Wonder Tools

Google’s Pinpoint is now open to everyone. It’s a surprisingly powerful free tool for making sense of giant piles of digital stuff. (Before June 3, it was restricted to journalists and academics). Read on to learn more about creative ways to use Pinpoint; its new AI features and their limitations; and how Pinpoint differs from NotebookLM. How Pinpoint Works Pinpoint lets you store and analyze hund...

I love new gadgets and gizmos, and I’m constantly trying new sites and apps. So I was intrigued by the title of Eric Athas ’s upcoming book, Saying No to New . Eric’s an editor at the New York Times, where he helps journalists make the most of new tools. He’s also a lifelong early adopter. He told me he used to wait in line for new iPhones. But his upcoming book is about thinking twice about new s...

I love Laura Vanderkam’s books about how to make the most of time. It’s never about stuffing more into our days. It’s not about productivity. It’s about savoring and being creatively thoughtful about what we choose to do. Her books 168 Hours and Tranquility by Tuesday changed how I think about my own weeks. For example, her argument for “effortful before effortless,” nudged me to spend more of my...

The following is a guest post by Jay Dixit , founder of Socratic AI Most people treat AI like a question-answering machine: Ask a question, get an answer. What is chili crisp, and why is Gen Z so obsessed with it? What’s the best starting guess for Wordle? What’s the best time of day to post on LinkedIn? (My own real queries from today.) There’s nothing wrong with using AI to get answers to your q...

Mornings are for deep work. Afternoons are for everything else — teaching, planning, thinking, movement, and meetings. This is part two of my daily kit. Part one covered my morning apps . Here are the apps and gadgets that carry me through from noon to bedtime. I’ve included a few AI tools, but mostly the quieter tools that don’t get as much attention. Catch up on Part 1 👇 12pm: Midday Break Heal...

I’ve tried a dozen AI note-taking tools. Granola is the one I use daily and recommend most. Read on for 10 ways to make the most of it. Bottom line: Granola transcribes and summarizes nearly every meeting I have. 998 so far. It helps me keep track of what I’ve learned and promises I’ve made. What it does: It’s software you download, not a bot, so it doesn’t attend meetings. It just runs on my comp...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wondertools.substack.com I recently talked with Jason Chatfield a New Yorker cartoonist and creator of the lively New York Cartoons Substack. He sketched while we talked, as part of his video series Draw Me Anything . We traded ideas about writing, editing, tools, and where to draw the line with AI. 📺 Watch the conversation above, or r...

After my 7am wake-up alarm, I lean on about 20 morning apps, sites and gadgets for reading, writing, listening, and getting stuff done. I revisit this toolkit every year. Here's what's stayed, what's changed, and what's new. 🌤️ 7:00 am Wake up and prepare for the day ⏰ Peakeep “Invisible” Alarm Clock This $14 bedside clock wakes me up. I set its brightness at zero to keep the bedroom dark at nigh...

I recently talked with Lance Eaton , Senior Associate Director of AI and Teaching & Learning at Northeastern University and writer of AI + Education = Simplified . We traded ideas about what’s actually working. We came up with 10 specific, practical ways anyone who teaches, coaches, or leads can put AI to work. 📺 Watch the full conversation above, or read highlights below. 10 Ways to Use AI 🛠️ No...

Escape AI slop by reading more books. 📚 That’s my plan for making the most of leisure time this year. One book a week. Some short. Others mostly visual — I love graphic novels. Plus a new AI & tech book group I’m starting. Books get my eyes off screens, and my brain welcomes that break from news, vitriol, and ads. Read on for my updated guide to finding great read this year. 📖 Find your next rea...

The hardest part of teaching, or leading meetings, is sparking engagement. Getting people to participate enthusiastically in something new can be tough. It’s especially challenging if people are overwhelmed, busy, or just tired. As we aim to stretch people’s thinking in a new direction, tools are just one part of the overall picture. But they can help. I recently shared five tools for creating lea...

I tested more than 200 educational sites, apps and services last year. Some were so confusing that I quickly gave up. Others were too costly. A few went out of business. Many were narrowly useful, e.g. for 3D modeling, math, or music. The top tier tools have consistently been super valuable for me — in my teaching, in my job at the City University of New York, and as a dad of two daughters. To sav...

