10 AI Tools to Try
At THINKHOUSE we’re super excited about utilising AI. Our intention is to use AI (correctly and creatively) to be able to deliver a higher quality service, at a faster pace, for our clients.
“Creative innovation comes from curiosity, experimentation and not being afraid to fail. We’ve built this mindset into our team and how we work. Right now, we’re busy adopting new AI tools and pushing the boundaries of what can happen. We’ve been doing it with care - experimenting first with our own projects and then providing our clients with new, innovative ways for their brands to show up.” Jane McDaid, founder and head of creative innovation, THINKHOUSE
We ‘took on AI’
Recently we had a playful ‘F*ck it Friday’ where we did a big experiment and pitted the ‘old school way of doing social ads’ against a team using all AI to do the same task. To see which team won (and what we learned), read about it here and here.
Time Saving and Creative AI Tools
Right now, there are AI tools that we use daily, across the company, to help us do work better and differently. For this edition of 52INSIGHTS, we’re sharing the 10 AI tools used by THINKERS that you should try too.
1. Notion
What is it? Notion has been an hugely popular shared workspace tool, known for its intuitive design. Now it has AI integrations that allow for automated manual, repetitive tasks to give you more time to focus on the other more strategic and/or creative challenges.
What makes it so useful? Easy to navigate! “I like the way I can find every page I've written on the one screen and click straight into it and take up where I left off.” Sean Daly, client service account executive
2. Boomerang
What is it? Well-written emails are a very big part of our daily work. Boomerang is an email AI plug-in focused on emails that gives you insight into your own writing style and ways to adjust to make more impact.
What makes it so useful? Saving you time so you can hit send on the important email, now more likely to deliver results.
3. Grammarly
What is it? A browser plug-in that analyses your writing in real time, providing spelling and grammar checks, as well as analysing your tone and identifies plagiarism. Grammarly can help people turn an email tone from easy breezy to serious business.
What makes it so useful? Making you look and sound even better. “I use Grammarly Premium for everything! Without it, people wouldn't understand me, and it helps me communicate elaborate thoughts in my head to others.” Niamh Bakker, THINKHOUSE breakthrough scholarly recipient
AI for Creative
What is it? Stable Diffusion is a free, open-source AI software to create photo-realistic images with any text input. The point of difference with this tool against others? You can make video.
What makes it so useful? More scope for creativity with different mediums created. “Unlike Dall-e or Midjourney, SD allows me to generate videos from text prompts. Due to it being open-source, people have been able to develop their own plugins to the software and released for free that enhances the imagery generated. In terms of making ads - it certainly isn’t capable of delivering agency-standard content - but it's another useful tool in my arsenal when creating content.” Mark Luna, digital motion creator
5. EBSynth
What is it? This is a free software that uses AI to apply an image style on top of image frames that make up a video - in short, you can transform imagery into a short video clip. It initially started out as a way of animating your own paintings.
What makes it useful? With video being an important medium for engaging storytelling within social media feeds, EBSynth brings creative thinking to life in new ways.
6. Dall-E
What is it? Dall-E is another hugely popular OpenAI that generates images from text prompts. For those not so familiar with AI tools, Dall-E has a friendlier user experience, making it a great option for new AI explorers.
What makes it useful? Easily visualising your creative to level up the pitch deck. "I’ve started to use Visual AI tools like Dall-E to show ideas to our clients and show what the vibe of the final assets will look like ahead of a shoot." Kathrin Baumbach, photographer
AI Tools for Strategy and Insights
7. Chat GPT
What is it? AI Chatbot, Chat GPT, keeps growing in popularity thanks to its many capabilities. The tool, also created by OpenAI, is designed to converse with users in a natural and human-like way - it can help generate new insights to inform your brand's strategy.
What makes it useful? Making lighter work of research tasks that take you in the right direction. “I’m experimenting with Chat GPT for ideation and everything really - when I need a quote for a meeting or a new idea, it helps me find something new.” Scott Lawless, account director
What is it? Similar to Chat GPT, Chat Climate AI is a conversational AI tool that invites people to ask questions regarding the climate crisis and the machine learning algorithm is grounded in the latest IPCC report.
What makes it useful? Dissecting information regarding the climate crisis can be heavy - through conversation, Chat Climate AI is translating information in ways more easily understood.
9. OtterAI
What is it? OtterAI is a live transcription tool that can be used for interviews or meetings to record notes. It creates summaries and categorises them based on themes recognised, making lighter work of research interviews and allows you to focus on the conversation in real time.
What makes it useful? So easy to find quotes or just get stuck into asking questions. “As part of our Youth Culture Uncovered interviews, OtterAI saved me so much time - I could just search through my transcripts and find solid gold quotes from young people that told their story in exactly their own words.” Fiona O’Grady, content strategy director
AI for Social Media Made Easy
10. Emplifi
What is it? Social listening is playing an increasingly more important role for brands in understanding what people are talking about - Emplifi is an AI-driven social media management platform that provides advanced audience insights across a digital and e-commerce journey.
What makes it useful? Quickly gain insight into topics around your brand to allow you know where to go next. “Takes away the time you'd spend pulling data and making estimates for our client’s competitors' results.” Niamh Martin, senior account executive digital and social media
The Ricks and Societal Questions
Of course, as more people try to figure out what AI is and can do for them, there are bigger societal questions regarding the ethical ramifications of AI This week, we were witness to a historic moment in the tech world - Sam Altman, CEO and co-founder of OpenAI, called for legislation to mitigate potential misuse of AI, while speaking to the US Congress. Asking policy makers to act now not later, he highlighted the effect of inaction in relation to issues with social media - 'my worst fear is we cause significant harm to the world'. The common thread is what and how AI is being used, and in turn, regulated. For many, AI is fast becoming a part of the work life norm.
Brand Takeouts
Consider AI as a tool to power a mindset of real-time creativity; insights & planning, workshops, brainstorms, proactive ideation and creative production can all benefit from the addition of AI tools to help inspire new and different thinking.
“Our DOT planning model uses tools of all kinds to help us explore data. Adding AI tools to the mix helps us identify exciting new communication codes, aesthetics and language, all inspiring new ideas in real-time throughout the creative process.” Lynsey Paisley, head of integrated creative strategy
