I run a startup, serve several clients as a fractional CMO and produce content in three languages. There is no large team, there is a system and a handful of tools that live inside it.
What did not work
Content generators promising your style after five uploaded samples. None of them managed it: they copied surface rhythm without understanding what I say or why.
All-in-one marketing platforms. Usually that means many features and none of them good.
Social automation tools that post for you. The effect was identical to not using them, with added interface complexity.
What works
ChatGPT or Claude for processing a thought. I write a few sentences of raw observation, then ask for structure, gaps and angles I did not consider. This is not content generation, it is thinking out loud with a smart interlocutor. Fifteen to twenty minutes per post instead of forty to sixty.
Perplexity for research. When I need fast factual grounding for a comment or a post, it gives an answer with sources I can verify. I do not trust AI as a source of facts, I trust it as a navigator to sources.
Otter or Fireflies for capturing thoughts. I think faster than I type, so ideas at inconvenient moments get recorded by voice and processed later. Several of my best posts started as a two-minute voice note to myself.
Canva for visuals. Simple, fast, good enough for cards and basic graphics. I am not a designer and do not need to be one for standard content.
Loom for explanations. When showing beats describing: a workflow for a client, an answer to a question, a video case without editing.
The content-specific tools
Content Reactor, my own platform. It starts from a brief: my audience, tone and themes, set once. After that every generation already knows the context. The news-to-post workflow is the part I use most: find a relevant news item, add my angle, get a structured draft in three to five minutes, then edit for voice.
Notion for storage. Drafts, ideas, finished texts and templates in one place, not spread across a phone and five apps.
How much time this actually saves
A LinkedIn post without a system and without AI: 45 to 90 minutes. With both: 15 to 25 minutes.
A comment on a news item without AI: 30 to 60 minutes including search and thinking. With the workflow: 10 to 15 minutes.
This is not speed for its own sake. It is producing more in the same time, or spending the freed time on something that matters more.
What I never delegate to AI
The observation itself. The judgement of quality, because AI does not know whether a text lands with my audience. The final voice edit, which I do by reading aloud. And the decision whether to publish at all.
One question for choosing a tool
Before adding anything new I ask: does this save me time, or add another layer of decisions? Tools that add complexity get deleted within two weeks. Tools that remove repetitive mental labour stay.