Ai Tools you can use today
So many new tools have been released, all with promises of extreme productivity. I wanted to take this week's post and break out a few that I have found helpful.
Research-Based Ai Tools
AOMNI.com
Aomni is an ai assistant designed to help you research topics. The app is still in early beta, and the free version lets you conduct two daily searches. The pro version is $49/month if you like it and need more searches. The image below is of a simple task, and one of the good things about Aomni is that it shows you its work. The system took my request, broke down the steps, and set off to perform the job.
Bing.com (Edge+Bing+BingChat+BingGPT)
I have always been a big Google fan. I have used Chromebooks and ChromeBoxes over the years. A big part of being 'in-the-cloud' and not relying on specific computer hardware is my affection for Chrome/Google. In the last six months, I have gone from everything in Chrome/Google to Edge/Bing, and it has been great. This is one change I have a hard time believing I am so in love with.
My day is more productive because the Bing button in Edge pulls up the sidebar that lets me;
Chat - this is Bing's GPT-powered chat, and it is based on GPT3.5, but I don't need to fight the traffic at OpenAi. It is just there and works.
Compose - this is Bing's write things for me. It has a few options for paragraphs, emails, posts, or ideas.
ChatGPT
OpenAi's ChatGPT is, of course, the best of the best, and the team at OpenAi have changed how we think about search and information. The company has a free version based on v.3.5 (which is what is powering Bing), but for $20/mo you can access v.4o, which is trained with much more parameters.
GPTBoss.com
I have been a big fan of Mackenzie for six months, which is a long time in this space. Behind the scenes, he is using ChatGPT 3.5 and 4, depending on your request. One aspect of GPT anything is that you need to pre-prompt the system, which is what GPTBoss does for you. The concept is that you are the boss and must talk to finance, legal, marketing, research, operations, etc. The system has "experts" that are pre-trained and waiting to have a contextualized conversation with you. A free version is available, and paid versions range from $20/mo to $100/mo, depending on the number of tokens you need.
Poe.com
Poe is an interface to use other GPT systems. What I like about Poe is the mobile app, which I can use to access Claude. Claude is the GPT from Antheropic. Anthreropic is working on an Ai that isn't training data-based but instead uses a constitution. The team gives Claude the rules to live by, and then the system churns through data and makes its own decisions. If you are comfortable with APIs, you can go right to Anthropic and request access, but for us mortals, we need to use a gateway like Poe.
Perplexity.ai
When researching a topic or asking GPT to do something for me, I like to have sources of information. Where did it learn that information? With Perplexity, I get the answers that I am looking for, but it not only cites their sources and links to the material, but I can pivot and adjust my conversation, and Perplexity keeps pace with me.
Tome.app
Tome is an Ai presentation creation tool. Their platform has prompts for you that will turn into a modern presentation. The company has built-in integrations with Figma, Miro, AirTable, and more so that your presentation can have a working moc-up of concepts.
Mem.ai
Mem.ai is a note-taking app that leverages Ai, so you do not need to organize things. If you use OneNote, EverNote, or Notion, mem.ai may interest you. I would love it if the team at Notion would buy this company and let it loose on my Notion workspaces.
Prompt Box
Prompt box stores your prompts, lets you edit them, and reuse them across various GPT-based systems. The company has released the app as a Chrome add-on, and as I mentioned earlier, I am using Edge, but that is OK because Edge is based on the Chrome engine, so you can add the add-on to Edge, and it works great.
MyMind
MyMind is another extension that saves things to your mind and uses Ai to do all the organization for you. All you need to do is click the + icon (once you load the extension) and let the system do the rest. I love that you can click on images, and it saves them. Want to remember some text? All you need to do is highlight it and right-click "add to mymind".
Rewind.ai
Rewind is for M1 and M2 Mac computers and will freak you out. They do not use cloud-based Ai; instead, the app leverages the Mac's ML engine and will keep everything local to your machine. Once you load the app and give it a frightening amount of security permissions, the app will start recording everything you do. Let me say that again; it will record everything! Everything you do, read, see, hear, and watch on that computer. Then when you launch the app, it will be able to search everything based on your keyword or prompt. If you ask about an email you read earlier, it knows and will summarise your interaction with that email and the context of what you were working on. I loaded it on an old MacMini and used it for 45 min before I was freaked out at how good it was.
Image-Based Ai Tools
Lexica.art
Lexica is a stable diffusion search engine. The site lets you search images, and when you find something similar to your need, it gives you the prompt to create it. When you have the prompt that was used, you can then change it to meet your needs or copy and paste it into other image generators.
Adobe Firefly
Firefly is available in closed beta, meaning you must request access and wait to be let in. If you already use the Adobe stack, you should sign up. The community is active and shares a lot of examples of what can be done with it. I got to see a little of it when I was at the iiEx conference in Amsterdam.
Luma.ai
Luma is an iOS app that helps you to create NeRFs. What are NeRFs? I am glad you asked, and until I found this, I was thinking of the soft guns that the kids use. NeRF stands for Neural Radiance Field. That doesn't help. It means you can take your iPhone, take a photo, and turn that into a 3D image you can edit. The tool also lets you turn any aspect of your picture into a portal or be able to change the background as if you had a green screen, but you don't need a green screen. The app is available at; https://apps.apple.com/in/app/luma-ai/id1615849914
Runway
Runway is a photo and video editor that uses Ai to do a ton of editing. You can generate videos, generate images, and one wild feature is that you can infinitely expand an image. If the image you created needs a bit more background, you can use this feature to have the system keep going, creating more and more of the scene until you get what you need. There is a free version to get you started, and then you can get the standard for $12/mo or pro for $28/mo.
Kaiber.ai
Kaiber is a competitor to Runway and also is focused on image and video with Ai. With their free version, you can create a 30-second video to see if it meets your needs before you drop any money.
Synthesia.io
Synthesia is a video tool that is focused on narration. You can input your script, choose the actress/actor of your choice, and their ai will generate the video for you. This can be great for explainer videos. This is an excellent alternative if you need more time or budget for professional video production. You need to pay for their service, and pricing starts at $30/mo for ten videos.
Leonardo.ai
Leonardo is focused on game asset creation. The company is in invite beta, so you need to request access. I am hopeful for this company because I envision having many project assets and icons generated that I can use for projects.
This area is developing rapidly, and there are many that I have tried which didn't make it into my list. What tools have you tried? What has been helpful for you and become part of your daily work?
