10 AI Tools Revolutionizing the Content Landscape

The realm of AI tools is rapidly evolving. In fact, by the time we publish this article, we’ll probably see new makers hit the market.

What was once a niche AI product is now among the many options that have gone mainstream. At Explainify, we know adopting new technology is critical for all roles, from managers and creatives to C-suite executives. 

In this article, we’re giving you an overview of the AI tools reshaping the content landscape. And since there are dozens (maybe hundreds…) of these AI-powered tools flooding the market, we’ll stay focused on the tools we think you need to know about now.

We have more detailed summaries on each of these tools at the bottom of the article, but if you’re starting from scratch, we recommend trying:

• ChatGPT and Jasper for written content
• Synthesis.io for AI audio and voiceover generation
• SoundRaw as a music generator
• MidJourney and Jasper Art for image generation

In this series, we’ll look at domain-specific tools and deeper examples of use cases. For now, scroll to the bottom of the article for an in-depth breakdown of the 10 AI tools our team is testing out.

A quick note on context. 

It’s tempting to picture these AI-powered tools as magic solutions giving you a shortcut to your finished product, but the truth is more complicated. There is serious value to be won here, but every tool we’ve tried internally has proven one thing: the tool is nothing without the context and vision for what’s being produced. While a single person can generate a script, or maybe convert the script to a voiceover, a team with a vision and strategy is still clearly needed to drive value-added marketing content like a completed video.

The Ethics of AI Content Creation

First and foremost, it’s important to recognize that AI can only take from what is already available on the internet. While it may seem like content creation, it’s actually just reorganizing information that’s already out there.

In a way, humans do the same thing. DJs remix existing songs to create new tunes, and writers use existing ideas and information to generate new, unique artifacts of content and ideas. The difference is that humans bring context and a deeper understanding to the table.

When using an AI tool, you’ll need to apply your own context and understanding to make it truly serve your purposes.

This brings up some important questions. For example, is it considered plagiarism if an AI writing tool pulls from other sources? And when it comes to audio and imagery, how do we know if the output of an AI tool violates copyright laws? 

Let’s look at the current discussion around these topics:

Is Using AI for Text Plagiarism?

All content created through AI comes with a guarantee that it will pass plagiarism checks. But AI content tools create another problem. The AI content isn’t something you wrote word-for-word either. So, is it plagiarism?

Purists would say yes: you had a co-author on that work. On the other side, techno-utopists will offer up the obvious counter-argument: the content, whatever it is, would not exist without the writer sitting down at the AI tool, just like it wouldn’t exist if they didn’t sit down at the WordPrecesser, or sit down at the pencil-and-paper before that.

So, there is no formal plagiarism going on here. Instead, we’re likely experiencing a shift of text management as a task and how that happens. In the same way, the work of number management and accounting in general shifted when calculators were introduced. 

It comes down to your use case. Like any tool, AI generators can be used to copy others’ content and make it unique with minimal effort (a tactic known as “content spinning”). Right now, it’s widely understood that if you are using the tool to streamline or enhance your own content generation without misrepresenting the source and your own expertise on the topic, that is the current best-practice.

Is Using AI a Copyright Violation?

Using AI tools for image and audio generation, under the current restrictions, is not typically a copyright violation. But on an ethical level, AI use in the digital art world is a messy process. The tools are trained on datasets of images and content from artists that often didn’t agree to be part of the dataset.

This conversation will move forward into the legal domain eventually, and lacks any meaningful resolution at this time. 

Let’s dive into these tools.

AI Tools for Written Content Generation

There are now many AI tools on the market that can help you generate written content at the touch of a button. Not all of them produce good content though, and the various tools have their own pros and cons.

In general, though, all of these tools can be used to move any content generation process forward. They can be used to create scripts for videos and podcasts, to generate draft versions of marketing copy for review, or even to draft blog posts like this one. And before you ask, yes, we did use ChatGPT to assist in writing this post!

