A Cheat Sheet Is Only Useful If the Links Still Work: What We Found Checking 80 AI Tools
We checked all eighty tools before posting this cheat sheet. Not all of them survived.
That sentence should be unremarkable. Checking a list before sharing it is the minimum. But most AI tool graphics circulating right now were never checked by the person reposting them, and they carry the same small rot: a product that renamed itself, a link that now opens something else, a tool that quietly stopped doing the job it is listed for.
A cheat sheet is only useful if the links still work. Here is what we found, the four ways tool lists go stale, and a five-minute check you can run on any list before you trust it.
Four ways a tool list rots
Every problem we found fell into one of four patterns. Once you know them, you start spotting them on every list you see.
| Renamed | Redirected | Repurposed | Version-stamped | Still live |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Same product, new name
Search the old name and you find nothing – or something else. |
The link opens a different product
The job still exists, but under another tool. |
Same name, different job
The most dangerous kind, because nothing looks wrong at first. |
A version number in the name
Accurate the week it was made, stale a few weeks later. |
Checked and working
What should be on every list – and on a list checked today, it is. |
The third column is the one to watch. A renamed tool fails loudly – you search and find nothing. A repurposed tool fails silently: you land on a real, working site that simply no longer does what the list promised.
What we actually found
These are the changes from our check in September 2026, and what we did about each.
| What was on the old list | What we found | What we did | Kind of rot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google ImageFX | Now redirects to Google Flow | Listed Nano Banana for the image job instead | Redirected |
| Formula Bot | Now called Better Analyst | Updated the name | Renamed |
| Windsurf | Now called Devin Desktop | Updated the name | Renamed |
| DreamStudio | No longer an image generator | Removed from the image group | Repurposed |
| “Grok 3”, “Veo 2”, “Qwen-2.5-Max” | Version numbers go stale in weeks | Dropped the numbers, kept the product names | Version-stamped |
The last row is a small editorial choice with a large effect. A list that says “Veo 2” is wrong the day a new version ships. A list that says “Veo” stays right for as long as the product exists. Version numbers belong in release notes, not cheat sheets.
The post this came from
Watch the reel
The corrected list of eighty, grouped by job. Posted on the BANI Academy page.
Why tool lists rot faster than anything else
Most content ages slowly. Tool lists age in weeks, for three reasons that stack.
They circulate as images. An image has no version, no date and no way to correct itself. By the time a cheat sheet reaches you it may have been screenshotted and reposted a dozen times, each copy carrying whatever was true on the day it was first made.
The products move constantly. Companies rename, merge, pivot and shut down on a timescale of months. Any list covering eighty products is statistically guaranteed to contain several that changed since it was drawn.
Nobody is responsible for it. The person who made it moved on; the people sharing it assume someone checked. That is how a broken entry survives thousands of reposts – the same pattern we documented line by line in the hundred-prompt audit and on the viral tool map in where do the hours actually go.
The five-minute check you can run on any list
You do not need to verify eighty tools to protect yourself. You need to verify the handful you are about to rely on. This takes about a minute per tool.
| Check | How | What it catches |
|---|---|---|
| Open the official site yourself | Type the address; do not click a link from the graphic or a search advert | Redirects, lookalike sites, dead products |
| Confirm it still does the listed job | Read the first screen of the homepage | Repurposed tools – the silent failure |
| Search the name plus “renamed” | One search, thirty seconds | Rebrands and mergers |
| Ignore the version number | Look for the current version on the product’s own site | Stale model names |
| Check the free tier today | Open the pricing page, not a review | Limits that changed since the list was made |
The last row catches the most expensive surprise. A tool can be perfectly alive and still have tightened its free tier since the list was drawn – which is exactly where the walls we mapped in free until minute forty tend to appear. And if a name on a list cannot be traced to an official site at all, leave it off, as we did with three entries in free is not always better.
How to build a list that stays right
If you make lists rather than just read them, a few habits keep them accurate for much longer than a typical graphic.
Name the job, then the tool. “Image generation: Nano Banana” survives a rename better than a bare logo, because a reader who finds the tool gone still knows what to look for instead. Our own lists are grouped by job for exactly this reason.
Date it. A single line – “checked September 2026” – tells every future reader how much to trust it. An undated list looks equally current forever, which is precisely the problem.
Keep a text version. The image is for sharing; a plain-text list with official links is for using. Text can be corrected in a minute. A graphic has to be redrawn, so in practice it never is.
Recheck before every repost. Reposting an old list without checking it is how one person’s stale graphic becomes everyone’s stale graphic. Five minutes on the entries most likely to have changed – the newest tools and anything with a version number – catches most of the rot.
None of this is difficult. It just requires treating a list as something that decays, rather than something that was finished on the day it was made.
What this means for a channel
If you make list videos or share tool graphics, checking before posting is not only good manners. It is a genuine differentiator. Viewers who have been burned by dead links remember which sources were right, and a caption that says “we checked every one of these” is the most persuasive line you can put on a list. We made the same point about our own sixty-tool rebuild in sixty AI tools, ten jobs, where nine of the sixty had to be replaced.
And if you only use lists rather than make them, the five-minute check above is the habit that stops a stale entry from costing you an afternoon.
Frequently asked questions
How often should a tool list be rechecked?
Before every repost. At minimum every few months – long enough for several products on any large list to have changed.
Why drop version numbers instead of updating them?
Because they change faster than anyone updates graphics. The product name stays true; the number is wrong within weeks.
Is a renamed tool worse than before?
Not necessarily. A rename often means an acquisition or a new direction, which can be good or bad. Check what it does now rather than assuming.
Can I trust a list that says it was checked?
More than one that does not. But the five-minute check on the tools you will actually use is still worth doing yourself.
Check before you share
Next time a tool list lands in your feed, pick the three entries you would actually use and run the five checks on them. If any fail, you have just saved yourself the afternoon you would have lost finding out the hard way.
And if you share lists yourself, check first and say so. A cheat sheet is only useful if the links still work.
Learning a lot does not make anyone good. Doing a lot does.
If you want the structure that makes that habit stick, that is what our free challenge is built for: no barrier to entry, a genuine commitment to action, and a refundable commitment fee you get back when you finish. You are not paying for the knowledge. You are betting on yourself finishing, and we hold the stake.
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