How to Choose an AI App Integration Tool: A Scorecard

Search for AI app integration software and you get a long list of tools that all promise to connect your apps. I have not run a head to head test, so I will not give you a ranking. Rankings go stale, and the best tool depends on your apps and your tolerance for risk.

What I can give you is a scorecard: eight questions that separate a good fit from a poor one, plus a short description of the kinds of tool available. Score your own shortlist and the ranking will be yours. Lesson 1.6 shows the setup for the first kind: Connect AI to the apps you already use.

Pick the tool that covers your actual apps, lets you narrow access, shows its sources, and is easy to disconnect.

The three kinds of AI app integration tool

Before scoring, know what you are comparing.

Connectors inside an AI assistant. The assistant links directly to your apps. Claude's help page describes connectors as letting Claude access your apps and services, retrieve data and take actions, and says they work across Claude, Claude Desktop, Claude Code and the API. Other assistants offer comparable features under different names. Check each tool's own help pages for which apps it supports.

Open standard connections. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is described on its official site as an open source standard for connecting AI applications to external systems. A tool that supports MCP can connect to servers built by other people. This is more flexible and a bit more technical.

Automation platforms. Services that move data between apps on a trigger, for example when an email arrives, do something in another app. They are a different category from a conversational assistant, and are better for fixed routines than open questions. I am not naming products here because I have not verified their current features.

The eight question scorecard

Score each tool from 0 to 2 on each question: 0 for no, 1 for partly, 2 for yes. Add up the points.

1. Does it connect to the apps I actually use?List your five core apps. Check the provider's directory or help pages for each. No directory entry means 0.
2. Can I choose view only access?Check the permission screen and the provider's scopes. Google, for instance, publishes separate scopes for viewing and for sending or deleting mail.
3. Can I control actions per tool?Look for settings like Always allow, Needs approval and Blocked, which Claude's connectors offer. Score 0 if every action is automatic.
4. Does it show sources?Ask a test question. Does the answer point to the email, event or file it came from?
5. Is disconnecting easy?Find the page where you remove a connection, and confirm you can also remove it at the provider.
6. Is it clear who can see my data?Read the privacy and data pages. If you cannot find them or understand them, score 0.
7. Does it suit my level of technical skill?A tool that needs setup you cannot do will not be used.
8. Can I live without it?If it stops working, can you still do the job? Prefer tools that do not trap your data.

A blank scorecard

Weight the rows if some matter more. A business handling client data might count the access rows double. A solo creator might care more about coverage and ease.

How to run the test fairly

Use the same task for every tool, and run it yourself. A good test task is "list today's meetings and the emails that need a reply, and show the source of each". For each tool, note three things on paper.

• How long it took to reach a first working result, from sign up to answer
• Whether the answer was right, checked against your own inbox
• What you had to grant to get there

Do not rely on a review for these. A review shows one person's setup, and tools change. A short test on your own data takes an afternoon and is the only comparison that counts for you. Prices also change, so check each provider's current pricing page and count the cost yourself.

Red flags

• It asks for full access when the job needs only view access
• It gives no way to see what is connected
• It offers no way to remove a connection
• It cannot tell you where an answer came from
• You cannot find out what it does with your data

Any one of these is a reason to pause. An assistant reading your mail reads text from strangers, and OWASP ranks prompt injection first among language model application risks. A tool without action controls leaves you exposed to that.

Reading your score

Out of 16, there is no magic cut off, since the scoring is yours. As a rough approach, treat any 0 on view access, action control or disconnecting as a blocker for work accounts, even if the total is high. A tool with a lower total and no blockers is usually the safer start.

A worked example, labelled illustrative

Say a florist compares two tools. Tool A connects to her email and calendar and offers Needs approval for writes, but she cannot find where it stores data. Tool B has a longer app list but gives no per action controls. Scored honestly, A might lose points on data clarity and B lose several on control. Because control is a blocker for her, she picks A and reads its data page before connecting anything. The tools here are hypothetical.

Questions people ask

Which tool is best?

It depends on your apps and your risk tolerance. Anyone naming one best tool for everybody has not seen your setup.

Should I pay for a tool?

Try the free options your assistant already offers first, and check current plans on the provider's own site before paying.

Do I need more than one tool?

Often not. Start with one assistant and its connectors, and add an automation platform only for routines it cannot do.

Choosing, then doing

Run the scorecard on two or three tools, connect the winner to one app, and apply the checks in The CONNECT framework. For a walk through of the connecting itself, follow Lesson 1.6: Connect AI to the apps you already use.