Useful Tools to Start 2026 ✨
AI-spotting games, smart reads, and gems you missed
Can you tell it’s AI?
Which Face is Real? AI slop is everywhere. Can you spot it? This little game from the “Calling Bullsh-t” project is surprisingly tricky. The AI images come from ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com, a collection of visual slop.
AI or Not? is a collection of quick games to test your skill at detecting AI images, music, and video.
Google’s Lab has dozens of AI experiments, including Odd One Out, an AI art detection game, and Say What You See, for testing your prompting skill.
SynthID is Google’s new AI Detection resource for identifying multimedia made with Gemini AI. To assess whether text is AI generated, try Pangram.
Smart takes on journalism and tech
Predictions for Journalism 2026 Read Nieman Lab’s terrific collection of short, provocative pieces, then visit the Best of 2025 and Stories to Inspire you in 2026 from Nieman Storyboard, a sister publication highlighting great narrative journalism. Nieman’s gift guide for journalists is a nice list for future presents. Also check out Amy Webb’s smart annual letter on what’s ahead for 2026.
Most Viewed Wonder Tools posts of 2025👇
NotebookLM: The Complete Guide 📍
NotebookLM is the most useful free AI tool of 2025. It has twin superpowers. You can use it to find, analyze, and search through a collection of documents, notes, links, or files. You can then use NotebookLM to visualize your material as a slide deck, infographic, report — even an audio or video summary.
My Favorite Link Organizer 🔗
Raindrop is the most useful, best designed tool for saving and organizing links. Having saved thousands of bookmarks over the years, I’ve tried various systems for filing. These days Raindrop is what I use for keeping track of research, new sites, and collections of links I intend to share with friends, colleagues and readers. Read on for its best featu…
Paper vs Digital 📓 What finally works for me
I like thinking on paper. That’s why I’ve got a box under my desk with 27 old idea notebooks. But when I’m looking for a specific note scrawled early in 2020, digital notes are helpfully searchable.
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📺 Watch these 4 YouTubers for smart AI tips
Matt Wolfe, SkillLeap AI, AI Advantage, and Grace Leung are superb YouTubers I’ve learned from recently. Each shows you how to use AI tools with specific examples, prompts and resources, like these 70 image prompts from Saj Adib, who runs the SkillLeap AI channel.
… and practical wisdom
Daniel Pink’s YouTube channel has consistently excellent videos (about 12 minutes long) like “Life Advice that Sounds Good but Will Destroy You” and “40 Harsh Truths I Wish I Knew in My 20s.”
Photos to make you smile
Nature’s Best Science Images of 2025 I stumbled on these delightful images on the wonderfully-curated Kottke.org. The image below, by 13-year-old Grayson Bell, appears in the Nature collection and won recognition from the Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025.
A podcast to make you smile
Shell Game Season 2
Listen to Evan Ratliff‘s hilarious exploration of what happens when a team of AI bots collaborates to make an AI bot company.
Bonus: A little game for you — can you draw a perfect circle?
My new 30-second game for wasting time resetting your focus.
Thanks Jeremy. Some awesome tools here and thanks for the drawing game. I maxed out at 85, which I thought was ok. 😅
As ever a great read with some brilliant tools. Am starting with the YouTube videos, thanks for this.