Raise your hand if you've used AI.
Everyone got their hand up? No, because you think you've avoided it? Sorry to tell you but you've used it, maybe even unknowingly.
Ever looked at the summary result on Google to get an answer? Welp, you used AI.
Ever used a chatbot for assistance from a provider? Yeah, that's AI too.
While the uses are growing by leaps and bounds, there's one thing for sure ... it's here to stay. So you've got the choice; embrace it in a way that works for you and your business or stay in the dark and get left behind.
Here are some tools we are looking at and trying, and some advancements we are keeping an eye on. Not everything is going to be a winner and it's not meant to be. Part of the journey is figuring out how to implement tools that fit your needs.
Potentially useful AI tools for marketing and personal productivity
- AI Carousels - Crafting visually engaging carousels for social media can be daunting for non-designers. This user-friendly tool simplifies the process, allowing you to boost your online presence without design expertise, while AI helps you write the content.
- Runway - Runway is a global AI research and media company working with the world’s top film studios, production companies, agencies, and brands. Building foundational AI research models and creative tools that are empowering a new production paradigm.
- Suno - Whether you have a melody in your head, lyrics you've written, or just a feeling you want to hear - Suno makes high-quality music creation accessible to all.
- Cast Magic - Claims to be the fastest way to automate your content workflow with AI.
- Perplexity - An American web search engine that uses a large language model to process queries and synthesize responses based on web search results. They are giving Google search a run for their money.
- Grok - "A free AI assistant designed by xAI to maximize truth and objectivity." Grok offers real-time search, image generation, trend analysis, and more.
- Meta AI - Meta AI is a research division of Meta Platforms that develops artificial intelligence and augmented and artificial reality technologies.
- Poppy AI - It can watch a YouTube video, listen to a voice note, and analyze an image all at once.
- Opus Clip - OpusClip turns long videos into shorts, and publishes them to all social platforms in one click.
- DALLE 3 - Understands significantly more nuance and detail than the previous systems, allowing you to easily translate your ideas into exceptionally accurate images.
- Mid Journey - Allows you to convert text into images.
- Speechify - Their voice cloning technology allows you to upload a recording of yourself to generate custom voices and audio files at scale.
- Fathom - Records, transcribes, highlights, and summarizes your meetings so you can focus on the conversation. Bonus: it's HIPAA Compliant.
- Grain - Gives accurate meeting summaries, account insights, and coaching suggestions built for teams.
- Poe - Allows you to combine and use multiple models at one time by switching between them to compare results.
While there are hundreds of other technology options available that may be more specific to your role, these are meant to give you an idea of what is possible. If there's something you want assistance with, there's probably a tool available to help.
Some AI advancements we are watching ...
Google AI's answers are continuing to evolve bringing Gemini directly into the search results page with its AI Mode option. The answers used are still being pulled directly from websites with relevant content and answers. Which is why we will still always tell you to not rely on AI to write all your website content. Read more about that here.
Our development team is still closely monitoring the best approach to AI in their work. While there are plenty of programs that can output code, it takes a trained developer to be able to input the request and shape the model for output. There's also the security side of things ... faster output that risks customer data isn't worth it to us.
Our designers are not using AI to create cute cartoonish outputs, because who really needs their office objects and brand names turned into rainbow-colored graphics?
However, the advancements in video creation and generative fill images are helpful to ensure our projects have a quality output when the original source material is lacking.
Using AI in the Workplace
It's becoming increasingly more necessary for businesses to adopt AI usage policies. It will keep everyone on the same page about what is acceptable (ie. uploading your own voice for AI creation) and what isn't acceptable (ie. uploading a professional voice actor's sample audio for AI creation) when it comes to using a variety of tools. While most people have gotten used to the AI notetakers in their Zoom or Teams meetings, it's still always good to share with clients why you're using it and how the information will be used post-meeting. By creating transparency you'll build psychological safety in your conversation, which will ultimately lead to more open dialog and better partnerships over time.
These types of policies are even more important in sensitive environments like healthcare or financial sectors, so putting one in place before employees are off using hundreds of different solutions without any guidelines is imperative.
