More people now ask an AI assistant for software recommendations instead of browsing a directory: "Find me the best invoicing tool." It's often a fine place to start.
This post is our opinion, not a measured trend. We think AI answers work best alongside human-reviewed sources, not instead of them.
Where AI Recommendations Fall Short
Language models learn from text collected up to a point in time. They can recommend a tool that has since shut down, changed its pricing or pivoted, and they tend to repeat whatever was written most often about a category, affiliate articles included.
An AI summary also can't tell you whether people are using a tool this week. It has no view of who's visiting.
What Human Review Adds
A reviewed launch board or directory can add what an AI answer lacks:
- Human review: a person checked that the site loads, matches its description and isn't spam.
- Public visitor numbers: on Hauntboard, every launch page shows its page views and outbound clicks, so you can see whether people found and visited the product.
- Founder notes: why the maker built the tool, in their own words.
Use both. Ask an assistant to narrow your options, then check a reviewed listing before you sign up. If you're a maker, our list of places to launch covers reviewed boards and directories worth submitting to.