Top 20 'Context-Connecting' AI Tools to install for Distributed Teams to Build a Shared Brain in 2025
It’s a scenario we all know too well in the remote work era. Your designer in Lisbon just finished a brilliant mockup, but the key feedback is buried in a Slack thread from three weeks ago. The project manager in Singapore needs the final approved budget, which lives in an email sent by the finance head from New York, who is currently fast asleep. The context is scattered, the momentum is lost, and your team’s collective intelligence feels anything but collective.
This digital fragmentation is the single biggest challenge for distributed teams today. We have more tools than ever, but they’ve created digital islands of information. The solution isn't another tool that just adds to the pile. The solution is a new class of context-connecting AI that acts as the connective tissue, weaving these islands into a single, intelligent continent. This is how we build a true "shared brain"—a system where any team member can instantly access not just the what, but the why, how, and who behind any piece of work.
As we look ahead to 2025, the teams that thrive will be those that intentionally build this shared brain. It’s a topic I, Goh Ling Yong, am passionate about because it moves us beyond simple productivity hacks and into the realm of true organizational intelligence. This isn't science fiction; the tools are here. They are designed to index, understand, and link every conversation, document, and decision your team makes. Here are the top 20 context-connecting AI tools you should be installing to build your team's shared brain for 2025.
1. Glean
Glean is the search engine for your company. Its power lies in its simplicity and scope. It plugs into every single app your team uses—Google Workspace, Slack, Jira, Figma, Salesforce, you name it—and creates a unified, intelligent search layer over the top. It doesn’t just find documents; it finds answers.
This is the ultimate cure for the "Where did I see that?" syndrome. Glean's AI understands natural language, so you can ask it questions like, "What is our Q4 marketing strategy for the new product launch?" It will then pull up the official strategy doc, relevant Slack conversations where it was debated, the Jira epic tracking the work, and even identify the key people involved. It connects disparate pieces of information into a coherent answer.
Pro-Tip: Encourage your team to use Glean as their default starting point for any query. By training everyone to "Glean it first," you reduce redundant questions and empower individuals to self-serve information, which is critical for asynchronous, distributed teams.
2. Notion AI
If Glean is your company's search engine, Notion is its living library, and Notion AI is the incredibly smart librarian. Already a favorite for knowledge bases and project documentation, Notion's AI features transform static pages into dynamic, context-aware resources. It can summarize lengthy project specs, pull action items from meeting notes, and even answer questions based only on the content within a specific database.
This is a game-changer for onboarding and knowledge transfer. A new hire can simply ask Notion AI, "What are our brand voice guidelines?" or "Summarize the key takeaways from the Q3 project retro," and get instant, accurate answers pulled directly from your team's documented knowledge. It keeps the context locked within the source of truth.
Example: Create a "Project Home" page for a major initiative. At the top, add a Notion AI "Summary" block that automatically updates as the page is edited. Anyone jumping into the project can get the latest TL;DR in seconds without having to read the entire document.
3. Slack AI
Slack is the central nervous system of most distributed teams, but it can also be a chaotic firehose of information. Slack AI is designed to bring order to that chaos. Its core features—channel recaps, thread summaries, and intelligent search—are essential for maintaining context without constant digital presence.
Imagine logging in after a few hours offline. Instead of scrolling through hundreds of messages, you can ask for a one-click summary of the #project-phoenix channel, instantly getting the highlights, decisions made, and open questions. Its search can find not just keywords, but intent, helping you locate "the conversation where Sarah approved the budget" even if you don't remember the exact words used.
Pro-Tip: Use Slack AI's "Recaps" feature to create a daily or weekly digest for key project channels. Post these summaries in a dedicated #project-updates channel to keep wider stakeholders informed without them needing to be in the weeds.
4. Microsoft 365 Copilot
For teams embedded in the Microsoft ecosystem, Copilot is the ultimate context-connector. It’s not a single app but an AI layer woven through Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. Its superpower is its ability to synthesize information across these applications, breaking down the silos that naturally form between them.
The potential here is staggering. You can be in a Teams chat and ask Copilot to, "Draft a PowerPoint presentation based on the Word document 'Q4 Strategy' and include the sales data from the 'Q4_Sales.xlsx' file." Copilot will understand the relationships between these files, extract the key information, and generate a first draft, preserving the context from multiple sources.
