AI as a tool for your company

If you haven’t heard about ChatGPT at this point, you might be living under a rock. No judgment, but every post on my LinkedIn account for six months has highlighted every headline hyping the artificial intelligence race to efficiency in the workplace. It’s all the rage, right?

As a business coach helping companies strategize their leadership roadmap every 90 days, I’ve been fielding a lot of questions about how new AI tools, like ChatGPT, can help or hurt their organizations in the short-term and long-term future.

I’m hearing from executives that they have heard of it; however, they haven’t tried it out yet. Or they’ve tried it once, but they won’t help to realize all the applicable ways it could benefit their leadership team. Do you know where your team could start to learn more?

Several of my fellow Scaling Up business coaches from around the globe were also receiving questions, so we put our heads together and came up with a fairly comprehensive list of newer tools that have cropped up in recent years that may be of interest in your AI journey to decide which technology toolset is right for you.

Here’s a list of AI-based or smart-technology resources you and your team may find useful sooner rather than later. Of course, this field is rapidly evolving by the minute, so this article may even be outdated before it’s set to press, but we all must start somewhere, right?

Scan the list, see what sticks out, and start there… with just one tool. You never know where it can lead – increased efficiencies, higher profit margins, more effective results – the sky is the limit!

ChatGPT

ChatGPT can answer questions and carry out requests in text form based on information from the Internet. It can generate speeches, songs, marketing copy, news articles, and even student essays. Instead of turning to Google to type a prompt and receive an organized list of links, you’d turn to ChatGPT to type a prompt and watch it create the answer right before your eyes. It’s not your average “search engine” – it’s a “creation engine.” Many new toolsets you’re hearing about are “powered by ChatGPT” or similar generators.

• Try it out

Synthesia

Web-based AI platform for creating videos using AI-generated avatars and voices. You must see this one to believe it! We’re not talking about simple drawings or cartoon characters like you’re building on your iPhone memes and Wii Fit characters. These look like real-life actors speaking the words you type into the script. Think website videos, how-to videos, employee onboarding, and online training!

• Try it out

TLDRThis

Free online text summarizing tool that will take any piece of larger text and condense it into a concise, easy-to-digest format. Shorter content frees you from information overload, and that Tower of Guilt we’re all carrying around of articles to read “someday.” TLDRThis does offer a free plan online at this time.

• Try it out

Descript

All-in-one tool for transcription, podcasting, screen recording, and audio/video editing. Descript offers a free plan. Some of this stuff, you’ve got to visually see it spring to life because words simply don’t do it justice. Search them on YouTube for real-life examples of all the bells and whistles this audio-visual recording app can assist with.

• Try it out

Jotform

Web and app-based tool that helps users create forms online without any coding. You can even accept payment, generate reports, and automate workflows from the forms. Currently, starter packages include up to 5 free forms to begin. 

• Try it out

Originality

With the proliferation of writing tools such as Jasper, and all of the AI writing tools that use variants of GPT, there is a need for business owners to be able to detect when writing is generated by AI. Originality.ai solves this problem, it can scan an entire website for AI-generated content or plagiarism, and it can do so in a cost-effective manner. This is the best solution for content publishers that hire writers and worry if the content is generated by AI.

• Try it out

Zapier

An online platform that helps you automate your tasks. It’s been around longer than ChatGPT brought about the “AI” craze, but it’s a terrific piece of technology that thousands, if not millions, of users, utilize to pair pieces of software together so it can share data from one platform to the next, or even automate step 1 and step 2 of any process within your office right now. Zapier currently still offers a free edition for basic automation services.

• Try it out

Dall-E 2

AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language. Got 3 Company Core Values? Want to create a poster of each core value without having to hire a graphic designer – boom, done.

• Try it out

Midjourney

“Midjourney is an independent research lab exploring new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species.” Yes, I know – this didn’t mean much to me either until Scaling Up Coaches began using it, similar to Dall-E 2 in the creation of art, designs, and illustrations with no design training.

• Try it out

Notion

Write articles and blogs for your company website, e-newsletter, or social media platforms faster with Notion.

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CoolGiftIdeas

An AI that lets you find unique gifts for people based on the description you provide. Now that’s fun! Amp up your client relationship building with this out-of-the-box thinking.

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Jasper

Jasper writes your marketing for you in seconds. Artificial intelligence makes creating content for your blog, social media, website, and other marketing materials fast and easy. Jasper offers a free 10,000-word trial for you to test if it is right for your company, product, or service.

• Try it out

Seamless.AI

Sales software to assist your team in finding verified cell phones, emails, and direct dials, for anyone you’re looking to sell to. Currently, they are offering a free plan.

• Try it out

Flair

This is an AI Design Tool for Branded Content where your organization can generate entire photoshoots in less than a minute! Really? The world is getting so high-tech, isn’t it? Flair can include your content in your brand’s signature style and offers a free plan for up to 642 designs.

