A Comprehensive Guide to Essential AI Tools

AI tools have gained considerable relevance in today’s rapidly changing technological landscape due to their ability to improve efficiency, automate tasks, and facilitate better decision-making processes. 

However, there is an ongoing debate regarding their potential benefits and drawbacks, and it’s crucial to carefully evaluate their use to ensure optimal results while mitigating any potential risks.

But, first of all, it is necessary to define what is meant by an AI tool:

An AI tool, or Artificial Intelligence tool, is a software application that utilizes artificial intelligence technologies like Natural Language Generation (NLG), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and machine learning to simulate human intelligence and automate processes that typically require human intervention. Although AI tools can automate tasks, enhance decision-making, and streamline workflows, they cannot entirely replace human intelligence: tasks that require critical thinking, ethical decision-making, and empathy are beyond AI’s capabilities, limiting its potential. Nonetheless, Artificial Intelligence remains valuable in various industries when combined with human input.

As you consider implementing AI tools to optimize your business operations and gain a competitive edge, it’s crucial to navigate the potential pros and cons of these advanced systems.

Let’s explore them!

The Pros And Cons Of AI Tools

An AI tool is a software or platform that can perform automated tasks, analyze vast chunks of data quickly and accurately, and even make predictions based on algorithms without requiring human intervention. 

AI touches base in many systems—customer relations, HR, security fraud systems, and so on. It is also prevalent in marketing, where data models and algorithms are used to understand customer needs and produce products and services that sell.

While AI-generated content is expected to become more sophisticated through machine learning, it is important to recognize that search engines like Google currently classify such content as spam. This means that businesses and individuals must use caution when considering the use of AI tools for content creation and ensure that their strategies comply with established guidelines.

So, if you’re eager to take your business operations to the next level, you might be considering the implementation of AI tools. But before you dive in, it’s crucial to understand both the potential benefits – such as streamlined workflows and enhanced productivity – and the potential drawbacks, including ethical considerations and the need for careful evaluation.

Fortunately, we’re here to help you navigate these pros and cons, empowering you to make informed decisions about how to best leverage AI tools for your business success!

The Good, Aka The Pros

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can create a smarter world. Here’s how it does that:

1. Minimizing Human Error

Ai reduces the risk of human error in execution and processing by applying a particular set of algorithms, cutting losses, and eliminating bias and blind spots. However, it is not completely immune to errors: it can also introduce new errors if the algorithms or data are flawed.

2. repetitive tasks

Artificial Intelligence can perform repetitive tasks without getting bored or tired, something humans can’t do, which can affect market demands. This will streamline campaigns, make your marketing effective by pulling keywords, phrases, and ideas from SEO-optimized content, and generate leads with the highest probability of converting into sales. However, this also means that it lacks the creativity, flexibility, and adaptability of humans and it may also require a significant upfront investment in data, training, and maintenance.

3. Availability

AI is available 24×7 without hampering productivity, a far cry from the 3-4 hours of productivity humans bring to the job. This could enhance the customer experience, paving the way for better leads and sales. Furthermore, the non-stop operation of AI can help businesses meet the demands of a globalized marketplace, where customers and competitors may be located in different time zones.

4. Pattern detection

It detects patterns, numbers, and even facial features, so you can unlock your phone just by looking at it, get advanced writing suggestions, and get vetted codes without going through trial and error.  This also raises concerns about surveillance, privacy, and consent. It is important to balance the benefits of AI with the risks and trade-offs it entails. 

5. Decision Making

AI considers a range of factors to make logical decisions quickly and efficiently. There are no feelings or emotions involved, so there’s little risk of any influence motivating a certain outcome over the others and this means that it could also not produce optimal or ethical outcomes. AI can amplify biases and stereotypes if the data or algorithms reflect them. It can also lack transparency and explainability, making it hard for humans to understand, audit, or challenge its decisions.

6. Solving Problems

AI can foster innovation and solve complex problems, but this requires collaboration and alignment with human values, needs, and aspirations. AI should not be seen as a replacement for human creativity, wisdom, or agency, but as a complementary tool that augments and empowers human potential.

Keep in mind that while most machine-learning tools offer these benefits, the extent they help depends on how well the tool or software is designed and programmed.

The Bad, Aka The Cons

Artificial Intelligence (AI) may be a game changer, but it’s not devoid of areas that could use some work. These include but are not limited to:

1. Not Always Optimized Content

While AI can generate content at a rapid pace, it may not be tailored to the specific needs of your niche. This lack of customization could potentially harm your search engine rankings, as the content may not be optimized for the keywords or phrases that your target audience is searching for. It is essential to strike a balance between the speed and efficiency of AI-generated content and the customization required to meet the specific needs of your niche.

