Key Concepts
AI productivity apps, AI agents, AI autonomy, customizability, future-proofing, AI integrations, task management, Vectal, Notion, To-Doist, ClickUp, Trello, background agents, user context, projects, ideas, notes, reminders, ultra search, keyboard shortcuts, voice input.
App Comparison and Ranking
The video compares five productivity apps (Notion, To-Doist, Vectal, ClickUp, and Trello) across seven categories to determine the best AI productivity app for 2025. The categories are:
- Ease of Use: How easy the app is to use for new users and on a daily basis.
- Notion: Medium (simple features, confusing for beginners)
- To-Doist: Super easy (main selling point)
- Vectal: Very easy (task list, chat)
- ClickUp: Hard (hardest of the five)
- Trello: Pretty easy (Kanban board)
- AI Autonomy: How much the AI does autonomously for the user.
- Notion: Okay (Notion AI assistant, not fully autonomous)
- To-Doist: Very bad (no autonomous features)
- Vectal: Many AI agents that run 24/7 without user input
- ClickUp: Similar to To-Doist (no AI autonomy)
- Trello: Same as ClickUp
- Argument: Big companies are too comfortable and lack the incentive to innovate, playing it safe with autonomous features.
- Customizability: How much the app can be customized for individual needs.
- Notion: Best (tons of features)
- To-Doist: Worst (easy to use, but lacks customization)
- Vectal: Okay (system prompts, but not Notion-level)
- ClickUp: Good (improved UI)
- Trello: Doing okay (not on ClickUp/Notion level)
- Note: Customizability often conflicts with ease of use.
- Future Proof: How likely the app is to remain at the cutting edge of AI in the next few years.
- Notion: Okay (some urgency to disrupt itself, but outdated in 2025)
- To-Doist: Worst (oldest app, not future-proof)
- Vectal: Most future-proof (AI-first)
- ClickUp: Doing okay (experimenting with UI)
- Trello: Pretty bad (feels like 2014 productivity)
- Rate of New Features: How frequently the app releases new features.
- Notion: Pretty okay (shipping stuff, experimenting with AI, but scared to innovate)
- To-Doist: Worst (slowest, takes months for small UI changes)
- Vectal: Shipping literally every day (crazy rate of improvement)
- ClickUp: Pretty good (releasing new features, testing, removing unused features)
- Trello: Fine (trying stuff, but mostly the same)
- AI Integrations: The level of AI integration, including APIs and models used.
- Notion: Pretty good (AI assistant, improving)
- To-Doist: Very bad (no cutting-edge AI models)
- Vectal: All cutting-edge AI models (OpenAI, Google, XAI, Anthropic)
- ClickUp: Okay (much better than To-Doist, but not on Notion/Vectal level)
- Trello: Same as ClickUp
- Amount of AI Agents: The number of AI agents built into the app.
- Notion: 6 AI agents
- To-Doist: 1 AI agent
- Vectal: 13 AI agents (most of any productivity app)
- ClickUp: 3 AI agents
- Trello: 1 AI agent
Data: The speaker verified the number of AI agents using ChatGPT-4 with web search.
Conclusion: Vectal is the most AI-first and future-ready app based on these criteria. The rating focuses on AI features, AI agents, AI autonomy, and time saved through AI.
Why Being AI-First Matters
Argument: All software will be replaced by AI-first alternatives. Incumbents will struggle to adapt, while fast-moving startups will dominate.
Examples:
- OpenAI and Perplexity are disrupting Google in search.
- Cursor and Windsurf are dominating programming.
Explanation: AI-first companies prioritize AI features and build the app around them, understanding how AI works and where to apply it effectively.
Quote: "This is what it means to be AI first and this is also why Vectal despite being just 7 months old is destroying some of these productivity apps that everybody knows in terms of their AI features."
Data:
- Notion: 9 years old
- To-Doist: 18 years old (slowest moving)
- Vectal: Less than 1 year old (AI-first)
- ClickUp: 8 years old
- Trello: Ancient app
Vectal Tutorial: Getting Started and Becoming a Power User
The video provides a step-by-step tutorial on how to get started with Vectal and use its features effectively.
