The AI tool market is crowded and noisy. For a small team, the question isn't "what's the most powerful model" — it's "what fits into the work we already do."
The stacks that hold up share three traits: they integrate with tools you already live in, they keep a human in the loop by default, and they don't require a dedicated person to maintain.
Our bias: start narrow. One writing assistant, one search/summary tool, one integration layer. Three tools, used daily, beat ten tools used once a month. The stack that gets used is the only stack that matters.