Example: Before a client meeting, ask Outlook's Copilot to "Summarize all my emails and documents related to Project X." It will give you a pre-meeting briefing note, ensuring you have all the historical context at your fingertips.
5. Google Workspace Duet AI
Duet AI is Google's answer to Microsoft's Copilot, offering a similar cross-app intelligence layer for Docs, Sheets, Slides, Gmail, and Meet. It leverages your organization's data within the Google ecosystem to provide contextual assistance, making it a powerhouse for teams running on Google.
Duet AI excels at turning unstructured information into structured assets. For instance, you can take messy notes from a Google Doc and ask it to "Create a project plan in Google Sheets from these notes, with columns for task, owner, and deadline." It reads the context of your notes and transforms them into an actionable plan. In Gmail, it can summarize long email threads so you can draft a reply with full context.
Pro-Tip: Use the "Help me write" feature in Google Docs with specific contextual prompts like, "Write an internal blog post announcing the new design system, using a friendly and excited tone, based on the key features listed in this document."
6. Loom AI
Asynchronous video has become a staple for remote teams, and Loom is the undisputed leader. Loom AI enhances these video messages by automatically titling them, creating summaries and chapters, and removing filler words. This turns a 7-minute video into a skimmable, searchable, and far more accessible piece of content.
This is crucial for building a shared brain because it makes video content as easy to reference as text. A developer can quickly find the exact moment in a designer's screen recording where a specific UI element is discussed. The AI-generated transcript makes every word searchable, connecting the visual context of the video to the text-based search of other tools.
Example: After recording a project update video, use Loom AI to generate a summary. Copy and paste that summary into your Slack channel or project management tool when you share the link. This gives everyone the gist immediately and lets them decide if they need to watch the full video.
7. Rewind AI
Rewind is perhaps the most literal interpretation of a "shared brain." It's an app that runs locally on your Mac (with a Windows version in development) and records everything you see, say, and hear, making it all searchable. It's your personal black box, capturing context that is often lost—that quick browser search, a line of code you saw, or a comment in a passing video call.
While it starts as a personal tool, its team features are where it becomes a context-connecting giant. You can create a team "Rewind" that selectively pulls in relevant recordings from team members to create a complete, searchable timeline of a project. Need to know why a design decision was made? You can literally rewind to the Figma session and the corresponding Slack chat side-by-side.
Pro-Tip: Use Rewind to document processes without writing a single word. Simply perform the task as you normally would, then share the Rewind recording with the team as a living, searchable tutorial.
8. Miro AI
Distributed brainstorming sessions on a digital whiteboard like Miro can be creatively chaotic. Miro AI is the intelligent facilitator that helps you make sense of it all. It can take a sprawling board of digital sticky notes and automatically cluster them by theme, suggest connections, and even generate fully-fledged mind maps or user story maps from a simple text prompt.
This tool connects raw, unstructured ideas to structured, actionable formats. After a team brainstorm, you don't need to spend an hour manually sorting notes. You can ask Miro AI to "Group these sticky notes into affinity clusters," and within seconds, you have organized themes that can be turned into a project plan.
Example: Start a retrospective by having everyone put stickies on a board. Then, use Miro AI to find patterns and summarize the key feedback points automatically.
9. Fireflies.ai
Meetings are where critical decisions are made, but their context is often ephemeral. Fireflies.ai solves this by joining your calls (on Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, etc.), transcribing them, and making them completely intelligent. It's more than just a transcription service; it's a meeting intelligence platform.
Fireflies automatically identifies action items, key topics, and questions asked during the call. You can search across all your past meetings for key terms and even see metrics like talk-time and sentiment. This connects what was said in a meeting to the tasks that need to be done in your project management tool, creating a clear, auditable trail from conversation to action.
Pro-Tip: Integrate Fireflies with your project management tool like Asana or Jira. You can then highlight a piece of the transcript, and Fireflies will automatically create a task in your PM tool, complete with a link back to that exact moment in the meeting recording.
10. ClickUp AI
ClickUp is an all-in-one project management platform, and its native AI tool is designed to accelerate workflows within that ecosystem. ClickUp AI lives inside every part of the platform—tasks, docs, comments—and serves as a context-aware assistant for any project manager or team member.
