Below are my favorite AI tools and the productivity partners I rely on most every day. Also don’t worry, only one of them is an AI chatbot.
The craze of generative AI began with the emergence of ChatGPT last year. In just one year, this technology has been integrated into various productivity platforms, greatly reducing the entry threshold and operational difficulty of our daily workflow.
I know that when many friends hear "AI in work scenarios", the first thing they worry about is whether they will be replaced by new technologies. Don’t be afraid, the tools discussed in this article are not meant to replace humans, but are designed to improve work efficiency.
These AI tools can help everyone complete small but necessary daily tasks, saving a lot of valuable time in the long run. In this way, we spend less time doing boring things and have more energy to deal with tasks that we really enjoy or that are more beneficial to our career development.
And even before the current wave of AI craze, I have been paying attention to and experiencing various AI tools. Trust me, there are some tools that once you use them, you just can’t put them down! Today, my entire workflow is simply a collection of various AI technology achievements.
Let’s stop talking and get to the point right away. Below are my favorite AI tools and the productivity partners I rely on most every day. Also don’t worry, only one of them is an AI chatbot.
Bing Chat
Let’s start with the most talked about AI tool – chatbots. I have tested most of the AI chatbots on the market, and Bing Chat remains my favorite.
Bing Chat allows me to use a variety of features within a single page, including AI image generation and web-based instant Q&A, all at no cost! This wave of free benefits is the core difference between Bing Chat and other subscription-based competitors on the market, including OpenAI's own ChatGPT - everyone needs to subscribe as a Plus user to access Internet content and real-time information.
The main way I use this tool in my workflow is as a conversational search engine. Whenever I encounter a problem, I immediately turn to Bing Chat—yes, bye-bye Google! Instead of scrolling through hundreds of Google results like I used to, chatbots can now give me simple, conversational answers that get right to the point of my problem.
What's more: Bing Chat also lists the sources of information used by the chatbot in the answer, so that I can selectively verify relevant information and learn more background on the current topic.
Even if I don’t have any questions for the time being, I like to let Bing Chat help me introduce more background about the work content. Because unlike Google, it can quickly narrow down the range of high-quality sources, allowing me to easily find the material I need.
For example, I can ask Bing Chat, "Find me the latest research on the effects of caffeine on sleep," and it will highlight the specific studies and conclusions in the text response and add the corresponding sources in footnotes. By comparison, Google gives you just a few thousand obscure links that are hard to understand.
But if you still want to give Google a face, you can also choose Google Bard instead of Bing Chat. But from my personal testing, the quality of Bing Chat is superior, which may be because it is powered by OpenAI's most advanced large language model GPT-4. Bing Chat also offers the option to choose from three conversation styles, as well as the option to generate images directly in the chatbot—something Google Bard doesn’t support.
Although I won't actually use it at work, Bing Chat can even help proofread grammar, help authors polish text when they can't find the right wording, and even write messages, suggestions, or other types of content from scratch.
Canva Pro
Canva is an AI tool that includes almost every graphic design feature you can think of, including an AI image generator. I believe that most of my friends, like me, often want to create their own visual content, but do not require particularly perfect effects. At this time, the stylized creation ability of the AI graphic generator is very important. We can use it to easily and quickly create image materials for social media posts, invitations, flyers and presentations, and Canva Pro's performance in this regard is eye-catching.
Before October this year, Canva Pro was already equipped with an impressive series of graphic design tools, including Magic Edit, Magic Design, Magic Eraser, Background Remover, etc., so it became my main helper in daily visual design. With the subsequent launch of "Magic Studio", the level of this product has reached another level.
The tool suite in Magic Studio includes Magic Switch, Magic Media, Magic Design, Brand Voice, Magic Morph, Magic Grab, Magic Expand, etc. They have a series of powerful capabilities that can automatically meet almost all visual design needs put forward by users.
My personal favorite tool, and the one I use most frequently, is Canva’s AI background removal tool. Sound ordinary? Indeed, if you have ever cut out images manually, you know how boring and tedious it is to use tools such as Photoshop to complete this process. Other automated tools on the market often wreak havoc on your photos.
