Welcome to The Hub Network: The AI Tools I Actually Use
Practical insights on AI, business, and building a strong company — from the founder of Rochester's largest private office ecosystem.
Welcome to the first post on The Hub Network blog. The reason this exists is simple: I want to help the businesses in our community get more out of the tools that are reshaping how small businesses operate — and right now, that means artificial intelligence.
There’s a lot of noise out there. New AI products launch every week, every one of them claims to do everything, and most people I talk to are either ignoring AI entirely or only using one tool for tasks it isn’t actually best at. So in this first post, I want to walk through the AI tools I use day-to-day in my own business, what each one is good for, and why using more than one matters.
The tools, and what each one is for
Claude — This is your business AI. If you run a company and you aren’t using Claude regularly, you are missing out. Claude is built for serious reasoning and analytical work. It’s the one I reach for when I need to think through a decision, draft something important, work through numbers, or analyze a contract. Its strength is depth and rigor — it doesn’t just tell you what you want to hear.
ChatGPT — Faster, more conversational, and more in tune with your personality. ChatGPT is great for the quick stuff: grammar checks on an email, “how do I fix this,” “what’s the word for this,” general explainers and brainstorms. The tradeoff is that it tends to reinforce what you already believe — it’s friendly, sometimes too friendly. Use it when speed and ease matter more than analytical depth.
Grok — Strong for cross-checking and double-checking your work. If Claude gives me an analysis I want a second opinion on, Grok is one of the tools I run it past. It’s powerful and getting more powerful by the month.
Grok Imagine — A different beast entirely. This one is built for visual content. Upload an image, tell it what you want, and it can generate a 6-second video. Excellent for marketing, social posts, and quick promotional pieces.
Claude Code and Claude Cowork — These are the more advanced versions of Claude that can actually take action on your computer — read files, write documents, work across folders, automate real tasks. If you use Claude regularly and want to take it further, this is where it goes.
Why using more than one matters
The single biggest mistake I see is people picking one AI and using it for everything. None of these tools are the same. Each is built differently, each is trained differently, and each will give you different answers to the same question. Using two or three in combination — Claude to draft, ChatGPT to polish, Grok to sanity-check — produces dramatically better results than leaning on any single one. Cross-referencing between them is one of the most underrated habits you can build.
A note on energy
One thing most people don’t realize: every AI response uses real compute, and compute equals energy. The companies running these tools sometimes throttle energy usage during high demand, and when they do, the AI can feel slower or “lazier” — shorter answers, less depth, less initiative. If you’re getting a weak response, it isn’t always you. Try the same prompt on a different platform or come back later. It often makes a real difference.
What’s next
This is just the surface. In future posts I’ll get more specific — prompts that actually work, real use cases for small business, and how to layer AI into the workflows you already have.
If you want to go deeper, I’m planning to host small-group workshops in one of our conference rooms here at The Hub. My goal with all of this is to help propel the businesses in our community by sharing the tools that have helped me grow mine. If that sounds useful, reach out and I’ll get you on the list.
— Andrew
Andrew Robinson is the founder of Slingshot Real Estate, based in Rochester, MN, and founder of The Hub Network — Rochester’s largest private office ecosystem for small businesses and startups.