But it’s important to remember that these are tools, and tools have to be used by a person with context and a vision for the outcome. While our future posts will look deeper at examples of this, for now, here’a rundown of the AI text generation tools you should be experimenting with:

Jasper

Jasper is a popular AI tool with a mid-range price point. How these tools typically work is pricing based on words generated, and Jasper is no different. It’s known for generating both short and long-form marketing content, making it a versatile tool for blog articles, Google ads, and more. Jasper has an easy-to-use editor and features like art generation, making it a great tool to experiment with, especially if you’re new to these tools and working this way.

Jasper has also developed a dedicated following and demonstrates strong developer support over time. It’s a general-purpose tool designed to help you solve text generation problems and maybe offer up some other features once you’re working within the Jasper sandbox.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT has been quickly rising in popularity. In fact, that’s a bit of an understatement lately as OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool has actually set records as “the fastest-growing consumer application in history.” It is perhaps the most famous app on this list, and it is currently offered on a freemium model so it’s extremely easy to try for any application.

When ChatGPT first started out, they advertised that the AI writing was so good that even Google couldn’t tell it was AI writing. This is a bit of a misnomer, as even the most popular emergent AI text-detection tools like copyleaks.com or originality.ai are frequently fooled. It stands to reason that this arms race will continue.

As far as use cases, ChatGPT is cheaper and more flexible than Jasper, but the editor is also much more barebones and acts as more of an open sandbox. If you’re new to AI tools, you can jump into ChatGPT easily, but a tool like Jasper may have more “on-rails” guidance toward specific outputs like an article, sales copy, or a business report.

Grammarly

Grammarly is a hands-off AI-assisted writing tool that provides change suggestions and proofreading services. It is the least expensive tool on our list as it does not generate full articles or reports.

Despite being more than just a simple spell-checker, Grammarly still requires the user to do most of the writing. However, it does offer helpful features such as removing passive voice and sentence rewriting. Grammarly’s use of AI is a natural evolution of its extensive training databases for grammar and readability notes. The user experience is simple, with the extension reading text and automatically flagging details after a quick setup.

While Grammarly is mainly for polishing rather than generating, it is a useful tool for those who struggle with spelling and grammar mistakes. It operates in existing text management software or across text fields on the web, making it the most traditional and normal user experience of the AI writing tools on our list.

AI Tools for Audio Content Generation

Just as there are AI tools for generating written content, there are also AI tools that can generate audio content. Just like in the domain of written content, AI audio tools are already enabling higher efficiency and shorter production cycles by allowing automatic generation of voiceovers, generating background music, creating realistic sound effects, or even just a voiceover to run on top of an animated explainer or training video.

Again, we’ll look closer at some examples of this in practice in a future post, but for now, here are the AI Audio generation tools we recommend having on your radar for both synthesized voice and music. 

For Synthesized Voice

With the rise of social media and video content consumption, voice overs have become increasingly popular. Whether you’re on TikTok or Instagram, a text to voice tool can make all the difference when creating a narrated video or even converting written content into a podcast or other format. 

Two tools, Synthesys.io and Murf.ai, are worth consideration here. While Synthesys.io is a more robust platform that can handle the whole video for you, not just the human-voice audio-track generation, Murf.ai is more focused on the audio generation. Here are some notes on each:

Synthesys.io

Synthesys is an AI voice over tool that allows users to quickly and easily create high-quality voice overs for videos. With a user-friendly interface and a wide range of voice options, including both male and female voices, Synthesys makes it accessible for those with little experience.

While they offer to create videos with synthetic voices, most users find the most benefit simply from generating natural, real-sounding voice-overs from an existing script. The monthly pricing plans are reasonable, making it an attractive option for individuals and businesses alike.

Overall, Synthesys is a great option for anyone looking for an AI voice over tool that is easy to use and produces realistic results. It’s perfect for those who don’t have experience with voice over production but still want a high-quality finished product.

Murf.ai

Like Synthesys, Murf offers users the ability to choose between male and female voices and select an expressive speaking style to help reduce the robotic tone often associated with synthesized speech.

