For years my workflow relied on three separate apps: Todoist for task management, Notion for notes and documentation and Grammarly for writing assistance. Each had its purpose, each had its subscription fee, and each demanded a slice of my attention throughout the day.
Then I spent a month trying to replace all three with a single AI tool. Not because I was chasing productivity trends, but because I was genuinely tired of context-switching between apps just to get basic work done. Here’s what actually happened when I consolidated my workflow.
What I Replaced
Todoist handled my tasks and projects. I’d been using it for five years, had built elaborate workflows, and trusted it completely. Annual subscription: $60.
Notion stored everything else—meeting notes, project documentation, knowledge base, personal wiki. It had become my second brain. Monthly subscription: $10.
Grammarly caught my writing mistakes and improved clarity. I wrote enough that the premium features felt justified. Annual subscription: $144.
Total annual cost: $324. Total mental overhead: switching between three apps dozens of times daily, keeping track of what information lived where, and maintaining different organizational systems in each.
The AI Tool Experiment
I chose Claude (with Projects feature) as my replacement, though ChatGPT Plus or Gemini, or other AI assistants could work similarly. The theory: AI tools can now handle task management through conversation, store and retrieve information contextually, and provide writing assistance all in one interface.
The promise was compelling: one tool, one subscription ($20/month for Claude Pro), and one place to work. No more switching, no more wondering which app had the information I needed.
What Worked Better Than Expected
Writing assistance became invisible. With Grammarly I wrote in one place, then checked another place for suggestions. With Claude I just write naturally and ask for improvements when needed. The friction disappeared entirely.
When I draft an email or document I can immediately ask “make this more concise” or “does this sound too direct?” without switching contexts. The AI understands what I just wrote and can refine it conversational. This feels dramatically more natural than Grammarly’s sidebar suggestions.
Information retrieval got smarter. Notion required me to remember my organizational structure and navigate to the right page. Claude’s Projects feature lets me dump information and retrieve it conversationally: “What did Sarah say about the budget in last week’s meeting?” It finds the relevant context without me needing to remember where I filed it.
This worked especially well for meeting notes and project documentation. Instead of building elaborate page hierarchies, I just store information and trust the AI to surface it when relevant.
What Didn’t Work as Well
Task management felt ephemeral. Todoist showed me my tasks persistently. They lived in a structured list that I could see and manipulate. With AI, tasks only exist in conversation. I found myself asking “what are my tasks today?” multiple times because I couldn’t just glance at a list.
The AI could track my tasks and remind me when I asked, but it couldn’t replace the quick visual scan of a dedicated task manager. I missed seeing my entire workload at a glance and dragging tasks to reorder priorities.
No mobile quick capture. Todoist’s mobile app let me add tasks in seconds while walking or during meetings. Claude’s mobile experience is conversation-based, which takes longer. For quick brain dumps, the friction was noticeably higher.
Collaboration completely broke. Todoist and Notion both support sharing and collaboration. AI tools are fundamentally single-user. When I needed to share a project plan or collaborate on documentation, I had nowhere to point colleagues except clunky copy-paste from conversations.
The Surprising Middle Ground
After a month, I didn’t fully switch to AI or return to my old setup. I found a hybrid that works better than either extreme:
Kept Todoist for task management. The visual interface and quick capture are irreplaceable for now. But I reduced my usage significantly—I plan my day conversationally with Claude, then transfer concrete next actions into Todoist as needed.
Replaced Notion almost entirely. The AI handles notes, documentation, and knowledge storage better through conversational retrieval. The few remaining Notion pages are things I need to share with others.
Completely replaced Grammarly. This was the cleanest win. AI writing assistance integrated into my actual workspace beats a separate tool checking my work.
New annual cost: $240 for Claude Pro + $60 for Todoist = $300 (saving $24/year, but that’s not why this matters).
What I Actually Learned
The real insight wasn’t about replacing apps – it was about where AI genuinely changes workflows versus where traditional tools still make sense.
AI excels at: Conversational interfaces for complex queries, contextual assistance that happens inline with work, connecting information across different domains, and providing specialized help on-demand.
Traditional apps still win at: Persistent visual interfaces you can scan quickly, fast mobile capture, structured organization that multiple people can share, and reliable reference systems that don’t require asking questions.
The future probably isn’t “AI replaces all apps.” It’s AI augmenting the apps that still make sense while replacing the ones where conversation is actually better than clicking through interfaces.
Would I Recommend This?
If you’re heavily invested in productivity tools and wondering if AI can simplify your stack: try it, but don’t expect a clean replacement.
Start with one category. Writing assistance is the easiest—AI genuinely outperforms dedicated grammar tools for most people. Note-taking and knowledge management work well if you primarily work solo. Task management is harder to replace unless you don’t mind losing visual task lists.
The biggest benefit wasn’t saving money or time. It was reducing cognitive overhead. One less place to check, one less system to maintain, one less interface to remember. That mental simplification is worth more than the subscription savings.
But this only works if you’re willing to adapt your workflow to how AI tools work. If you try to force AI to behave exactly like the apps you’re replacing, you’ll just create a worse version of what you had.
The Real Question
The experiment taught me that the question isn’t “can AI replace my apps?” It’s “where does conversational interaction actually improve my workflow, and where do I still need traditional interfaces?”
For me, that split is clear now: AI for anything involving writing, research, or contextual retrieval. Traditional apps for visual task management and anything involving collaboration.
Your split will probably differ based on how you work and what matters to you. But the exercise of trying to consolidate forces you to understand what you actually value in your tools versus what’s just comfortable habit.
Three months in, I’m using fewer apps than before, but not because AI replaced everything. I’m using fewer apps because AI made me realize what I actually needed and what I was keeping out of inertia.
Related article: I tried an AI app that writes messages for me
