provided, and any other details. And I have it set to Gemini 3 Pro right now for the model that it's using, does all this research on them, comes back with an intro for a podcast, podcast questions, anything that's relevant to what I'm trying to do. And then it simply just sends me an email in a nice format so I can get it right there and I know what it's doing. But that's just like a super simple automation that's a real-world use case. For a lot of people. Speaker 2: Now, could somebody do, cause I'm thinking of this from like a sales perspective. So first of all, I think that's very smart. And I think everybody should have that set up, especially people like me. I mean, I'm on a high volume of meetings and I'm constantly connecting with people and meeting new people. So having essentially the research part automated before I get on these calls would save me a ton of time and a ton of mental bandwidth. Now, where I think of this going is from like a sales perspective. So let's say you're. A company and you book a high volume of calls for your sales team. What if your salespeople got a text message or a slack message or a WhatsApp message 10 minutes before every sales call? And in that message was all the prospects information, a summary of what they do, a summary of all of your interactions with them to date. It's kind of like the full brief. And today, we're going to be talking about how to set up a template of that customer's journey thus far with your company in message format right before you get on the call. Absolutely. Speaker 1: I mean, that's a huge use case for B2B sales. Speaker 2: Yeah, that to me is a no brainer. And that's relatively easy to set up, right? Speaker 1: Yeah. And I have a template. I have a full video explaining this. But I guess while I'm on the screen share here, I can quickly go over Claude Code if we want to dive into that now too. Speaker 2: So is your list, did you finish out your list? I think I'd rather finish out the list and then dive into each, maybe each of the tools individually. Speaker 1: I jumped the gun there. I apologize. We'll get back. Speaker 2: You're good. Trust me. I'm excited to get into Claude Code. It's, it's super powerful. Speaker 1: Yeah. So next on the list after making, I kind of talked about this as Blottado. That's an AI content tool owned by Sabrina Romanoff. You can, it's essentially a social media scheduler. So if you want to do that inside the app, it works similar to Blaze AI. What are some other ones? Hootsuite, Sprout Social, that type of thing, but a very unique tool, especially if you're doing automation. So I use that all the time paired with make.com. In addition to that, I use Haygen to create an AI avatar. I'm sure you're familiar with Haygen, Corey. So I use Haygen all the time. I'm on that paid, you know, $30 a month plan, whatever it is. I would recommend if you're going to go the Haygen route that you only use it for short form videos. I would not recommend using your clone for long form. Especially where that we're in this trust recession that we're in right now, where people are losing trust every day. The last thing you should do is rip out long-form AI clone videos, but HeyGen is probably the best AI avatar generator out there right now. If you go to the shorts on my YouTube channel, probably 85 to 90% of those are my HeyGen clone with polished video editing. Speaker 2: Wow. I've heard I talked to somebody else recently who's pretty big on Instagram and they said the same thing. He was like, He's like, every single one of my short form videos is my Hey Jin version of me. And the voice is done by Levin Labs. And it sounds exactly like me. And it looks exactly like me. And I never knew. I was like, honestly, I'm surprised. I figured this guy would be one of the last ones to do that. But he did. And it looks very legit. Speaker 1: Yeah. And I use 11 labs. That was the next tool I was going to cover. And that's an additional like $22 a month. But this is probably the best AI audio generation tool that I've come across to this point. And in order to build an effective AI clone, Corey, people need to understand this. You need to have a professional voice clone. PageN has these default voices and there's other ones, but it's not good. Right. So again, back to what I said earlier, we don't want to just put out volume and AI slop. We want to make sure that our AI generated content is actually high quality and 11 labs has that professional voice clone where you record like, I don't know, two, three hours of you actually talking or if you have existing audio files or videos of yourself online, you can use that as training data and you pair 11 labs with a Haygen AI avatar. Your clone is goaded. I mean like go to my clone or some other clones you've seen. It's really hard to tell. Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah, Haygen's fantastic. We started experimenting with that probably seven or eight months ago, so pretty early on. And it was good then, but it's gotten so much better ever since. Speaker 1: Yeah, they're getting better every day. But other than HeyGen11 Labs, I briefly talked about OpenRouter. This just is a way to organize all my different API keys for automations. It has, you know, XAI, OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini models, all in that one interface. You're paying like a very small premium just to have one API key versus 10 or a dozen different API keys that you're going back and forth. So that's a good little hack there too, if people are using API keys from a bunch of different platforms. Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a huge hack, especially once you know you've started getting in the weeds like people like you and me and you've got all these different API keys. I mean, that is so worth it as far as Just keeping things simple. And I mean, you're paying a tiny premium. It's not much more at all. Speaker 1: Absolutely. And just some other honorable mention tools that I've dabbled with here and there. Perplexity, if I have some one-off, you know, research prompts, although I mostly use Gemini 3 for research tasks, but perplexity can come in the mix sometimes. Grok, sometimes if I want to get You know, let's say a little unbiased or different opinion to something. I might throw grok out there and then notebook LM is another one where I actually did a tutorial showing how to export your entire ChatGPT data or memory and you can use notebook LM to clone yourself and what's so beneficial about notebook LM versus A GPT or a project is it doesn't take external web data. It only has those sources that you have right there and it synthesizes those exactly based on the sources. So notebook LLM is probably one of the best free AI tools out there. Speaker 2: So it's funny you say that because I feel like NotebookLM is so slept on and I actually have I think two or three guests in the coming weeks who were doing episodes purely based on NotebookLM. So I brought them on selfishly because I'm like, this is a tool I know I need to learn more about. So I'm basically having them on to teach it to me. So yeah, I know that's what I'm going to dive more into. Speaker 1: Absolutely. Well, I don't know if you want me to get into Claude code for a little bit. We can kind of. Speaker 2: So let's, let's summarize the list first and foremost. So let's kind of go through just like the bullet point, like, you know, this tool for this reason, down the list real quick, and then we'll dive into Claude code. Speaker 1: Absolutely. So now it's Claude code for just Dave. It's my daily driver for most things. I do with copywriting research technical assistance Etc. I would say Gemini for anything media generation related. So images and videos make and blotado for automation purposes, especially for automating my social media. Hey Jen and 11 labs for my AI clone and then open router just kind of to manage those different API keys. Speaker 2: Awesome. That's a great summary. So yeah, let's dive into Claude Code. So Ryan's going to be sharing a screen here. So if you're listening over on the podcast platforms, now would be a great time to switch over to YouTube, which you can find just searching at Corey Ganim over on YouTube. And he's going to walk us through his Claude Code setup here. Speaker 1: Yeah. Can we all see this? All right. Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: Absolutely. Awesome. Well, there's a lot going on here. So it's very easy to get overwhelmed with what's happening. But let me just go over this from a high level and I try to make this as easy as possible. So I'm using... Speaker 2: You could actually maybe zoom in a couple of ticks if possible. There we go. Speaker 1: Yeah. So I'm using what's called VS Code or Visual Studio Code. This is just an IDE owned and operated by Microsoft, an alternative to Cursor or Google's antigravity is the best way. Speaker 2: What is an IDE? Just for people that don't know. Speaker 1: It's like, I can't remember what it stands for, but it's essentially an all-in-one workshop where you can use different extensions here. It's basically a simpler alternative to pulling up a terminal on your computer and using Claude code through a terminal. Speaker 2: So it's basically just a place to interact with code, right? For sure. Speaker 1: It simplifies it essentially versus going into a terminal. Speaker 2: Got it. Speaker 1: And you can still use a terminal on here, right? You'll see I have a terminal tab in addition to the Claude code extension. So that's the benefit of using VS code. And I have a full tutorial explaining this. But if you click extensions, you can install Claude code or open AI's codex as an extension where if you're scared of the terminal, you don't even have to use the terminal. You can just find the extension. Speaker 2: Right. Awesome. Speaker 1: But let's just talk about my setup really quickly here. So this is just essentially file management system. It's running locally. So these are all folders and files. So the best way to explain this here is I have an API's here. I'm not going to get into that, but I have a marketing folder. And so within a marketing folder, I have clients, email, SEO, social media. I have a skills folder. Now, I'm sure you've heard Claude skills, Corey, by now. But these are essentially Markdown files. You notice I have about 20 different skills here. I have an anti-slop skill. I have email skills, infographic