Users claim that Murf’s natural-sounding voice competes with the realism of Synthesys.io’s product, and pricing is competitive with both consumer and business-scale plans. Although Murf does not offer full video generation, it has innovative tools like the Voice Cloner, which develops a synthetic AI voice based on a real person, and a Voice Changer tool to clean up audio recorded in non-professional settings. 

Murf’s advanced tools and user-friendly interface make it a great option for those seeking an AI voice over tool that provides natural-sounding voiceovers.

For AI-Generated Music

Maybe it comes as no surprise that there are also AI tools for making music already. These tools often do what a DJ does, mixing songs and lyrics to make new tunes that can be used for background music, or, indeed, full-length albums.

Of these two tools, Amper is easier to start with and generate content immediately, while SoundRaw offers a more robust and longer-term solution for repeated projects.

SoundRaw

SoundRaw is an AI music generator that uses royalty-free music and remixing to create music that isn’t subject to copyright. It’s especially aimed at being used for social media or marketing purposes.

This tool offers simple pricing plans and users get the most benefit using this tool to edit songs to match their video content, regardless of the platform the video content is destined for.

Amper Music

Amper Music is known as one of the easiest AI music generators to use. You don’t need any previous music knowledge, instead you choose a music sample and indicate modifiers to fit your specific case. 

Amper Music goes far beyond videos and advertisements as it can even be used to create a score for a longer-form video as well as for video games. It can be a huge help for those in the coding world who don’t have the musical background to make sound for their creations. This is a free-to-use tool, and as such it’s extremely easy to get started and try it out.

AI Tools for Image Content Generation

In this area specifically, there are more copyright concerns than almost any other area of AI generation. There’s also more specialty from tool to tool, so trying several may be more useful. As far as use cases, using image generators can help accelerate storyboarding, character and environmental designs, or simply backgrounds.

Of the options explored below, Dream by Wombo is a great way to try this type of tool out for free, while Jasper is a logical upgrade including text generation. Midjourney represents the state-of-the art, and is a better fit for advanced users.

Jasper Art

Like the aforementioned AI writing tool, Jasper also has a tool which can be used to generate license free images. You do have to pay to use it, but once you have a subscription, simply direct the tool with the type of photo you want and it will be generated. 

Out of all the image AI tools, Jasper Art is rated as the easiest to use. This is because many of the AI image tools require a bit of computer knowledge for directing the AI. With Jasper Art, it seems even the inexperienced can generate some useful images. 

Midjourney

Another AI tool for image content generation is Midjourney’s image generation tool. This tool is unique in that it is specifically designed to work within the popular messaging platform, Discord. The tool allows users to generate images in real-time and share them with others in their Discord server.

The user experience with Midjourney’s tool is extremely well executed. The tool can be accessed through a simple command prompt within a Discord channel, and users can specify the type of image they want to generate, the prompt, and then they can interact with that prompt further, seasoning the image generated to taste by simply offering more direction with simple text commands in Discord.

While involved illustrations are obviously a use case here, there are many other graphic design tricks it can pull off, like helping you workshop a logo or generate a few custom graphics for a slide deck.

Dream By Wombo

Dream By Wombo is the only free image creator on this list, and while it can be nice for students, because it is free, the images aren’t as high of quality as the others on the list. 

All you have to do is put in your text, select a style, and the image will be generated. While this may sound simple, know that you have to be very exact in order to get a usable image from Dream by Wombo, which can be difficult if you don’t know how to input text computers can use. This is a great tool to jump in and try out AI-image generation for free, though.

A New Landscape 

AI-assisted content generation tools have emerged as powerful resources for businesses aiming to create content at scale and tap into new creative possibilities. By leveraging AI alongside human expertise, brands have a new potential to amplify messaging and create engaging experiences. However, it is crucial to remember that tools alone cannot guarantee success. While these resources can streamline content creation and save time, they are most effective when used in conjunction with creativity, context, and strategic vision. The key to creating excellent AI-assisted content lies in harnessing the potential of these tools while ensuring that they are guided by a strategic vision that aligns with the brand’s goals and values. It is this collective, human-led effort that increases the likelihood of engagement, conversion, and long-term customer loyalty.

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