2. Danger of Biased AI

AI tools can be biased if the data fed to them shows discrimination against a certain set of people. For instance, Amazon’s recruiting tool’s bias against female candidates. This bias can perpetuate and even amplify existing societal inequalities, so it is really important to address them and ensure that AI systems are designed to be fair and unbiased.

3. Sedentary Lifestyle and Plagiarism

Artificial Intelligence tools automate the majority of the work, so there’s a risk that humans could get addicted to the ease of life it promises and develops a sedentary lifestyle. Don’t forget that there’s a risk of plagiarism, as AI pulls content from other sources. To avoid plagiarism, it is crucial to properly attribute sources and review the content generated by AI tools before publishing or sharing it. Additionally, researchers and developers are working on improving AI algorithms to ensure that they are more creative and adaptable to new situations, which could potentially reduce the risk of plagiarism and other limitations of current AI technology.

4. Inconsistencies, Dependence on Clean Data, and Censorship

AI may present inconsistencies due to redundancy and variation in information provided for learning. In fact, AI systems are trained on existing data, which means that they can only generate ideas or solutions that are already present in the data. This limits their ability to create something truly novel or innovative. AI cannot think outside of the box and need a lot of clean, high-quality data and updates, without which the algorithm is prone to mistakes. It’s why bots censor a place’s name because it has an expletive in it. 

5. Lack of Creativity And Imagination

AI lacks the human component—creativity and brings social dilemmas, failing to engage the customer base with fresh perspectives and ideas. Also, creativity often involves intuition, emotions, and the ability to think outside the box. While AI tools can process large amounts of data and identify patterns, they lack the emotional intelligence and intuition that human beings possess. AI tools do not have the same level of imagination as humans. They can only generate ideas based on what they have been programmed to do and cannot deviate from that programming. Overall, while AI tools are improving rapidly, they still cannot replicate the complex and nuanced creativity that human beings possess.

6. AI Tools Struggle to Achieve EEAT in Content Creation

Google rates content based on EEAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) and AI may not meet the criteria if the copy is not edited to focus on “trust” and “expertise”. EEAT content is typically produced by experts who have the necessary knowledge, experience, and qualifications to provide reliable information. While AI tools can generate content by analyzing data, they lack the same level of expertise and nuanced judgment as human experts. This makes it challenging for AI to produce trustworthy content in fields like medicine, finance, law, and other areas where expertise is critical. Therefore, human experts are still essential for producing reliable and trustworthy EEAT content.

7. Lack of Empathy

Customers find chatbots cold and unwelcoming, with 86% saying they’d prefer humans. So, when you leave the heavy lifting to AI, you risk losing business owing to a lack of human contact, particularly in the case of older customers. 

8. Privacy and Security

Concerns surrounding data privacy and security could make the user susceptible to cyber attacks, identity thefts, and other nefarious activities. Incorporating transparent data privacy policies and security technologies into AI tools can mitigate such concerns and build trust with customers. By ensuring that the customer’s personal information is protected, AI tools can facilitate seamless and secure interaction between the customer and the business.

AI is a powerful tool for business, but you cannot rely on it entirely. It can give you good drafts but cannot make creative decisions or use analytical thinking to get out of a tight spot if the marketing gig goes wrong. As a result, you must use a combination of the two because, ultimately, humans are the epicenter of the complex field of marketing.

AI Tools Trends and Forecasts 

95% of companies have now integrated AI into their marketing strategy, 44% of which indicate they’ve gone all the way. 

It reflects in its growth, with North America leading the bandwagon with a market size of $51 billion in 2021, while the overall market size could reach $407 billion with a CAGR of 36.2% by 2027.

The USA, India, and China will lead the growth of artificial intelligence skills in the labor market, although Israel and Germany will not be too far behind in the race.

That’s not to say that the AI-powering field will be devoid of challenges. 

Tech giants will have their work cut out for them in the coming years due to a limited number of AI experts and data security and privacy concerns.

Hire a Web Agency to Achieve Your Goals

With the advent of AI technology, you can now use algorithms and natural language processing tools to create highly targeted campaigns. This will allow you to connect with customers on a deeper level, driving sales by heaps and bounds. 

Contact us to understand how we can make AI work for you. 

Top AI Tools Everyone Should Use

Whether you’re a freelancer or own a full-scale business, there are countless Ai-tools that can take your business to the next level.

That said, you can explore their many benefits and tweak their use to your unique needs. 

