Essential AI Tools for 2024

From Productivity to Media Creation

Good morning friends. Are you sick of hearing about AI? Well that’s too damn bad.

Right now, early AI adopters have the opportunity to run laps around the people who still haven't tested out any AI tools (yes, these people still exist). But that won't be the case forever.

Everyday, that arbitrage gap is decreasing as more and more people are testing out new AI tools and finding ways to utilize them in their work. Soon, the arbitrage gap will basically be gone, which means that everyone will be using AI tools and taking advantage of the benefits.

This means that leveraging AI tools won't be the reason you beat out your competitors because everyone else will be using them—but rather it means not using AI tools will be the reason you lose. Soon, you won't be able to get away with not using AI tools because your competitors are ALL USING THEM.

-Justin Fineberg, Justin's AI Newsletter (AI Arbitrage, Lawsuits, and A New Keyboard)

As such, this post will be dedicated to my favorite AI tools, and why you should incorporate them into your work flows as well.

As a disclaimer, I have no financial relationship to these companies and this is not a sponsored post.

Productivity:

Chat GPT - with voice

I assume you’ve played around with Chat GPT, but have you used their voice function? You can find the voice action next to the Message area on the GPT mobile app.

While I was making dinner the other night, I had an entire conversation with GPT about the difference between equities and securities, shorting stocks, and smart contract use cases. It was like having a super intelligent friend / tutor who I could talk to in real time. GPT voice is what Siri was meant to be.

See the official demo here → GPT with voice

What I use it most for is this use case: while I’m listening to podcasts, if there’s something I want to double click on, I can quickly pause the episode, move to the GPT app, and get a brief explainer. Once I feel I understand the concept, I can go back to the podcast.

It’s the equivalent of reading, coming across a word you don’t know, and looking it up. But this time, you can quickly and easily double click on full on concepts. This is game chancing technology that you can use everyday.

Perplexity AI

If you have to do any kind of research, Perplexity is an absolute juggernaut I’ve only started using recently.

In my recent post about The Rise of cGAS-STING in Cancer Therapy, I used Perplexity extensively. Read that post → here.

The current way to do research is as follows:

• Google a subject

• Sifting through ten blue links to find a reputable source

• Skim that article to see if it provides useful information

• If so, read the article in depth

• If not, back to the ten blue links

• Try to find counter arguments or more sources to verify the veracity of claims made

• Repeat

With Perplexity:

• Ask the question you want the answer to: (Tell me about the C-Sting Pathway and use cases for Sting Agonists in treating cancer)

• It will give you a summary of the answer based on four or more sources, and will source those articles for you in real time.

• Peruse the full articles for anything it may have missed.

• Ask it to steel mean the arguments ‘for’ and ‘against’.

• Ask it any follow up questions you may have.

• Write your article, blog or paper.

• Done.

Perplexity recently raised $73.6 million in a Series B funding round, led by IVP with additional investment from various prominent entities, including Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, and others. This funding round valued the company at $520 million.

Perplexity is an agent for the future, and its coming for Google and its ten blue links.

Pi, by Inflection

I wrote about Pi way back in July of 2023. Pi is a new kind of AI which feels much closer to a virtual assistant from science fiction than a chat bot.

I’ve found Pi to be an effective brainstorming partner by its ability to help me arrive at useful conclusions by validating, mirroring, asking useful questions and providing actionable advice.

Inflection, the company behind Pi, raised 1.3 billion on June 23, 2023 in a round of funding led by Reid Hoffman (co-founder of LinkedIn), Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt (who served as the CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011), and NVIDIA. The company was co-founded by Mustafa Suleyman (co-founder and VP of DeepMind, which was acquired by Google in 2014).

I think Pi is best for understanding new and very complex concepts. Its very good at creating analogies for complicated topics and then, once you understand, getting progressively more technical. Its actually quite an achievement how conversational the bot is.

Media and Creativity

ArtFlow

I’ve been blown away by ArtFlow. As a refugee from the Hollywood system, I’ve long wanted to create a product that can democratize entertainment. To give creators the tools to be their own writers, directors, cinematographers and editors.

ArtFlow is the first step to realizing this vision. Apps like Pika (see below) have gotten close by being able to generate and animate images. The prompt I used for the below image was “Generate an ancient Egyptian in Times Square”

But ArtFlow takes it to a whole new level. I made this video in about ten minutes with just the free version of the application.

While there’s still a bit of uncanny valley going on here, its amazing to see how far this tech has already come.

You can create characters, scenes, and upload entire outlines. Soon enough, you will be able to animate anything you want. The democratization of storytelling is here.

Capsule

Last but certainly not least is Capsule. I’ve spent I don’t know how many hours on Skillshare trying to learn Adobe Premiere. And even once I had a cursory understanding, its difficult and clunky to use. I have a Core I7 processor with a NVIDIA graphics card and Premiere is still slow and cumbersome on my machine.

Enter Capsule. Its an AI enabled video editor. It can create b-roll, allow for seamless edits and chyrons, and go from core video dimensions to 9 x 16 promo in a matter of seconds.

It’s intuitive, easy to use, and a blessing to the world of content creators.

On X they are @madewithcapsule and you can find their website → here.

Conclusion:

Which of these was your favorite? Any I miss you wanna plug? Do you use AI in your day to day yet? Let me know in the comments.