Workflow stack maps
Decide the AI stack your team can actually roll out by workflow
Each workflow connects stages, recommended stack templates, cost overlap, alerts, and decision memos into the existing comparison, pricing, and alternatives evidence layer.
01 / Team
AI workflow stack for engineering coding teams
Agentic coding in 2026 is not a single-seat feature choice. It is a decision about work surface, review ownership, and usage governance. For GitHub-centered teams, Copilot Business is the broad default: each $19 granted seat adds 1,900 monthly AI Credits to a shared organization pool, and excess costs $0.01 per credit. Give Cursor only to engineers who work in its agent workspace every day: Teams Standard is $40/user/month, each paid seat has a separate usage pool, and every Auto request bills at the routed model’s list price. Keep pull-request review in the code-hosting path and require a human merge owner. Treat a second coding agent as a controlled pilot until its permissions, spend limits, and handoff path are written down.
GitHub Copilot · Cursor
- Best for
- Teams standardizing AI help across many developers
- Cost signal
- GitHub Copilot Business is $19 per granted seat per month; every seat adds 1,900 AI Credits to the organization's shared monthly pool before $0.01-per-credit extra usage.
- Rollout risk
- Do not buy Cursor for everyone until heavy workspace usage is visible.
Open stack map
02 / Team
AI workflow stack for research to decision memo
Use Perplexity for independent live-web discovery, NotebookLM for a bounded corpus, Notion Research Mode for governed workspace research, and ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini to turn reviewed sources into a decision memo.
Perplexity · Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) · Notion AI
- Best for
- Teams that need source visibility before they trust recommendations
- Cost signal
- Avoid paying for every broad assistant if research seats only need source-backed discovery.
- Rollout risk
- Perplexity and NotebookLM overlap only partially; one searches the web, the other reasons over a bounded corpus.
Open stack map
03 / Team
AI workflow stack for meeting to action
Meeting-heavy teams should choose around the system where owners actually update work, not the assistant with the prettiest recap. Microsoft 365 Copilot Business fits Microsoft teams, Gemini fits Google Workspace teams, and Notion AI fits teams that keep meeting records and work together; use general assistants only with a deliberately provided, reviewed transcript.
Microsoft 365 Copilot Business · Gemini
- Best for
- Teams living in Teams, Outlook, Office, and Microsoft governance
- Cost signal
- The suite seat is easier to defend when the eligible license, meeting policy, and action system reduce separate meeting and writing seats without duplicating a recap tool.
- Rollout risk
- Avoid duplicating meeting summary tools if Copilot already covers the workspace job.
Open stack map
04 / Team
AI workflow stack for document-heavy writing teams
Use Claude or ChatGPT for high-quality drafting, NotebookLM or Perplexity when evidence must stay visible, and Notion AI when the workflow has to live inside team docs.
Claude · Perplexity
- Best for
- Teams producing memos, proposals, and launch docs with review pressure
- Cost signal
- Do not duplicate broad writing seats if the team already has a suite assistant that covers light editing.
- Rollout risk
- ChatGPT and Claude overlap heavily for drafting; keep both only if different teams use them for distinct review styles.
Open stack map
05 / Team
AI workflow stack for content production teams
Start with ChatGPT or Claude for brief and script work, add Perplexity or NotebookLM when claims need visible sources, use Zebracat for fast blog-to-video and social variants, and choose Synthesia when the buying case is governed avatar-led business video with localization and approval needs.
ChatGPT · Zebracat · Synthesia · Perplexity
- Best for
- Small teams turning briefs, scripts, or blog posts into frequent social and product video variants
- Cost signal
- Keeps the video seat narrow and avoids paying for enterprise avatar governance before repeatable social output is proven.
- Rollout risk
- Do not add Synthesia until the team needs avatar-led business video, localization, API, or formal approval controls.
Open stack map
06 / Team
AI workflow stack for design to prototype to deploy
Start with Figma Make when design-system context is the source of truth, use v0 when the team already wants a Vercel-native front-end path, choose Bolt or Lovable for faster prompt-to-app iteration, and keep Replit in the stack when hosted execution and handoff matter more than design fidelity.
Figma Make · v0 · Replit
- Best for
- Product teams that start from Figma context and need a credible prototype before engineering commits
- Cost signal
- Do not buy every builder seat by default. Assign Figma Make to design-led starts, v0 to front-end/Vercel owners, and Replit or Bolt only where runnable app iteration is part of the weekly workflow.
- Rollout risk
- Figma Make, v0, Bolt, Lovable, and Replit can all generate prototype surfaces; paying for all of them usually creates duplicated experimentation seats.
Open stack map