It can write project briefs, generate status updates based on completed tasks, summarize long comment threads, and even break down a large task into smaller, manageable sub-tasks. Because it operates with the full context of your project data within ClickUp, its suggestions are highly relevant and immediately actionable. It connects high-level goals to the granular tasks required to achieve them.
Example: Use ClickUp AI's "Progress Summary" feature to automatically generate a weekly update for stakeholders. It analyzes task completions, comments, and blockers to write a human-like summary, saving project managers hours each week.
11. Threads
Not to be confused with the social media app, Threads is a collaboration platform designed to replace Slack for more focused, asynchronous discussions. Its power is in its structure, which encourages thoughtful, well-documented conversations. The integrated AI features act as a super-librarian for these discussions.
The AI in Threads can summarize long, complex decision-making threads, allowing latecomers to get up to speed in an instant. It helps surface the final decision from a sea of debate and makes the entire conversational history of a project easily searchable and referenceable. This connects the process of a decision to the final outcome.
Pro-Tip: Establish a "Decision Log" in Threads. When a decision is finalized in a thread, use the AI to summarize the context and outcome, then tag it for easy reference in the future.
12. Mem
Mem is a self-organizing workspace that uses AI to connect your notes for you. It's built on the idea that you shouldn't have to spend time organizing information; the AI should do it for you. As you create notes from meetings, brainstorming sessions, or research, Mem's AI automatically identifies entities (people, companies, projects) and links them together.
For teams, this creates a shared, self-building knowledge graph. When you're writing a note about "Project Alpha," Mem can automatically surface related notes from your colleagues, relevant meeting transcripts, and contact information for the client. It’s a serendipity engine that reveals connections you didn't even know existed.
Example: Integrate Mem with your calendar. After a meeting, Mem will automatically create a new note for that event, pre-populated with attendees and linked to their existing profiles and related projects within your team's Mem space.
13. Linear
For software development teams, Linear has become the gold standard for issue tracking due to its speed and simplicity. Its AI features are subtly integrated to reduce friction and automate tedious tasks, connecting the dots between code, issues, and product planning.
Linear's AI can help with things like automatically triaging incoming bug reports by categorizing them and assigning a priority level. It can also identify duplicate issues, linking them together to reduce noise. For product managers, it can help draft release notes by summarizing all the issues and improvements included in a new cycle.
Pro-Tip: Use the AI-powered "Triage" feature to build automation rules. For example, any new issue containing the word "crash" and reported by a "VIP customer" can be automatically assigned a high priority and sent to the on-call engineer's Slack channel.
14. Tome
Tome is an AI-powered storytelling and presentation tool. It goes beyond simple slide generation by helping you structure a narrative from a single prompt. For distributed teams, it's a powerful tool for aligning everyone on a story, whether it's for a sales pitch, an all-hands update, or a project kickoff.
You can feed Tome a strategy document, a project brief, or even just a collection of notes, and it will generate a compelling, visually-rich presentation. It understands narrative structure, ensuring the story flows logically. This connects your raw data and ideas to a polished, persuasive format that can be easily shared and understood by the entire team.
Example: Paste the transcript from a Fireflies.ai recording of a customer discovery call into Tome. Prompt it to "Create a presentation for the product team summarizing the key user pain points and feature requests from this conversation."
15. Height
Height is a fast and flexible project management tool that puts AI at its core with a feature called "Copilot." This allows you to manage your projects using natural language chat. It’s like having a project manager assistant available 24/7.
You can ask Height's Copilot things like, "What are the most urgent tasks for the design team this week?" or "Create a new task to write the blog post, assign it to Alex, and set the due date for Friday." It understands the context of your projects, tasks, and team members, allowing for incredibly efficient, conversational project management. It connects your natural language commands to the structured world of tasks and deadlines.
Pro-Tip: Set up a recurring "chat" with Height Copilot. Every morning, you can ask it, "Give me my daily briefing," and it will summarize your priorities, overdue tasks, and any messages needing your attention.
16. Atlassian Intelligence
For the millions of teams living in Jira and Confluence, Atlassian Intelligence is the native AI layer that brings context-connecting capabilities to their existing workflows. It works across the entire Atlassian suite to break down barriers between technical and non-technical teams.
