AI Guides › Workbench
By Nigel Guy · 7 min read
The usual way people build an "AI stack" is to collect logins. Six months later you have seven tabs doing roughly the same thing, with your work scattered across all of them. Each subscription made sense at the time; what's missing is any record of what each tool is for.
The rule: give every tool in your stack exactly one job, plus a handoff to the next tool. If you can't name a tool's job in one line, it hasn't earned its place.
The mechanism is the Job Map: one row per tool, giving its job, what it takes in, what it hands on, and the limit you'll hit first. Below is a starting Job Map for Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini Notebook (called NotebookLM until July 2026), Gamma, n8n and Replit, checked against each vendor's own pages on 4 October 2026.
All seven list prices in US dollars or euros. Your £ figure depends on the exchange rate and VAT, so check it at checkout.
| Tool | Its one job | Free option at time of writing | Best for | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude | Drafting, editing and reasoning over long material | Free plan (£0) with web search, file creation, memory and artifacts | Writing that has to sound like you; long documents; Claude Code on paid plans | Claude Code, Projects and extra models are on Pro and above. Usage runs in rolling five-hour windows, and paid plans also have weekly caps |
| ChatGPT | All-rounder with images, voice and scheduled tasks | Free (£0), with Go, Plus and Pro above it | Images, voice, quick second opinions, scheduled tasks (Go and above) | Free rations uploads, images and deep research. OpenAI says Go may include ads |
| Perplexity | Answers from the live web, with citations | Free sign-up; Pro and Max are paid | Fact-finding where you need to see the sources | A citation shows you where a claim came from. It doesn't prove the claim is right |
| Gemini Notebook | Answers grounded only in sources you upload | Free with a Google account | Asking questions of your own policies, contracts and recordings | Since 28 August 2026 Google meters usage by compute. Running code inside a notebook started on Ultra and some Workspace plans |
| Gamma | Turning an outline into slides, docs or a simple site | Free: 400 one-off credits, up to 10 slides per prompt | First drafts of decks you'll export to PowerPoint or Google Slides | Free credits don't refill. You need Plus to remove Gamma branding |
| n8n | Running a workflow on a trigger, without you there | Self-hosted Community Edition is free. n8n Cloud has a trial, then a paid plan | Repeating jobs: form to spreadsheet to email, scheduled reports | No free hosted plan. Paid plans are counted in executions (one full run of a workflow) |
| Replit | Building and hosting a small web app from a prompt | Starter plan with limited daily Agent credits | Internal tools and prototypes you need to put online | Agent work uses up credits fast, and it can make mistakes. Read the code before it handles real data |
Claude. Drafting and anything long. On Pro, keep standing instructions in a project. Claude Code shares the same allowance as chat, so heavy coding eats into writing time.
ChatGPT. Four individual plans: Free, Go, Plus and Pro. Scheduled tasks start at Go; custom GPTs come with Plus. If you already pay for Claude, ChatGPT's job is images, voice and second opinions. Training on your chats can be switched off in settings.
Perplexity. The start of any research job. Ask narrow questions and open the cited sources. Its Pro page promotes "Computer", but I couldn't confirm which plans include it, so check before paying.
Gemini Notebook. NotebookLM under a new name (renamed 16 July 2026), now syncing with the Gemini app. Use it after Perplexity: upload the sources you checked and question them there.
Gamma. Give it a finished outline, never a blank prompt. Export to PPTX or Google Slides once the structure is right.
n8n. Any job done the same way more than once a week. A daily schedule uses about 30 executions a month. Hosted plans store data in Frankfurt, worth knowing for UK GDPR questions.
Replit. When a spreadsheet stops being enough. Replit's own page says its Agent "may occasionally make mistakes", so treat output as a draft.
The joins are the hard part. This prompt turns a Perplexity session into a source pack for Gemini Notebook or Claude.
You are a careful research assistant preparing a source pack that someone else will rely on.
Goal: for the question [RESEARCH_QUESTION], gather what current, primary sources say, so I can upload them to a separate notebook tool and ask follow-up questions there.
Context: I work in [YOUR_SECTOR] in the UK. Sources older than [CUT-OFF_DATE] are only useful as background.
Steps:
1. Restate the question in one sentence and list up to five sub-questions it depends on.
2. For each sub-question, find primary sources first (official bodies, regulators, vendor documentation, original data). Use news or blogs only if no primary source exists, and label them as secondary.
3. For each source, record: title, publisher, date, URL, and a two-line summary of what it actually says. Paraphrase. Don't quote.
4. Mark any sub-question where sources disagree, or where you found nothing reliable.
Output: a numbered table (Source | Publisher | Date | URL | What it says | Primary or secondary), followed by a short "Gaps and disagreements" list.
Rules: do not invent sources, dates or figures. If a URL can't be confirmed, say so. If my question is too broad or missing the sector or cut-off date, ask me before you start.
Before you answer, check that every row has a real URL and a date, and that nothing in the summaries goes beyond what the source says.
Fill in your research question, your sector and the oldest date you'll accept.
Run this quarterly, with your card statement beside you.
You are a blunt operations adviser helping a small UK business cut tool overlap.
Here is my current stack, one line per tool: [TOOL — WHAT I USE IT FOR — MONTHLY COST IN £ — HOW OFTEN I USED IT LAST MONTH].
Steps:
1. For each tool, write its job in one line. If two tools share a job, flag the overlap.
2. For each overlap, recommend which tool to keep, and say why in one sentence, based only on what I've told you.
3. List the handoffs: what output from one tool becomes the input to another. Flag any tool with no handoff at all.
4. Name the tools I could cancel this month, and what I'd need to export from each one before I do.
Output: a Job Map table (Tool | Job | Input | Output | Keep, merge or cancel), then a short cancellation checklist.
Rules: don't recommend tools I haven't listed. Don't estimate prices. Use only the figures I give you. If a line is missing its cost or usage, ask me for it instead of guessing.
Before answering, check that every tool appears exactly once and that each "cancel" verdict has an export step.
Fill in each tool, what you actually use it for, what it costs you in £, and roughly how often you used it last month.
Start with one general assistant: Claude or ChatGPT, not both on paid plans. Add a tool only when it does a job your assistant can't, or does badly:
If none of those is true, the stack is one tool, and that's fine.