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20 of the best AI tools, hand-picked and explained in plain English. No hype, no jargon — just what each one does, what it's best for, and how to start.
The one most people start with. A superb all-rounder for writing, brainstorming, research, analysis, and images. If you only learn one tool, make it this one.
Ask it to be your thinking partner: 'Act as a strategy consultant. I'm trying to decide between X and Y. Ask me 5 questions, then give me your recommendation.'
Anthropic's assistant, known for thoughtful, natural writing and handling long documents. Tends to sound less robotic and is excellent for nuanced or sensitive work.
Paste a long document and ask: 'Summarise this in 5 bullets, then tell me the 3 things I should be most concerned about.'
Google's assistant, built into Gmail, Docs, and Drive. If your work lives in Google Workspace, Gemini meets you where you already are.
In Google Docs, highlight a rough paragraph and ask Gemini to 'make this clearer and more concise without losing the meaning.'
Built into Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Teams. Best if your day runs on Microsoft 365 - it can draft emails, build slides, and analyse spreadsheets in place.
In Excel, ask Copilot: 'Analyse this sales data and tell me the top 3 trends and one thing that looks unusual.'
A marketing-focused writing tool with brand voice controls and campaign templates. Built for teams producing a high volume of on-brand marketing content.
Set up your brand voice once, then generate consistent social posts, emails, and ad copy at scale.
A go-to-market writing tool for sales and marketing copy. Strong on short-form: emails, social posts, product descriptions, and outreach sequences.
Generate 10 cold email variations, then pick and refine the two that fit your voice best.
AI writing assistance that checks grammar, clarity, and tone as you type, everywhere you write. The AI features now also rewrite and generate, not just correct.
Let it run in the background, then use 'rewrite for clarity' on any sentence that feels clunky.
Design made simple, now with Magic Studio AI: generate images, write copy, remove backgrounds, and design social posts, presentations, and documents without design skills.
Use Magic Design: type what you need ('Instagram post announcing a summer sale') and get editable templates instantly.
The gold standard for AI image generation. Produces stunning, artistic, high-quality images from text descriptions. A learning curve, but unmatched results.
Be specific and descriptive: 'a serene mountain landscape at golden hour, soft mist, photorealistic, wide angle' beats 'a mountain'.
OpenAI's image generator, built into ChatGPT. Excellent at following detailed instructions and rendering text in images. The easiest powerful image tool to start with.
Just describe what you want in ChatGPT. It's forgiving and great at understanding plain-English requests.
Adobe's generative AI, trained on licensed content so it's commercially safe. Built into Photoshop and the Creative Cloud apps for generative fill and expand.
In Photoshop, use Generative Fill to extend a background, remove an object, or add an element by describing it.
Why a directory beats a Google search
New AI tools launch every week and the hype is deafening. This directory cuts through it — every tool here is one we'd actually recommend, grouped by the job you're trying to do. Start from the task, find the tool, get to work.
Create professional videos with AI avatars and voiceovers in minutes. Type a script and get a polished talking-head video without a camera, studio, or presenter.
Write a 60-second script, choose an avatar and voice, and generate a professional explainer video in minutes.
The leading AI voice tool. Generates remarkably natural speech from text in many voices and languages, and can clone voices. Used for narration, audiobooks, and podcasts.
Paste your script, choose a voice, and generate narration that sounds genuinely human for videos or podcasts.
Edit video and audio by editing the transcript, like a document. Delete a word from the text and it's gone from the recording. Includes AI for filler-word removal and more.
Record a rough talk, then edit it like a Word doc: delete the 'ums', cut the tangents, and it's done.
An AI answer engine that searches the web and cites its sources. Like a research assistant that gives you a sourced answer instead of a list of links. Excellent for current information.
Ask a research question and follow up: 'What are the latest developments in X?' then 'Summarise the key debate and cite the sources.'
Analyse data and create charts by chatting. Upload a spreadsheet and ask questions in plain English; it runs the analysis and shows you the visualisations. No formulas required.
Upload a CSV and ask: 'What are the top trends in this data? Make me a chart showing revenue by month.'
Google's research tool: upload your documents and it becomes an expert on them. Ask questions, get summaries, and even generate an audio overview - all grounded in your sources.
Upload your reports, notes, or research, then ask questions and get answers grounded only in your own material.
AI built into the Notion workspace. Summarise notes, draft documents, extract action items from meeting notes, and answer questions across your entire workspace.
After a meeting, paste your notes and ask Notion AI to 'extract action items with owners and summarise the decisions.'
AI meeting notes. Joins your calls, transcribes them in real time, and generates summaries and action items automatically. Never take manual meeting notes again.
Let it join your next call, then review the auto-generated summary and action items instead of scrambling to take notes.
Connect your apps and automate workflows, now with AI steps. Build automations that move information between tools and use AI to process it along the way - no code needed.
Build a 'zap' that takes new form submissions, uses AI to categorise them, and routes each to the right person.
20
Tools, curated
6
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1
That fits today's task
Don't try to learn every tool. Pick the one that fits today's task and start.