- Onboarding:
- Describe your work, current projects, and main goals.
- Importance: This provides context for Vectal's AI agents to help you be more productive.
- Recommendation: Spend 3-4 minutes filling out the onboarding and update it as needed.
- Introduction Message:
- Vectal sends an automated message introducing itself and explaining its unique features.
- Key Features:
- Tasks: Your optimized to-do list.
- Chat Agent: Interacts with everything in the app, creates tasks, splits complex tasks, and organizes your list.
- Background Agent: Autonomous AI agent that automatically works on your tasks.
- User Context: Information you provided during onboarding.
- Ultra Search: Advanced search that utilizes your context.
- Customization: The introduction message is tailored to your specific goals.
- Creating Tasks:
- Add tasks using the "+" button, pressing "Q," or by telling the AI agent.
- Example: "Add a new task named finish the YouTube video."
- The AI can help you make the task more important and provide step-by-step instructions.
- Projects:
- Create new projects manually or with the chat agent.
- Example: "Create a new project for me YouTube, give it red color and make the instructions just like Mr. Beast would write them."
- Projects have custom system prompts that provide context for the AI agents.
- Activate projects in the chat or in the projects section.
- Assign tasks to projects manually or with the chat agent.
- Example: "Put all tasks relevant to YouTube to our YouTube project."
- Exclude user context from projects to focus on project-specific instructions.
- Background Agent:
- Activate the background agent on any task by hovering over it and clicking "activate vector agent."
- Process:
- Reasoning: The AI reasons about the task and how to complete it.
- Web Search: The AI does web searches relevant to the task.
- Summarization: A powerful model summarizes everything into clear steps.
- Benefits: The AI autonomously works on your tasks in the background, saving you time and effort.
- Limitation: Free users can only run two background agents at once. Vectal Pro users can run it on all tasks.
- Ideas:
- A place to brain dump your ideas and thoughts.
- Convert ideas to tasks, notes, or delete them.
- Example: Buy a new t-shirt, walk the dog, read a new book.
- The sorting agent automatically sorts new tasks based on your goals.
- Notes:
- A place to write down information for the long term, such as quotes, study notes, or TV remote codes.
- Each note is like a mini Google Doc with formatting options.
- Example: Add five powerful quotes from Nietzsche to our notes.
- Reminders:
- Turn notes into reminders to be reminded of them every X days.
- Example: Remind yourself of a life lesson every 35 days.
- The reminder agent understands any language and automatically sets the cadence based on your user context.
- Ultra Search:
- Advanced search that utilizes your user context to find the most relevant results.
- Example: Research what the best AI agent frameworks are in 2025 and how they compare and which one has the best Python support.
- Uses Perplexity deep research.
- Save the results as notes.
- Search:
- Typical search inside the app to find tasks, projects, ideas, and notes.
- Keyboard Shortcuts:
- Access a list of keyboard shortcuts by clicking the "shortcuts" button on the right or asking the chat agent.
- Examples: Q for creating new, S for editing user context, V for cycling between views.
- Voice Input:
- Use your voice to speak to Vectal by clicking the voice input button or pressing "T."
- Uses OpenAI Whisper for transcription.
Future Improvements and Team Plan
- Background Agent:
- Faster and more reliable.
- More steps in the process.
- Upgraded models (Gemini 2.5 Pro, Claude 3.7, GPT-4.1).
- Easy One-Click Imports:
- From ChatGPT, Notion, To-Doist, ClickUp, and other major apps.
- Team Plan:
- For small and medium-sized businesses.
- Proactive Upgrades to the Chat Agent:
- The AI will automatically message you and suggest which task to work on next.
Conclusion
Vectal is presented as a cutting-edge, AI-first productivity app that can significantly improve your productivity. The video encourages viewers to try Vectal, especially with the limited-time discount on Vectal Pro. The speaker also mentions that they are hiring backend and full-stack developers to help them continue to improve the app.
AI summaries can miss context or contain errors. Check important details against the original video.
