The Pros and Cons of Creating an AI Tool

AI Tools are all the craze and that is dominated by ChatGPT wrapper tools. What are the pros and cons of jumping on this train?

AI Tools Pros and Cons

Ever since chatGPT 3.5 came out I have been watching, and most importantly, been a part of, the booming AI tooling craze. I am sure you have noticed how crazy it became with everyone releasing all kinds of AI tools.

I just want to quickly share some of the Pros and Cons I have witnessed of building an AI tool in today's market, more specifically the AI 'wrapper' tools you see all over.

Pros

AI is In

There is a reason we are talking about the pros and cons of creating an AI tool. It is all the rage currently. You know when your grandma brings up AI, then it is really in the public eye. This can be a major advantage in marketing and sellability of your new product.

Value to Time Ratio

I push one major thing when talking about startups, speed...

And boy can you build something of actual use with just a couple well well-crafted prompts. Some tasks that used to take months to do can now be done in hours or days. If you can build something quick, then logically, you could make some quick money. Here is a recent example of this very thing showing up on IndieHackers the other day.

Cons

The Space Is Incredibly Crowded

There are so many AI tools that we are now at the point where people are just releasing AI tool lists and AI tool marketplaces which is crazy. For the past 6 months or so, on social media, I was seeing at least a new tool a day and I wasn't even looking for them.

The barrier to entry is so low that even people without previous coding experience are able to whip up a new tool that connects to ChatGPT. It is already hard to stand out when marketing a tool, let alone when you are the 15th 'AI Blog Writer' that week.

ChatGPT Will Do It

We have seen this story play out a few times already. Someone creates a fairly simple tool that uses a couple of prompts and builds a fancy wrapper around it. Maybe they get some early traction and users and excitement is high. A week later, ChatGPT pushes some features that make that tool obsolete.

The new GPTs feature alone was a massive blow to these overly simple tools that have been dominating listings and social media.

Non-recurring Revenue

Now this one is not an absolute rule at all, the actual biggest players in the space do have recurring revenue (and a few of the more unique indie tools). But, a significant portion of the AI craze has been quick tools that are offering 'lifetime deals'.

Customers are hoping to leverage what normally has a 'usage' pricing model in an unlimited way thinking they are getting major value and the marketing has been taking advantage of that. That's great, but the tools and business models aren't sustainable as things get more and more saturated.

Key Takeaways

You can provide some very quick value
You can make some quick revenue
Your tool will be replaced by a big player

Pro Tip: Create a tool that could leverage AI but doesn't need to. AI has a ton of utility, so don't ignore it, but do not base a product solely around it. An easy example of this is something like Canva. An incredibly useful tool with added AI functionality.