skills, paid ads, SEO, social media, etc. These are just essentially SOPs in Markdown format that tell AI or Opus 4.5 in this instance, what exactly to do and skills are so revolutionary that people need to understand here is that they update in real time. So if I wanted to make a thumbnail or an email and it screwed up I could say in the right chat bar here. Hey, never do that again. Change the subject line change this change that and it updates that Markdown file in real time versus a GPT. What do you have to do core? You have to go back update the instructions add knowledge remove. It's just tedious. It is a tedious process. So in terms of efficiency, I think skills are really The next wave of AI what I'm showing you here is what's going to happen for this year. And I think years to come just in different formats and you're spot-on about skills. Speaker 2: One thing. I'll just kind of interject here as I was talking to my business partner yesterday and we were talking about skills and I agree. I think it's probably the most useful. And today, we're going to be talking about the latest AI update, if you will, for lack of a better term, of the last year or more, right? They're SOPs that just run perfectly every time the way you set them up. Remember what courses were to the online education world back in 2005, 2006, 2007? Courses became a really popular way to sell knowledge and sell information. My prediction is that skills are going to be the course equivalent of the AI economy. Right now, sure, there's people selling skill packs. There's obviously a lot of people giving them away, but to get really Good, useful skills. They've got to be, you know, more custom to your business, most likely. So, you know, gone are the days of paying $2,000 for a course because all that information is free. But the days are coming where paying $2,000 for a specialized skill or a specialized skill pack relevant to your position or your industry, that's going to be the new version of courses. And people are going to be paying a lot of money for skills. Speaker 1: I completely agree with you there, Corey. But the thing is people also have to educate themselves on how to repurpose those skills to make sure that they're creating content relevant to their niche and industry and also just how to use it in general. And so some quick little hacks here is I set up some what are called what I call system skills. So I actually have a skill creator skill. So if you want to create a skill, you can use this skill creator skill. I know that's a mouthful to help you create a skill just based on explaining what it is. In the chat bot to Claude Code on the right hand side here. I also have an MCP setup skill. I'm not going to get into model context protocol, but if you need help setting up different MCPs, I have a skill for that. I have a troubleshooting skill. I run into issues all the time. Like you Corey, I'm not technical whatsoever. So if I have an issue in Claude Code, I can call on this troubleshooting skill and it can help me in real time, debug things, make new scripts. It's really amazing what Opus 4.5 the model can do. Speaker 2: Right. It's, it's honestly, it's amazing. So this is great. Keep going because this is a good kind of intro to how your thing should be set up and keeping things organized and just good file management, best practice practices. And of course we can get as in the weeds as you'd like. So, so continue please. Speaker 1: Yeah. And I'm going to show one more example here and then we'll take it back. So I have a skill called YouTube thumbnail designer. And what's really unique about Claude code and some people maybe not don't realize this is that you can sync up MCPs and APIs just like you could in an automation platform make an 8n Zapier, etc. So I have a skill dedicated to YouTube thumbnails. Well, what I can do here. If I go to my YouTube thumbnail designer folder generated thumbnails, these thumbnails right here were actually generated using Claude code that one in particular right now. These aren't amazing. They're not, you know, something I would maybe use right on one shot and upload it to my channel, but how I'm doing this and I show in the setup video using Claude code on my channel how to set this all up. But essentially what I'm doing here Corey is I'm taking Google's Nano Banana Pro API documentation. I'm telling my YouTube thumbnail designer skill to analyze that train off that creating an API. Then I create an API key with Google. You can do this in Google AI studio or open router. Give it my API key. And then I think I had a chat popped up here. Yeah. So this was my YouTube thumbnail chat on the right hand side. And I also have assets or examples. So if I go to my thumbnail assets notice, I have headshots. I have logos, thumbnail examples, UI elements, so I can tell it specifically, use this headshot of me pointing in a blue shirt or a main headshot left, or I can say, use the Entropic logo, use the Claude Code logo. And it knows that because it's inside my Claude Code file management system, right? So this is why it's so cool. And you know, all you can do is sync the API key and you can literally create YouTube thumbnails. I think it's like 14 cents per thumbnail. Last