AI Marketing Tools 

IBM Watson Marketing

IBM’s Watson Marketing is an efficient analytical tool that takes care of complex conversation flows with a degree of confidence while being beginner-friendly. It uses machine learning to offer insights, which can be used to predict outcomes, form deeper connections, personalize ads, and fuel strategic growth.

ChatGPT

Let’s start with the viral sensation: ChatGPT. 

This AI-powered conversational technology, created by OpenAI, provides human-like responses to text prompts or statements in seconds, acts as a brainstorming tool, and even spells out a computer code when asked.

Persado

Persado is the MVP of personalization, covering all bases in the customer journey to create maximum impact. It does this with mathematical certainty and with language mapped to act and respond to human emotions to make hyperdrive growth possible.

Inkforall

INK is an all-in-one content platform; it offers co-writing, SEO optimization, outlines, and real-time suggestions for spelling and grammar to help you rank high on search engines and drive organic traffic. It also has an AI content shield, which ensures your article doesn’t read like a machine-generated one.

What’s more? With a paid plan, you can get access to AI image generation. 

Outranking.io

Outranking has a “concepts” feature that allows you to do a SERP analysis, create outlines, content briefs, and drafts with title tags, meta descriptions, “People Also Ask” questions, and so on. 

You can leave the copy as-is or tweak it to produce high-quality content hassle-free. It can accelerate your SEO performance, helping you get in front of the right people at the right time in their buyer journey. 

Oh, and it integrates with Google Docs and WordPress for a seamless workflow. 

AI Copywriting Tools

JasperAI

Jasper creates engaging copies tailored to your target audience in over 25 languages. These include social media posts, blogs, marketing copy, and SEO-driven articles. 

With their paid plan, you can access Jasper Chat and an AI art tool, which generates eye-catching images to accompany your written piece in a snap. 

Grammarly

Grammarly analyzes your content for spelling, grammar, inconsistencies in style, and structural errors to keep it sharp. It also suggests corrections, detects the tone, has a built-in plagiarism checker, and has a paid plan that won’t cost a bomb. 

Plus, it has a plug-in, allowing you to improve your writing across apps and websites.

Copy.ai

Copy.ai comes with 130+ templates you can use to create a wide variety of content, like blogs, LinkedIn ad copies, product descriptions, emails, and case studies. You only have to give it a little context, and it’ll generate content using GPT-3. Later, you can edit it using over 90+ inbuilt tools to make it yours. 

Neuronwriter

Neuronwriter leverages data from Google SERP and uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to generate excellent articles and social media posts with SEO optimization in over 170 languages. It also has an internal linking feature, which can get users directly to the page you want them to visit, and Competitor Analysis, which allows you to see their weak spots, so you can tweak your copy to gain a competitive advantage.

Quillbot

Quillbot.ai is a paraphrasing tool that helps you reuse your existing content without making it glaringly obvious. It has a 125-word limit on the free version, but if you upgrade to the premium version, you can use features that help you shorten or expand text, improve fluency and readability, and make the text more formal, simple, or creative. 

Besides this, it has a citation generator, plagiarism checker, and summarizer feature. 

SEO AI Tools

SurferSEO

Surfer SEO helps you optimize your copy and does a complete website audit, helping it rank higher than your competitors on search engines. It can also generate outlines, help you discover relevant topics, check the search intent of your target audience, alert you to potential gaps in your content, score your content based on keyword density and readability, and suggest internal linking opportunities. 

Oh, and it also has Grow Flow, which offers weekly SEO insights.

Scalenut

Scalenut gives you insights and a keyword plan for your niche, which you can use to build a content strategy using 40+ copywriting templates, NLP (Natural Language Processing), and NLU (Natural Language Understanding). It also offers real-time feedback, so you can optimize it to create content that outpaces your competition.

Plagiarism Detector

Plagiarism Detector uses advanced scanning techniques to detect plagiarized content. It analyzes your text on several touchpoints, including word choice and phrase matching, giving you unique content that won’t get into the crosshairs with SERP.

The best part? It provides downloadable PDF reports of the plagiarism search. 

Copyleaks

Copyleaks is an award-winning AI tool that helps you detect whether the content was written by humans or is AI-generated. Additionally, it has a built-in plagiarism detector that allows you to create unique content and provides educators with an AI grading feature to accurately access tests without bias or other external influences.  

Video Enhancer AI Tools  

Synthesia

Synthesia allows you to create high-quality videos in a matter of minutes. It supports videos to text for movies, games, or personal use in over 50 languages; all you have to do is select your AI presenter from one of the 70+ ultra-realistic avatars (you can even custom-create your own), enter your script, choose a voice, click on create, edit it post-production to include branding elements, and you have a unique video. 