In Confluence, it can summarize technical documentation or explain complex jargon in simple terms. In Jira, it can help you write user stories or generate test cases. One of its most powerful features is the ability to generate SQL queries from a natural language prompt, allowing a project manager to get data from a database without needing to ask an engineer. This directly connects business questions to technical data.
Example: Use the Confluence AI to create a project FAQ. Simply point it to a dozen pages of project documentation and ask it to "Generate a list of frequently asked questions and their answers based on these documents."
17. Gamma
Gamma is another AI-native presentation tool, but with a unique focus on transforming existing content into beautiful, interactive webpages, docs, or decks. Its strength is in its flexibility and speed, making it perfect for the rapid creation of internal and external communications.
Where Gamma shines as a context-connector is its ability to ingest a messy document—like a Google Doc filled with notes—and instantly reformat it into a clean, engaging, and branded presentation. It preserves the core information but presents it in a way that’s easier to consume and share, connecting raw thoughts to polished communication.
Pro-Tip: Use Gamma to create "living" project status pages. Instead of a static weekly email, create a Gamma page that you can quickly update with new text and visuals. The interactive format is more engaging for stakeholders.
18. Amie
Amie is a calendar-centric productivity app that beautifully combines your calendar, to-dos, and contacts. Its AI features are focused on making scheduling and time management seamless and context-aware, which is a constant challenge for distributed teams across time zones.
Amie's AI can parse natural language to schedule events (e.g., "Schedule a 30-min call with Jane for next week to discuss the Q4 budget") and will find a time that works for everyone. It also pulls in context, showing you relevant emails or to-do items related to a specific meeting, connecting your schedule to the actual work that needs to be done.
Example: Forward an email thread with a client to your Amie calendar. The AI will suggest creating a to-do item or scheduling a meeting based on the email's content, automatically pulling in the other participants.
19. Xmind AI
Mind mapping is a powerful technique for exploring ideas and understanding relationships. Xmind AI takes this to the next level. You can start with a single central topic, and the AI will help you brainstorm and auto-generate branches and sub-topics, creating a comprehensive map in minutes.
For teams, this is an incredible tool for collaborative strategy sessions or feature brainstorming. It helps visualize all the interconnected parts of a complex idea, ensuring that no stone is left unturned. The AI acts as a creative partner, connecting your initial thought to a universe of related concepts and creating a visual representation of your team's collective thinking.
Pro-Tip: Use Xmind AI at the start of a project kickoff. Enter the main project goal as the central topic and use the AI to generate branches for "Key Deliverables," "Potential Risks," "Stakeholders," and "Timeline."
20. Dashworks
Similar to Glean, Dashworks is an AI-powered enterprise search platform that aims to be the "start page for work." It creates a personalized hub that surfaces the most relevant information for each employee based on their role, projects, and recent activity.
Dashworks connects the individual to the wider organizational context. Its AI doesn't just wait for you to search; it proactively pushes relevant information to you. For example, when you have a meeting in your calendar, Dashworks might automatically surface the meeting notes from your last call with that person and the Jira tickets related to their project. It anticipates your need for context and delivers it before you even ask. This is the kind of ambient intelligence that truly defines a shared brain.
Example: Customize your Dashworks homepage with widgets that are most relevant to your role. A salesperson might have widgets for Salesforce updates and recent customer emails, while an engineer might have widgets for GitHub pull requests and Jira sprints.
Building Your Team's Future Brain
Adopting these tools isn't about chasing the latest shiny object. It’s a strategic decision to combat information fragmentation and build a more intelligent, aligned, and efficient distributed team. The era of a single "source of truth" is over; the future is an intelligent web of context that connects all your tools and conversations. This web is your team's shared brain.
The journey starts by identifying your biggest context gaps. Are meetings a black hole of information? Start with Fireflies.ai. Is your internal documentation a mess? Look at Notion AI. As we at the Goh Ling Yong blog always advise, start small, integrate thoughtfully, and focus on building an ecosystem where each tool reinforces the others. By 2025, the ability of your team to quickly find and understand context will be your greatest competitive advantage.
Which of these context-connecting AI tools are you most excited to try? Did I miss any game-changers? Share your thoughts and recommendations in the comments below!
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
Stay updated with the latest posts and insights by following on your favorite platform!