SEO-bait listicles.
Google any “best AI tool for X” and the first ten results are affiliate posts written by people who never opened the product. The signal drowns in sponsor copy.
Case study · product
ai/tools
AI tools, ranked by builders.
A live, opinionated catalogue of the AI tools worth opening twice. Votes are public, the noise gets buried — no SEO-bait listicles, no paid placements. Built by TaskDriver for the people actually shipping with AI.
Built byTaskDriver.ai
RoleProduct · design · build
StackNext.js · Vercel
StatusLive · public beta
The AI tools directory is a product TaskDriver.ai designed and built: AI tools ranked by builders. This page is a case study of that build.
TaskDriver.ai is an AI automation and web studio in Auckland, New Zealand. We build workflow automation, chatbots, CRM integrations and websites for small and mid-sized businesses across New Zealand and Australia — fixed scope, no retainers.
The problem
Every AI directory is gamed.
Builders wanted a shortlist. The internet gave them another content farm. So we built the thing we wished existed.
Paid placements.
Legacy directories are pay-to-rank. The loudest tool wins, not the best one. Builders leave and never come back.
Stale everything.
The AI space ships daily. Most directories update quarterly. By the time a tool lands on their homepage, three better ones have launched.
How it works
Live catalogue. Public votes. Zero bribes.
Step 01live
Real-time catalogue.
New tools flow in continuously. A “last 24h” shelf surfaces what landed overnight, so you see the bleeding edge before the rest of the internet does.
Step 02votes
Public, builder-led ranking.
Every upvote is open. Daily and monthly resets stop inertia champions from holding the top slot forever. The tools worth opening twice float up naturally.
Step 03filters
Filter by what matters.
22+ categories, revenue model (free / freemium / paid / enterprise) and traffic bands. Agencies toggle separately so indie builders don’t get drowned out.
Five surfaces
One home, five ways in.
Builders don’t just want tool names — they want the humans, the prompts, the build logs, the fresh takes. Every surface is its own ranked stream.
01
Tools
The core directory — every AI product, ranked live.
02
Videos
Build logs and walkthroughs from top creators.
03
Creators
The people shipping with AI, profiled.
04
Prompts
Prompts that actually work, with the tool they were written for.
05
Notes
Short-form field notes — what’s new, what’s hype.
By the numbers
Five surfaces, zero pay-to-play.
01 / 04
22+
Categories covered
02 / 04
5 surfaces
Tools · Videos · Creators · Prompts · Notes
03 / 04
24h
Freshness window on new arrivals
04 / 04
0
Paid placements, ever
Coverage
Every category a builder actually cares about.
AI Agents
AI Automation
Analytics
Code Assistants
Customer Support
Design
Education
Healthcare
Image Generation
Insurance
Job
Language
Legal
Marketing
Music & Audio
News
Productivity
Research
SaaS
Video Editing
Voice & Audio
Writing
Plus filters for revenue model (free · freemium · paid · enterprise) and traffic band, so you can cut from “everything new this week” to “quietly-used paid tools in marketing” in two clicks.
The build
Shipped by TaskDriver.
Built end-to-end: product strategy, taxonomy, voting model, submission flow, and the site itself. Open for contributions from any builder — hit the live directory to nominate a tool you love.
TaskDriver.aiShipped by the TaskDriver studio- 01Next.js + Vercel hosting — ships on every commit
- 02Public voting model with daily + monthly resets
- 0322-category taxonomy with agency / revenue / traffic filters
- 04Five surfaces: Tools, Videos, Creators, Prompts, Notes
- 05Submission pipeline — any builder can nominate a tool
- 06Live freshness shelf — “last 24h” + trending
Got a product idea worth shipping?
We build SaaS and directories end-to-end — same crew that shipped AI Tools Directory and Ebb.
Want the same build? Here is how it works
The answers people ask for before they book — cost, timeline, ownership, and what happens when something breaks.
- What does it cost?
- Fixed scope, quoted in writing before anything starts. An ops teardown is $250 AUD (45-minute call plus a written automation plan, credited toward any build). A one-week automation sprint is $990 AUD. Larger systems usually land between $2k–$4k AUD. No retainers, no hourly billing.
- How long does it take from first contact to go-live?
- A teardown call is usually booked within a few days. A sprint is one week end to end. Chatbots typically go live in 1–2 weeks; larger workflow systems in 4–8 weeks. You get dated milestones in writing before work starts.
- What happens after launch — do you keep running it, or do I take over?
- You own it. Everything runs in your accounts, on your keys, and we hand over the code, the docs and the logins at the end of the build. Nothing is locked to us.
- If something breaks or needs a tweak, how is that handled and at what cost?
- Anything we built that breaks is fixed free for 30 days after handover. After that, fixes are quoted per job or covered by an optional monthly care plan — your choice, and never a condition of the build. New scope is quoted as a new fixed-scope sprint.
- How much of my time does this take?
- About two hours in total: one 45-minute call, giving us access to the tools involved, and one review round before go-live. We do the rest.
- What proof do you have that this works?
- Named, checkable builds rather than anonymous case studies: Ebb (Stripe revenue recovery), Australian Power (WhatsApp quote automation), Second to None (painting and renovation ops), Invest With Alison (financial-education funnel) and an AI tools directory. Each one is written up on this site with what was built and what changed.
Who built this
Robert Iuoras
Founder & lead architect
Scopes, designs and ships every TaskDriver build — the person on your first call is the person writing the code. No account managers, no handoffs between strategy and delivery.
- Built Ebb, a Stripe revenue-recovery product, end to end
- Shipped WhatsApp quote automation for Australian Power
- Delivered ops automation and web for Second to None and Invest With Alison