New AI: The Flood of AI Apps and the Unbundling of Skill
How many AI tools are there? While a definitive, real-time count is impossible, leading AI tool directories now list over 12,000 distinct applications, with dozens of new AI programs launching daily. This isn't just a wave of new technology; it's a tidal wave. But what does this Cambrian explosion of AI software signify for our careers, our skills, and our value?
For the AI-Curious Professional, this landscape offers unprecedented leverage. For the Philosophical Inquirer, it raises profound questions about creativity and originality. And for the Aspiring AI Ethicist, it presents a complex new frontier of challenges.
This explosion of new AI is the most visible symptom of what I call "The Great Unbundling" in my book, The Great Unbundling: How Artificial Intelligence is Redefining the Value of a Human Being. For millennia, a human being was a bundled package of capabilities: the mind that analyzes, the heart that feels, the hands that create. The current flood of AI apps represents the systematic isolation and perfection of each of those functions, offered up as a service. Understanding this framework is the key to navigating the new world these tools are creating.
What Are These New AI Tools, Really?
At their core, today's artificial intelligence tools are highly specialized programs designed to execute tasks that, until recently, were the exclusive domain of human cognition, creativity, and expertise. Each AI application—whether it writes code, designs a logo, or drafts a legal brief—is a shard of the unbundled human.
Consider the traditional bundle of a graphic designer:
- Aesthetic sensibility: Understanding color theory, composition, and mood.
- Technical skill: Mastery of complex software like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator.
- Communication: Interpreting a client's brief and translating ideas into visuals.
- Creativity: Synthesizing influences to create something novel.
A new AI art generator unbundles the technical skill entirely and automates a significant portion of the creative synthesis. It takes the core function—visual creation—and separates it from the human bundle that once held a monopoly on it. This is the unbundling in action, happening across every industry and profession.
The Unbundling Engine: Why AI Software is Exploding Now
The sheer number of AI programs appearing is a direct result of capitalism serving as the "unbundling engine." This phenomenon is driven by three key factors:
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Foundational Model Accessibility: Companies like Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic have built massive, powerful base models. They then make these models available to other developers via APIs. This allows a small startup to build a powerful AI powered niche tool without the billions in upfront R&D.
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Venture Capital Investment: The potential to capture a market by unbundling a single, high-value skill has attracted staggering levels of investment. VCs are funding the creation of thousands of specialized AI software companies, each hoping to become the definitive tool for one specific task.
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The "Free" On-Ramp: Many of these tools—from a free AI app for photo editing to free artificial intelligence software for summarizing research—use a freemium model. This accelerates user adoption at a pace that defies traditional governance and allows for rapid market penetration, often in exchange for user data that further refines the unbundling engine.
This engine isn't just building tools; it's systematically deconstructing the professional landscape, one skill at a time. The Goldman Sachs report estimating that 300 million jobs are exposed to AI automation isn't a distant forecast; it's a real-time ledger of this unbundling process.
How to Find and Use New AI: From Google AI to Niche Platforms
With thousands of options, the challenge is discovery and effective implementation. Here's a practical guide to finding and using the best AI platforms and tools for your needs.
Where to Find New AI Tools
Forget aimless searching. The most efficient way to discover online artificial intelligence is through dedicated directories that categorize and review new services.
- Aggregator Websites: Platforms like There's An AI For That, Futurepedia, and AI Top Tools are comprehensive libraries where you can filter by category, price, and function. This is the fastest way to answer, "How many AI tools are there for my specific need?"
- Productivity Hubs: Tools like Notion and Slack are increasingly integrating their own AI or creating marketplaces for AI-powered add-ons.
- Following Foundational Models: Keeping an eye on updates from Google AI (Gemini), OpenAI (GPT series), and other major labs will give you a preview of the capabilities that new apps will soon be built upon.
How to Use AI Tools Effectively
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Define the Unbundled Task: Be specific. Don't look for an "AI for marketing." Look for an "AI for writing email subject lines" or an "AI for analyzing social media sentiment."
