Your AI stack is probably too big. Here's the consolidation audit.

The pattern is universal: a new AI tool launches, it demos brilliantly, you subscribe, and three months later it's a line item you forgot. Meanwhile the general-purpose assistants keep absorbing features — the dedicated tool you bought last year is often a built-in capability of something you already pay for.

The 20-minute audit

List every AI subscription with its monthly cost. For each, write the last task you actually used it for and when. Then ask the consolidation question: can a tool I already keep do this job at acceptable quality? Test the ones you're unsure about — the answer changes every quarter as capabilities expand.

Members typically find their stack splits three ways: keepers (used weekly, doing something nothing else does), absorbed (a general assistant now does this job — cancel), and zombies (not used in 60 days — cancel today, resubscribe in minutes if you're wrong).

The discipline that prevents re-sprawl: new tools get a 30-day calendar reminder at subscription time. If the reminder fires and you can't name three real tasks it handled, it goes. Tools earn their renewal; they don't get it by default.