Burned $90 on an AI writing tool that promised blog gold

I signed up for that popular AI article generator back in April because it claimed to write SEO ready posts in like 2 minutes. The first few pieces looked okay, sure, but after I posted them on my site the traffic just flopped. I mean, the tool kept repeating the same phrases and the research was basically a quick skim of top Google results. Turns out it also had a hidden word limit unless you paid for the next tier, which was another $60 a month. I lost $90 total before I canceled and went back to doing my own outlines with a free chatbot for ideas. Has anyone else tried one of these fancy AI blog writers and got way less than what the ads promised? What actually worked for you instead?