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Experiment with Prompts: The quality of your output depends entirely on the quality of your input. Learning to give clear, context-rich instructions is the single most important skill for leveraging these tools.
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Use a "Human-in-the-Loop" Approach: Never treat the output of an AI program as the final product. Use it as a super-powered assistant or a tireless brainstorming partner. The human role shifts from creation to curation, judgment, and refinement.
A Curated List of New AI Programs & Applications
While a full list is impossible, here are examples of powerful AI applications across key categories, illustrating the unbundling in practice.
AI for Writing & Content (Unbundling the Scribe)
- Tools: ChatGPT, Jasper, Copy.ai, Claude
- Function: These tools unbundle the act of writing from the human author. They can draft emails, write articles, generate marketing copy, and even code. They separate the mechanical act of stringing words together from the strategic intent and emotional nuance of the writer.
AI for Visual Creation (Unbundling the Artist)
- Tools: Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, DALL-E 3
- Function: This AI software unbundles visual imagination and technical rendering. Users can generate photorealistic images, logos, and illustrations from simple text descriptions, separating artistic creation from years of manual practice.
AI for Analysis & Knowledge (Unbundling the Analyst)
- Tools: Perplexity AI, Julius AI, WolframAlpha
- Function: These platforms unbundle the process of research and data analysis. They can synthesize information from across the web, answer complex questions with cited sources, and analyze datasets, separating the act of inquiry from the labor of discovery.
AI for Productivity (Unbundling the Organizer)
- Tools: Notion AI, Motion, Reclaim.ai
- Function: This category of AI application unbundles executive function. These tools can organize your notes, automatically schedule your tasks, and manage your calendar, separating planning and prioritization from the conscious mental effort it typically requires.
Beyond Convenience: What Do Free AI Services Mean for Human Value?
The proliferation of free AI services and free AI applications poses a critical philosophical challenge, central to the thesis of The Great Unbundling. When a powerful capability is unbundled and offered for free, it rapidly devalues the corresponding human skill in the economic marketplace.
If a company can generate 1,000 marketing slogans for free, the value of a junior copywriter who does the same task plummets. If a startup can get a "good enough" logo from an AI software for $20, the market for a $500 logo designer shrinks.
This isn't a critique of the tools themselves, which are remarkable. It is a critical examination of their economic and societal impact. As more cognitive and creative tasks are unbundled and automated, the economic value of a human being, which has long been tied to that bundle of skills, is thrown into question. This leads directly to the civilizational challenge of our era: if AI can do the work, how do humans find purpose and economic security? This makes conversations around policies like Universal Basic Income (UBI) a matter of necessity, not a fringe policy choice.
The Re-bundling Response: Using New AI Tools with Purpose
The unbundling is inevitable. Human resistance in the form of clinging to old methods is futile. The vital human response, the counter-current, is what I term "The Great Re-bundling."
This is the conscious and creative act of using these powerful unbundled tools to create new, more powerful human-machine bundles.
- The journalist uses an AI transcription service to save time, an AI analysis tool to find patterns in data, and an AI fact-checker to ensure accuracy, freeing them to focus on the core human skills of investigative sourcing, narrative storytelling, and ethical judgment.
- The musician uses an AI tool to generate novel chord progressions but uses their unique human taste and emotional experience to arrange them into a moving composition.
- The entrepreneur uses AI programs to handle market research, financial modeling, and administrative tasks, allowing them to focus entirely on vision, strategy, and human leadership.
The future doesn't belong to the person who can out-perform the new AI at a single, unbundled task. It belongs to the "conductor"—the person who can orchestrate a suite of artificial intelligence apps and tools, bundling their outputs with uniquely human insight, wisdom, and purpose.
The flood of new AI is not a reason for despair. It is a call to action. It forces us to ask what we, as bundled human beings, bring to the table that a disembodied algorithm cannot. Answering that question is the most important work of our time.
To explore the full framework of The Great Unbundling and its implications for our economic and philosophical future, purchase your copy of "The Great Unbundling" today. For ongoing analysis of the trends shaping our world, subscribe to the newsletter.