• Try it out

Axiom

No-code browser automation tool. If your data entry team needs to save time – use browser bots to automate website action; that is a repetitive task, just as your iPhone probably starts to fill in commonly used fields for you like your name, email address, address, city, or state.

• Try it out

Writesonic

A user-friendly tool that can create SEO-optimized content for your blogs, ads, emails, and website. This AI tool will be faster than manually creating the words from scratch as step one, then moving to step two to Google or run it through an SEO tool later. Do it all at once with this technique in one fell swoop – similar to Jasper, Notion, and WordAI listed here. Lately, Writesonic had free trials offered for one user up to 10,000 words. 

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Ranked AI

SEO platform & service that helps you acquire more customers organically.

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Beautiful AI

AI software that helps design engaging presentations.

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Outranking

Outranking helps content teams achieve predictable content success with Al assistance by creating SEO content toward higher organic traffic. If your business has a marketing department regularly creating blogs and social media posts to spread your message, you may want to check out this toolset to see if it can expedite their current manual method, similar to Writesonic and others now available.

• Try it out

Kartiv

Advanced tool to edit and configure every element in the creative. Helps use words to inspire your visuals. 

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Pixelhunter

Smart AI image resizer for media publications and even a free image resizer for social media. Got high-resolution images you want to be bulk exported to low resolution for faster loaded on the web? Got images you want to blast out to multiple social media channels, but each one has a unique height and width pattern for Twitter versus LinkedIn? This may help save time.

• Try it out

Article Forge

Article Forge is a personal writing tool that ensures generated content passes plagiarism detectors out there. It also allows bulk article generation and has the option to customize article style. Recently, Article Forge was offering new customers a brief 5-day free trial. You may need to review several writing AI apps to determine which works best for your needs, as a new one seems to be cropping up almost daily in 2023!

• Try it out

Tinywow

This platform helps solve file conversion problems, offering assistance with PDF, video, image, and other online tools to hopefully make your life easier, one file at a time.

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Genially

Tool that allows you to create infographics, presentations, and even escape games.

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WordAI

It creates new content by spinning and rewriting paragraphs and sentences. If your brain feels stuck on autopilot with a routine vocabulary, this could help you pull out of a writing rut. You can even import articles from other AI tech on my list, like ArticleForge and WordAI. This application also allows bulk rewrites and is currently offering a 3-day free trial. 

• Try it out

Content ideas

Powerful content discovery and content research tool.

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Looka

AI-powered graphic design platform that lets you design a brand identity from scratch.

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Rytr

Rytr AI is a writing assistant that helps in creating high-quality content in seconds – from blogs to emails and even ad copy. The auto-generated writing is intended to be catchy and original. It claims the Rytr high-converting copy can be provided in popular writing tones or languages, so if you’re a multilingual firm with global offices in many geographic locations, this may interest you. They offer a free plan of up to 10,000 characters per month.

• Try it out

Namelix

Free business name generator that uses artificial intelligence. Generate a short, brandable business name. This is for the brainstorming session where you sit and stare at a blank sheet of paper for far too long, or you look up all your Top 3 business names only to find out they are trademarked or the URL is no longer available for purchase!

• Try it out

Copy AI

An advanced AI assistant for creating online content, which offers a free account of up to 2,000 words a month. 

• Try it out

Murf

Murf enables anyone to convert text to speech, voice-overs, and dictations, and it is used by a wide range of professionals like product developers, podcasters, educators, and business leaders. Murf does offer a free plan. 

• Try it out

Fireflies

AI meeting assistant that uses NLP to eliminate the need for note-taking during a meeting. Offers a free plan with 800 mins of storage. 

• Try it out

Jenni

An AI writing assistant that generates content based on your short input.

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AdCreative

Generates conversation-focused advertising creative and social media posts using Artificial Intelligence.

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Lately

Create social posts directed at your audience. Currently offering a 7-day free trial.

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Echspy

Shopify store analysis tool that helps you quickly learn about your competitors.

• Try it out

Upscale

This AI tool upscales images automatically and offers a free account, up to 45 credits.

• Try it out

Feeling overwhelmed yet? You’re not alone. We are all learning these things together.

My advice is to start small. Pick just three things from the list that sounded intriguing this Quarter. Challenge yourself to look at one of the three every month throughout your business 90-Day sprint. You may decide a tool is right for your team, or you may research and find it is not right for your product/service. Either way, you’ll be more knowledgeable each step of the way.

After all, if you don’t start researching and learning about them now, when will you ever make the time?

Final Note: Software is not listed in any particular order and is not endorsed as a great toolset for your agency. This is simply a reference list compiled by many coaches with clients using one or more of these services to expedite tasks within their organizations.