More than 600,000 podcasts released 27 million episodes in 2025. Keeping up with even a tiny fraction of those 70,000+ daily releases is impossible. So I’ve been exploring new ways to keep up with audio: podcast summaries , audio digests , and cool new tools for finding and saving audio highlights . Podsnacks — Get podcast summaries by email Get podcast summaries delivered to your email. Catch up...

I can’t keep up with all the news that interests me. So I’m exploring new ways to get concise, curated updates. Today I’m sharing three new tools I like. * Huxe Personalized audio shows drawn from your interests, calendar, & email * Google CC A morning summary of your email inbox * Yutori Scouts AI agents that monitor your fave topics and deliver reports Read on for examples of how each works, and...

Azeem Azhar is the kind of guy who loves both old-fashioned pens and advanced AI. It was a delight talking with him, not just because he’s a successful entrepreneur , author , and interviewer , but because we share quirky tech tastes. Azeem and his team publish Exponential View — a Substack with 140,000+ subscribers — about how tech is shaping our future. In our live conversation, we talked about...

I’ve relied on these 10 tools this year to act as a team of AI assistants. They’ve helped me approach work with a spirit of experimentation and exploration. To read the full post online with all the links and details, visit https://wondertools.substack.com/p/my-2025-ai-favorites This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wo...

I rely on Ideogram , an AI image generator, to help me create posters, banners, social posts, newsletter illustrations, and video thumbnails. Context: Ideogram competes in an exploding market. Gemini’s new Nano Banana Pro makes remarkable infographics, ChatGPT’s image generator produces fantastic illustrations, and Canva, Adobe, and Midjourney keep getting stronger. Yet I still find myself returni...

NotebookLM is the most useful free AI tool of 2025. It has twin superpowers. You can use it to find, analyze, and search through a collection of documents, notes, links, or files. You can then use NotebookLM to visualize your material as a slide deck, infographic, report — even an audio or video summary. How to set up a notebook * Pick a purpose. Start a new notebook for a work project or a learni...

I like pushing AI to be less predictable . When AI assistants are less bland and more bold, they challenge my blind spots and nudge me to rethink. So I asked one of the boldest AI experimenters I know, Alexandra Samuel , to share unconventional tips and tactics when she visited New York recently from Vancouver. Alex, who writes about AI for the Wall Street Journal and the Harvard Business Review,...

Google Docs has new tricks to try: an audio button to hear your writing read aloud; an optional AI helper to summarize your doc; an activity dashboard to see who is viewing your work; and colorful templates to add visual spice. A billion people use GDocs, making it the most popular free writing tool in the world. It remains reliable, free and easy to use. Read on for an update on what’s new and no...

15-second summary of this post: Your phone is now a pocket AI studio. Design a presentation, get voice coaching, conduct research, or make a quick infographic. The biggest players — ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and Claude — all offer numerous free features on both iOS and Android. And a growing group of alternative AI apps now offer private AI for free. [See my recommendations for free, private AI on...

Claude feels like a genie to me. With its Artifacts feature I can turn any idea I have into an interactive application, visualization, or graphic. Yesterday I created a Flashcard maker and a breathing app. No coding. Just a short AI chat conversation. No complexity. I dream up an idea, and Claude makes it instantly real. I iterate with chat to make it better. Read on for a guide to making the most...

Not everything creative needs a prompt. The Web is increasingly flooded with AI-generated images and videos, much of it aimed at kids. Sometimes it’s nice to break free of that synthetic media. As a dad of 10 and 12-year-old daughters, I appreciate resources for kids and families that celebrate human imagination, curiosity, and hands-on exploration. I had a fruitful recent conversation about resou...

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In part one of this post , I shared my conference prep and networking toolkit. But here's the thing: conference value often gets lost the week after. You return exhausted, with a phone full of photos and a head full of ideas that slowly fade. Two things can help. A little hardware — worth its carry-on weight— and a few smart post-event tools. These streamline how I show up — and follow-up. My Conf...