Pictory.ai

Pictory helps you create and edit high-quality videos like a pro. Provide the AI tool with a script or blog link, and it’ll turn it into an engaging video that appeals to your audience on social media or your website. You could also use it to edit videos using text, which is beneficial for podcasts and webinars. 

What’s more? It also allows you to caption and summarize videos, create shareable video highlight reels, and has 3M+ royalty-free images and clips for your use. 

Elai.io

Elai has an extensive range of pre-made templates to churn out professional videos at scale in just three clicks.  Afterward, you can review and edit them to stay on top of your content strategy. It supports over 60 languages and has over 25 avatars you can choose from, although you can also create a personal avatar for branding. 

Lumen5

Lumen allows you to create a variety of video content from scratch or edit existing videos, and you don’t need any experience to master it! Just select a template, whether it’s social media, slideshows, or YouTube videos, type a script, and Lumen will come up with royalty-free videos and images to enhance your message (you can also upload your own), and click on download to generate realistic visuals. 

FlexClip

Flexclip has thousands of customizable templates, extensive text animations, and royalty-free images, helping you create high-quality videos. You can even use branding elements like text, music, and a custom watermark for a personalized look and add transitions and motion graphics to make it even more appealing. 

Text-to-Speech AI Tools

Lovo.ai

Lovo has over 180 AI voices across 33 languages, which you can search by demographics like age or gender, scenarios, or characters to find the best possible skin. All you have to do is import the text, and Lovo will do the heavy lifting for you. 

Murf.ai

Murf does text-to-speech, voice-overs, and dictations in 100+ human-sounding voices and dialect styles from over 20 languages, with customization available for tone, purpose, pitch, speed, and volume. It also checks the grammar in your script, allows you to edit the text like a Word document, and has a voice changer feature that lets you record your own voice to capture your audience’s attention.

Speechify.com

Speechify has the power to turn any text—be it PDFs, emails, or docs into natural-sounding audio in over 30 voices. It can identify more than 15 languages when processing the text and allows you to save the converted audio across devices. 

The best part? You can adjust the reading speed to your preferences.

Speechelo

Speechelo allows users to convert written text into words in a wide range of voices and accents. It lets you choose expressions, pauses, voice tones, speed, and pitch, allowing you to create engaging voiceovers tailored to your target audience. 

It supports 23 languages, helping you reach a broader consumer base.

Synthesys.io

Synthesys allows you to type a script in over 66 languages, select from one of the 74 “humatars” available to relay information in different voices and tones, and generate a dynamic explainer or product video roughly a minute long. It also has audio-only capabilities, so you can use it to create voice-overs. 

Want to focus on branding? Synthesys has editing tools that can take care of that.  

Social Media AI Tools

Vista Social

Vista Social connects to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and TikTok—basically, all platforms where your audience hangs out. The all-in-one app allows you to adjust the length of your posts according to the platform, add fact-checked stats, and takes care of scheduling, engagement, review tracking, and more.

BuzzSumo

Buzzsumo helps you identify topics related to your business and analyzes their reach and evergreen score, among other factors, to gauge their scalability. It also helps you  identify influencers who can take your business to new heights. 

Autodraw.com

Autodraw by Google Creative Lab has a sketch recognition feature that compares your doodles and sketches with professional clip art. It then turns them into amazing visuals, giving your social media posts and stories a dash of artistic glamor.

Predis.ai

Predis.ai generates a range of posts—caption + image and/or video or an Instagram carousel—with just a couple of words for a prompt. Plus, you can switch the design, color scheme, and other elements to tailor the content for your business.

It also offers core stats about your account and what worked (and what didn’t!) for your competition via Competitive Analysis, which can improve your rankings.

Ocoya.com

Ocoya combines the power of social media scheduling with 56 copywriter templates, eliminating writer’s block and time constraints. A couple of clicks is all it takes to create an interesting post, and you can make it even more relevant by adding emojis, images, and hashtags to reach your target audience quickly and easily. 

Conclusion

The AI tools discussed in this blog cover just the tip of the iceberg: they only scratch the surface of what’s possible. 

With so many exciting possibilities out there, you can unlock a whole new world of ideas and get more done in less time. Of course, it’s essential to keep in mind that AI is just a tool, and it can’t replace the human touch. So, when crafting your marketing strategy, trust your instincts and use your judgment.

If you’re looking to explore the endless possibilities of digital marketing, contact Mediaboom today! Our team of experts is always ready to help you achieve your business goals and stay ahead of the competition. Let’s chat and see how we can take your digital presence to the next level!