With Canva, you can cut out images with the click of a button—and the AI will deliver extremely accurate results every time. I often use this feature to create beautiful images for my columns and social media posts.
The annual fee for a Canva Pro personal account is $120, and a free trial is available.
Otter.ai
If you've ever transcribed speech manually, you know it's a time-consuming and tedious task.
The good news is that AI technology is here to help! Whether you are a student who plans to record lectures, an office worker who needs to organize meeting minutes, or a professional journalist who wants to improve transcription efficiency, Otter.ai can help everyone truly save valuable time.
With Otter.ai, we can import recordings and transcribe conversations in minutes. The AI assistant can also distinguish different speakers, mark timestamps and accurately transcribe conversations.
In my case, I deal with a lot of interviews every day. Reviewing the recorded interview is the most frustrating part - it can take as little as 15 minutes or as long as an hour and a half. I either simply extract the conversation, or for important interviews I even have to record the conversation verbatim, which is extremely torturous with timestamps. With Otter.ai, I can quickly complete the transcription by simply uploading the audio file.
I have used other transcription services before, but Otter.ai is amazing in terms of accuracy and efficiency.
Otter.ai offers a free trial, but the maximum transcription time per month is 300 minutes, each conversation cannot exceed 30 minutes, and the free account can only perform audio import operations up to three times. So if you need to deal with a lot of dialogue snippets, the free plan will be a taster at best.
If you’re like me and need unlimited imports but also rely on advanced search capabilities, Otter.ai’s subscription costs $8.33 per month. Time is money, and considering the precious energy Otter.ai saved me, it was undoubtedly money well spent.
ChatPDF
This is a completely free tool that is simple and effective. It can be called a typical case of using AI to optimize workflow without over-involvement. If I had had it when I was in school, my learning experience would definitely have been better. It's not too late now, and it makes me more comfortable in handling my work.
PDFs often contain a large amount of information that is difficult to process, especially scientific journals and research papers, where the large number of professional terms can often cause headaches.
ChatPDF scanned the PDF in seconds, then provided a detailed summary and answered any questions we had about the article content. This not only deepens our understanding of the PDF content, but also helps clarify specific topics that we do not understand or suspect we have misunderstood.
As a writer responsible for the AI development column, I often need to read the latest research on the topic, which involves a large number of academic journal articles. ChatPDF helped me a lot in this regard: after a cursory glance at the research content, I would use ChatPDF to organize summaries to confirm my impressions and to further interrogate points that were not clear to me.
I also like to use ChatPDF to confirm whether my understanding is in place. For example, I would ask a question like "Is my understanding correct: According to research, consuming caffeine before bed can affect REM sleep and thus have a negative impact on lifespan?" ChatPDF will then prove this understanding based on the content of the article. Yes, then provide pages that support relevant conclusions. Alternatively, the AI will also indicate "not very accurate" and provide corresponding errata content.
Grammarly
Grammarly is an old tool, and AI technology has become an integral part of its service experience. The platform checks spelling, grammar, and conciseness in everyday writing with great results and ease of use.
My favorite way to use it is through the Grammarly for Chrome extension, so that the AI can run in the background to catch small mistakes that I don't notice myself.
I majored in journalism in college, so I am very confident in my ability to control grammar. But sometimes when I am quickly replying to emails or composing messages, I still occasionally miss some details - this is when Grammarly can strictly control it for me.
In addition to basic syntax help, thanks to the integration of generative AI technology, the tool also offers other more advanced functional options, including adding shortcuts to perform common actions for daily tasks.
For example, you can use Grammarly to generate or polish text, provide inspiration, identify problems in writing, adjust text evidence, generate quick responses, develop outlines, and more. We can even choose a context, such as written or spoken language, and have it compose separate messages for different platforms (such as LinkedIn and email).
Although as a professional writer, I will not use the text generation or polishing function in my workflow, but I believe that Grammarly can definitely contribute value to other friends’ daily writing.