Productivity — the parts of work that shouldn't take this long

What it is

Productivity AI covers the broad category of tools that make existing tasks faster or easier — writing, scheduling, note-taking, presentation building, study aids. They don't replace the work; they remove the friction around it. The best ones are invisible: you stop noticing you're using AI and start noticing the work gets done.

Why now

The integration of language models into everyday software — word processors, note apps, presentation tools — happened fast in 2023–2024. AI stopped being a separate tool you had to switch to and became a layer on top of the tools you already used.