This article was penned in October 2023. All the tools mentioned here evolve every single day. Keep this in mind while reading this article.

No, not everything labeled “AI” is useful or well-designed. As professionals, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to discern genuinely useful tools from the mediatic noise. Many of the tools being pushed by blogs will likely vanish in a few months due to a lack of real value proposition. This article aims to highlight the tools that we believe hold real power in content creation (for us professionals), versus the same copy-pasted list of tools all blogs are showing.

This review comes from the actual usage of the following tools and a significant experience in content creation, both in agencies and with advertisers.

1. AI for Analysis & Research (before content creation)

This is where AI magic truly shines. Many (non-skilled) individuals believe that AI is about generating ideas or taking care of the creative part. It’s mainly in research and analysis where AI truly excels. And all creatives and strategists need solid research to come up with big ideas.

Perplexity AI: Real-time news

Perplexity has a tremendous capability to scan the web for the latest articles around a topic. A task where ChatGPT, as much as we love it, still isn’t quite adept. Bing from Microsoft is also worth mentioning.

Claude AI: Making the right strategic choices

Claude is the math and strategy geek. See this tool as the socially awkward friend with a 180 IQ who is at the top of the class despite their total lack of social skills. Claude is fantastic for logical reasoning, business strategy, business analysis, and making rational and logic-based decisions. It is also excellent for analyzing big chunks of text, maths, and plenty of other promising things. From a content creation perspective, Claude can help you think strategically before deciding on a type of content

OpenAI: Accelerating analysis

Our best buddy. Our Swiss Army knife. ChatGPT can significantly aid in analysis. But the real magic happens when you connect the API with other tools to massively analyze chunks of information. Using the Openai API has become drastically simple. For instance, transform your campaign reports into actionable insights thanks to Openai in Excel. ChatGPT goes well beyond the platform when it comes to analysis.

2. AI for Copy Writing

No, we do not believe AI can replace human creativity and the experience of a writer. However, there are tools that genuinely help in some steps of the writing process. But as promised, we stay real. We have tried Jasper and Copy AI, and we believe there are specific cases where writing tools are indeed useful, and other cases where Chatgpt can do the job.

When to use AI tools that are solely for writing (e.g., Jasper, Copy AI):

• You work as a CopyWriter and it makes sense for you to invest in multiple tools for this activity.

• You have a large volume of writing to do, and you need intuitive and quick automation.

• You work for a single brand and need to ensure the same brand guidelines for an entire team or across different channels.

• You do not need research, data analysis, or internet browsing in your writing work, you only need the writing and the creative part of the text.In all other scenarios, stick with ChatGPT for writing.

Why? Because you will most likely still need research, analysis or browsing verification, and most writing tools do not provide this.Because if you work with tons of brands, you will be constantly changing brand guidelines, instead of having just one. Most copy AI tools allow for multiple brand guidelines but only in the higher pricing subscriptions.Because if you truly master ChatGPT Plus, and utilize all the functions and proper prompting architecture, you can achieve pretty decent results without paying for additional tools, especially if you do other work besides Copy.

3. AI for Image creation

A lot of noise has been made around the new Dall-E 3 option in ChatGPT. And yes, it’s amazing. We confirm it. But mostly for specific types of visuals. The actual king of all AI images is, and will most likely always be, the one and only, Midjourney.

We also need to mention Ideogram here, which gained incredible global popularity in just 2 months of existence.

When to use Dall-E 3

For isometric, 3D visuals.For organic Social Media visuals that need to be done quickly.For non-realistic images (drawings, icons).

When to use Ideogram

When you need text in the image (but short).For poster-like compositions with letters.Quick organic Social Media.For T-shirt designs.

When to use Midjourney

For literally everything else. From cinematic, realistic photographic images to astonishing drawings. However, bare in mind Midjourney is far from intuitive, and you need a couple of weeks as learning curbe. It is the best in terms of results, and one of the most complicated to master.

4. AI for Image manipulation

This one is going to be short and sweet. Photoshop remains King. The way Above has stepped up the AI game is truly impressive. Yes, it is not intuitive and not everyone that is not a graphic designer can get around Photoshop. But when it comes to image manipulation, the new AI tools for Photoshop reminds us all why Adobe is a leader. In our opinion, you can ditch the apps and the “intuitive and simpler” competitors. If you want to get real in image manipulation, go straight to the king. No AI tool will be better than this for now.