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The AI Tool Test:

How to Tell What’s Actually Worth It

a blue and yellow sketch of three people talking with coffees and a laptop

Not every AI tool deserves your time. Most of them? Flashy, overbuilt, and useless in the real world.

Here’s the filter I use with my clients—executives, teams, and founders who don’t have time to waste and need results.

1. Does it solve a problem you’re actually dealing with?

Start with your bottlenecks. Not the feature list.
If it’s not taking something off your plate right now, it’s not helpful. It’s a distraction.

 2. Is it better than what you’re already doing?

“AI-powered” is marketing. The real question:
Is it measurably faster, cheaper, or easier than your current method?
If not, it’s just another shiny object dragging you off-track.

3. Can you try it in under 10 minutes—without a tutorial?

If it doesn’t work out of the box, it won’t work under pressure.
Tools need to earn their place. No hand-holding required.

For more complex needs, getting a tool to that state of being easy often takes expert setup—someone who can configure it right, strip out the noise, and make sure it actually delivers.

4. Will it scale with you?

Some tools work great solo… and fall apart when teams, projects, or complexity grow.
Ask yourself: Can this grow with me—or is it just a nice toy?

Katrina Wagner, AI consultant, smiling in a black sweater in South Royalton, Vermont

Real Clients.
Real Wins.
No Nonsense.

This framework isn’t theory.
It’s what I use with clients who need clarity fast.

A few examples:

Before: A founder spent a month toggling between three different project management tools, hoping one would finally feel right.

After: We matched her workflow to the right setup in one session. She hasn’t looked back.

Before: A nonprofit founder spent late nights manually compiling board reports with scattered data and emails..

After: We automated the process end-to-end. Now it takes 10 minutes, and it’s presentation-ready.

Before: An auto repair shop owner spent hours comparing customer insurance quotes to her team’s actual repair assessments—then rewriting the findings into client-friendly explanations.

After: I helped her build an AI prompt that highlights the key differences and explains why they matter, all in her own tone of voice. Now she can deliver clear, personalized summaries in minutes, not hours.

Want results like that?

Book a Strategy Session – Let’s figure out what’s slowing you down and how AI can fix it.

See What I Offer – Hands-on consulting. Prompt design. Workflow redesign. No hype, just help.