time I checked when I was building this out. So if you get a system down, I mean, think about how, you know, impressive this is at scale where even if we can create something like this, like this, or even like that, right, that's a good starting point. Drag it into Canva or Photoshop, throw a headshot and text over it and boom, you're good to go. Speaker 2: A hundred percent. Yep. And this, I mean, you're kind of showing how all this is possible inside Claude Code being honestly a lot more powerful than even like the Claude desktop app. And I mean, even more powerful than ChatGPT as well, which to your point, I stopped using ChatGPT entirely a couple of months ago. I've also fully switched to Claude. One other point that I want to make is, so the files you were just showing us, right? Kind of like, you know, you've got a bunch of different headshots of yours. You've got different logos of other companies, I assume, so that you can use these images in thumbnails that you're creating. So those are basically just reference files, right? Correct. Some headshots of Ryan. Here are some files that you can reference when making thumbnails, because this is some images that we like to use or ways that we like to make them. Is that kind of the idea there? It's almost like you're giving it an example of what. Speaker 1: Absolutely. You know, the more context you can provide, the better outputs you're going to get. And that's the benefit of these skills. Again, Corey's, I can say, Hey, look at my headshot. That's titled main headshot left dot PNG. I like that one. My thumbnails are performed better with that headshot. So use that more going forward. It's going to update that skill markdown file. So now going forward it knows to use that headshot on the left or maybe there's other logos. I'm using or typography or colors and then that skill is updating with the instant feedback loop, which like you see where I'm going with this. It's so revolutionary. Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's the people who are in this stuff every day messing with it. And you know what I tell people is it doesn't take hours a day of practice or learning. It's it's 15 minutes a day of just day one. Just install Claude coach. Day two, open up the terminal and type something, right? Just get more comfortable with it every day. So when it comes, I think, specific to Claude Code, that's usually the advice that I give to people. But Ryan, so as far as your list, I think that was fantastic. The Claude Code breakdown was fantastic as well. Are there any other assets or anything else you want to kind of run us through before we get into some of the final takeaways as far as what questions that I think viewers want answered? Speaker 1: I think the number one thing, Corey, just to tell people watching or listening to this is that before, like the wrong questions to ask are, should I use Claude code or N8N? Should I use ChatGPT or Claude? Those are the wrong questions to ask. And I hear these every single day, literally in my community and YouTube comments. And I always tell people what you need to do is figure out what is eating five to 10 hours a week of my time. What is costing me money? What is broken in my business? Have the problem first mentality and then work your way backwards from that problem until you do some research and figure out. Oh, hey, maybe Claude code can help me with this or notebook LLM can help me with that, right? It's a problem first mindset and then working backwards to the tool versus a tool first mindset and then being chasing all these endless shiny objects and never accomplishing anything. Speaker 2: So, I mean, you pretty much hit the nail on the head as far as the advice that I give. It's most people exactly like you said. They hear about a tool and they want to start using a tool or they want to quote unquote implement AI when in reality they're not targeting a specific problem. They just want to be able to say they're using AI or they just want to try this tool out because like you said, usually shiny object syndrome. But when you lead with the problem, you know exactly what it is that you're trying to solve with AI. That's when you actually get results. So I agree with that wholeheartedly. I think you said that very well. So Ryan, before we go, where do you want to point people towards? Where can they find you? Where can they follow you? And where can they get a copy of that workflow too? I think you said earlier that you've got that out there for people to have. Speaker 1: Absolutely. So Ryan Doser on YouTube is my main channel. And then I have all my automation templates for free inside my school community. It's called the AI Marketing Insiders. I can leave a link to you, Corey, if you want to leave it in the show notes below, but those are probably the best two places. Speaker 2: Perfect. And guys, we will link Ryan's YouTube channel and his school community in the description if you're watching on YouTube and in the show notes if you're listening on a podcast platform. With that, Ryan, thank you so much for your time. I certainly learned quite a bit. And for everybody in the audience, we will be back next week. Thanks. Awesome. Speaker 1: Appreciate you.