The AI Tools I’ve Actually Used
Living document - last updated 2026-05-22.
What this is
A timeline of the AI tools I’ve actually leaned on - not every chatbot I poked at, just the ones that stuck. It starts in November 2021 with VS Code Copilot, gets a real second beat in December 2022 with ChatGPT for general chat, then accelerates through late 2024 onward as AI-assisted coding became core to how I work.
Entries are adoption dates, not exclusive use. The pattern worth watching is which role each tool took on. VS Code held the IDE seat with Copilot bolted on. ChatGPT picked up general chat in 2022 and added assisted coding on top in 2024. Cursor absorbed two roles at once (IDE and agentic chat) before Claude Code split the agentic role back off. Gemini opened the image-generation slot in 2025, with ChatGPT joining that slot in 2026. Claude (the chat product) carved comms and general chat off ChatGPT, leaving it for research. Antigravity took the IDE seat from Cursor. Tools moved through the same slots more than they replaced each other one-to-one.
Timeline
November 2021
VS Code Copilot · code autocomplete
- VS Code was already my IDE, so I picked up new Copilot features as they shipped, and they were impressive.
December 2022
ChatGPT · chat
- first AI tool I leaned on outside the editor. General chat - questions, drafting, thinking out loud.
October 2024
ChatGPT · coding chat
- picked up assisted coding and systems thinking on top of the existing chat use.
January 2025
Cursor · IDE + chat
- switched from VS Code to Cursor as my IDE/editor; daily driver until early 2026.
- also slowly shifted agentic chat work from ChatGPT to Cursor.
April 2025
Claude Code · agentic CLI
- took over the agentic work from Cursor’s chat; Cursor stayed on as the IDE. Still in daily use.
August 2025
Gemini · image gen
- started using for image generation. The first AI tool I brought in for something other than chat or code.
January 2026
Claude (chat) · chat
- took over comms and general chat from ChatGPT; ChatGPT stayed on for research. Not Claude Code - this is the chat product.
February 2026
Antigravity · IDE
- took over the IDE role from Cursor; Claude Code remained the primary agentic tool.
April 2026
ChatGPT · image gen
- added image generation. Now I use both this and Gemini for images, picking whichever fits what I’m making.
What didn’t stick
Not everything I tried made the timeline. These are tools I gave a real go and then dropped - sometimes because something already in my workflow was doing the job better, sometimes because the switching cost outweighed what they offered, and occasionally because I never got past first-contact friction.
GitHub Copilot agentic features · agentic
- tried them when they landed; they weren’t as good as what I already had - ChatGPT for assisted coding, then Cursor and Claude Code for agentic work. No reason to switch back yet.
Gemini CLI / Codex CLI · agentic CLI
- at the time I tried these, Claude Code was already doing the same job better. Neither showed me a reason to switch permanently.
Mistral Vibe · agentic
- tried it on launch day and got stuck linking my chat account. Might be that it expects an API key even when a chat account is linked; haven’t gone back to confirm.
Zed · IDE
- fast and clean, but I lean too hard on VS Code’s search and the rest of its ecosystem to move my main editor.
On my radar
A mix of new things I haven’t tried yet and old things I dropped but keep watching - tools change, and so do my needs.
- Zed · IDE - they keep shipping impressive updates, so I take another look every few months.
- Mistral Vibe · agentic - the docs and integration may have moved past launch-day jank; worth another real try.
- Codex CLI · agentic CLI - I’m on the Codex app when I want Codex; curious what the CLI does differently.
How I add to this
An entry lands on the timeline once a tool has earned sustained daily use - not a weekend trial, not a “this is cool” demo. If I went back to the previous tool within a couple of weeks, it doesn’t make the timeline. The point isn’t to log every tool I touched; it’s to mark the moments my actual workflow changed.
A tool lands in What didn’t stick under a parallel bar: I gave it a real trial and made a conscious decision to drop it. Things I saw a demo of and moved on from don’t count - that’s bookmarking, not trying.