Whether you are an instructional designer, content creator, graphic designer, marketing manager, teacher, writer, editor—or anyone else—you need to know the top AI tools for learning and design to speed up your workflow and enhance your creativity. There’s AI-powered tools for copywriting, graphic design, video, music, narration, etc. Check out futuretools.io to find something new. For more information on best practices for AI tools, please refer to our guide. In the meantime, let’s expand your toolkit.
AI Tools for Brainstorming, Writing, and Editing
OpenAI’s ChatGTP ignited the AI chatbot revolution upon its release in November 2022. While many tools use the ChatGTP dataset and API, big-name competitors have joined the AI Chatbot race. While I certainly use the original, ChatGTP, I’ve found success using a variety of Chatbots in my work utilizing their unique strengths in a synergistic manner. ChatGPT excels in its versatility, consistently delivering high-quality text across various genres and tasks. I’ve noticed good thoroughness and creativity from Google Bard and great information sourcing from Bing Chat and Perplexity.
For brainstorming, writing, and editing, I rely on ChatGPT and Bard, while Bing Chat and Perplexity serve as my go-to research tools due to their accurate online references and resource-finding capabilities.
Other useful tools with AI writing power-ups include Grammarly and Notion. Grammarly, a powerful add-on, provides immediate feedback and suggestions, enabling writers to refine their work and elevate their writing quality. Notion, a versatile tool that doubles as project management software, serves as an excellent platform for drafting text, organizing ideas, and maintaining knowledge bases. Both Grammarly and Notion have streamlined my writing process and enhanced my productivity.
The integration of AI into writing and communication tools has undoubtedly transformed the way we create and consume information. By harnessing the power of AI, we can enhance our writing skills, improve our communication, and expand our knowledge base. As AI technology continues to evolve, we can expect even more innovative and transformative tools to emerge, further shaping the future of communication and learning.
AI for Image Generation
Midjourney made a notable debut in July 2022, impressing with its early models that emphasized style and creativity. Subsequent updates have bolstered its versatility, enabling users to generate highly realistic images with control over aspect ratio, style, and more. Despite a surge of image-generating tools in Midjourney’s wake (pun intended, because their logo is a boat), few can match its capabilities. Dall-e, a prominent competitor, predates Midjourney, and it excels in realism and understanding all the context and details of your prompt. Both tools have their strengths. I’ve used Midjourney for more than a year in various creative projects and consider Midjourney my favorite (it must be noted that I haven’t tried Dall-e within ChatGPT 4). Here’s a good comparison of the two I found online: MidJourney vs. DALL-E 3: Head to Head Prompt Battle (howtogeek.com)
We can’t discuss AI for design without covering Adobe Firefly. While Adobe’s dedicated image generator lacks some of Midjourney’s versatility, the ability to use Firefly within Adobe’s applications (Photoshop, Express, and Illustrator) makes it an invaluable tool. Photoshop features such as inpainting and generative expand contribute to enhanced precision and control over results. While Dall-e does offer similar features, the quality of its results can be unpredictable.
The following prompt was used to generate the images in this section: A creative artist mixed with robot artificial intelligence holding a paintbrush, abstract illustration, futuristic, technology
AI for Voiceover Generation
Text-to-speech voice-over is a relatively old technology yet has made serious strides in recent years. Previously, text-to-speech lacked convincing authenticity, but recent advancements have changed that. It’s important to be transparent and recognize the use of AI-generated content, especially when photos or voices can be mistaken for a real person (famous or otherwise).
I find that Elevenlabs produces incredibly unique and realistic voices. Wellsaid and Descript also work great, and where they lack in realism, they make up for in flexibility and control—the voice quality is still quite good, however. They allow rerendering of certain sections at a time, and Descript has video editing tools. All offer free trials and have different features and price points.
AI Tools for Music Generation
While I don’t always consider music tracks a must in my instructional design work, it adds extra spice to video projects. My current go-to, however, remains human-created stock music from somewhere like Envato Elements. I’ve experimented with some AI tools, but haven’t yet used their results in a project. Mubert has potential and Text-To-Song is interesting but not something I anticipate using very much.
Did I miss something? What are your tool preferences? Leave your comments below.
This article was written and edited in part using generative AI.
Looking for affordable, pre-made AI stock images?
