The Amplifier

Tools

Tools: what to use, and how to keep it current

Brand names change every six months. Categories don't. This section keeps the names current and gives you paper for the parts of the framework that are better done by hand.

In brief

Three things live here. Downloads: the Quick Reference Card and the worksheets for each step, for readers of the book. The tool directory: every category of AI tool from the book's landscape, what each eats and leaves, current names, and when it was last reviewed. The evaluation gym: short exercises in spotting plausible-but-wrong output, the skill the Dependent loses first.

DownloadsThe Quick Reference Card, the End-State worksheet, the Decision Filter sheet, the tool-selection checklist, the two-step prompting cheat-sheet, the iteration triage card and the noticing tally. For readers of the book. The tool directoryEight categories, current names under each, and the "use AI to find AI" prompt for when your task fits none of them.Phase 2 · reviewed September 2026 The evaluation gymThree exercises to start: a status update, a budget, a test summary — each with something quietly wrong in it.Phase 3 · preview

Why the site carries the names and the book does not

In Chapter 4 Vivek lists the tools that are around "today, April 2026", and then says: in six months something else will be at the top of each list, in two years half of these names won't exist. Your skill is not "I know ChatGPT". Your skill is "I know what to do with a conversational text tool, and I'd recognise a good one in any year." The book teaches that skill. This section is where the year's names go, with a date on them, so the book never has to.

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The Tool Selection LogicThe five characteristics behind the directory.The WorkbenchWhere the worksheets become a saved project.