Just ten years ago, the idea of using AI in the workplace was both futuristic and fantastical. People talked about how much it could change our lives, but we weren’t quite there yet.
Then, on November 30th, 2022, ChatGPT was launched. Just 18 months later, it's the number one in our AI Top 100 for Work, seeing 3.1 billion monthly visits.
While it may be the most popular, ChatGPT is now only one of many great AI websites, which can help you from image generation to article summaries, automatic transcription, and even podcast editing, with less effort and more efficiency.
However, with so many available tools, it might be hard to choose. As an AI fanatic and AI coach to leaders at companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Toyota, I researched and tested all of them, so you don’t have to.
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Strap in as I explore the 10 best free AI websites to make your life and work easier in 2024.
Here is the shortlist, updated on 26 November 2024:
- Midjourney - Best for creating stylized and realistic AI art
- Gamma AI - Best for generating unique presentations
- Grammarly - Best for writing better
- Perplexity.ai - Best for researching with information from credible sources
- Consensus - Best for gathering current sources and understanding sentiment in your field
- NotebookLM - Best for Understanding and "Brainstorming With" Large Files
- Copy.ai - Best for copywriting and digital marketing strategies
- Otter AI - Best for transcribing and collaborating on meetings
- Descript - Best for podcast editing
- Suno – Best for creating AI songs
AI websites for Image Generation and Editing
Midjourney - Best for Creating Stylized and Realistic AI Art
If you're looking for the highest-quality AI image generator, look no further than Midjourney. Built on its own AI model and launched in March 2022, Midjourney helps you create anything from a hyper-realistic stock photo for your website to an illustration for a presentation.
Through a simple to use interface, you can prompt Midjourney what you'd like it to create and select the image size and how creative their AI should get. Then, wait about 10 seconds, and you have four options to choose from, after which you can download a high-resolution version or keep editing.
All of this comes at a price though, and while $10 per month may not break the bank, if you don't frequently create images, one of the alternatives below may be a better option. Midjourney no longer offers a free plan, something it discontinued after moving from a Discord channel to Midjourney.com.
Click here to try Midjourney.
Alternatives to Midjourney:
- Adobe Firefly creates realistic and artistic images based on a prompt, edit elements of the images and fill in the spaces you create. Firefly is easy to learn, especially if you're already using one of the Adobe Creative Cloud tools. If you lack inspiration, visit the Community Gallery, where you can find inspiration and opportunities to 'remix' AI art. Firefly further stands out by being trained only on licensed work, and even pays out the original creator.
- Canva Image Generator isn't the 'best' image generator on the market (it's built on Dall-E and Imagen), but few things beat embedding your AI art directly into your Canva (marketing) creations. So, if you're already on Canva, next time, prompt an image rather than using stock. Pro tip: Don't have an editable version of an image, but you want to edit the text? Canva launched a new featured called Grab Text that lets you do just this! It's just one of the reasons Canva is the number 2 in our AI for Work Top 100 and the leading AI Marketing platform.
- Dall-E is the AI image generator embedded into ChatGPT. It also powers Microsoft Designer and all of Copilot's AI image generating capabilities. It doesn't compare to Midjourney and Firefly, but it's handy as a quick way to generate image inside your favorite AI tool. Pro Tip: Since October 2024, in ChatGPT, you can simply type /picture to start creating images with Dall-E. For more such tips, see our ChatGPT for Designers course.
AI Websites for Creating Presentations
Gamma AI - Best for Generating Unique Presentations
According to the BBC, over 30 million PowerPoint presentations are created every single day. Don’t you think it’s time for a change? Gamma, the fastest-growing AI presentation generators uses AI image generation and AI text generation to create stand-out presentations on any topic.
Gamma has everything you would expect from a presentation editor. You can edit the text and media, regenerate info and images, change the slide layout, and add tables, charts, and shapes.
But the magic is in giving Gamma a prompt, and seeing it create the entire presentation before your eyes.
Gamma's Best Features:
Templates - If you don’t want to create a presentation from scratch, you can select one of their templates. These are organized by aim and are very aesthetically pleasing. You can even upload existing presentations and transform them with one of Gamma's templates.
Workspaces - Your team can work on Gamma presentations together and view finished presentations.
Continued Prompting – Different from competitors, Gamma lets you further improve your presentations through chat. It's almost like giving an employee instructions on how to go from the first draft to the final product.
Gamma's Limitations:
Basic Initial Draft - If you're expecting a McKinsey-level first draft, you're in for a disappointment. But, the first draft is just the starting point!
Complex Interface - Any AI website that provides you with as much creative control as Gamma will take a while to get the hang of. Spend some time exploring features to avoid problems.
Gamma's Pricing:
For $10 per month or $96 per year, you can get unlimited access to Gamma, and get additional features like adding more slides and access to multiple image generation models. For $20 monthly or $180 annually, you get the above, plus longer AI inputs, the removal of Gamma branding, custom fonts, analytics, and password protection.
Click here to try Gamma for free.
Alternatives to Gamma AI:
- Beautiful AI is another AI presentation generator that focuses on automating design, with Its key feature of "smart slides" that automatically adapt and format content as you add it. Beautiful.ai primarily assists with design aspects rather than content generation and caters more to business professionals and teams, offering features like shared slides and brand controls.
- Copilot for PowerPoint is improving quickly and is most likely the better option for those who have access to it in their workplace. Copilot for PowerPoint lets you generate entire presentations from a simple prompt or existing files in your OneDrive or Sharepoint. This means you can turn a PDF proposal into a fully-designed PowerPoint in less than a minute – let that sink in.
AI Websites for Writing
Grammarly – Best for Writing
If you need a reliable tool to improve your writing, Grammarly is a solid choice. Since its launch in 2009, it’s been helping people write more clearly and professionally. Grammarly’s AI checks your work for spelling, grammar, and even style mistakes, offering real-time suggestions as you type.
Its Generative AI features let you offload writing new emails, email replies, documents, presentations and more to Grammarly. The best thing about Grammarly is that it work on every platform, from Outlook to Gmail and from Word to Docs. This means you always have a writing AI Assistant by your side.
The basic version of the platform is free and covers essential corrections, but for advanced features like tone adjustments or plagiarism detection, the premium plan costs $12 a month. It's a small price to pay if you never want to draft and edit your own emails and document anymore.
Click here to try Grammarly
Alternatives for Grammarly:
- Copilot for Outlook and Word is an AI writing assistant integrated directly into Microsoft's ecosystem, enhancing your writing workflow with real-time content creation, editing, and summarization. Copilot can help draft emails and documents based on what it knowns about you, refine language, and summarize long documents. If your company already pays for Microsoft Copilot, this is likely a no-brainer.
- ChatGPT Canvas is the newest kid on the writing block, only launched in October 2024. It is a versatile tool that lets you write and edit directly in ChatGPT. While not as integrated as Copilot in Microsoft tools, Canvas helps in generating drafts, brainstorming ideas, and editing large documents with a more open-ended, conversational interface. If you already use ChatGPT for writing, this is your chance to level up. To get started, simply select "ChatGPT 4o with Canvas" in the dropdown of AI models on the ChatGPT website.
- Gemini for Gmail and Google Docs brings AI to your favorite Google apps. Out of all the options mentioned here, this one is the most experimental. Certainly, Microsoft beats Google here. Surely this will improve however!
AI Websites for Research
Perplexity.ai - Best for Researching with Information from Credible Sources
One of the biggest limitations of other generative AI websites is their inability to cite their sources. Perplexity.ai solves this problem.
Simply ask a question based on your specialism or topic of research. Perplexity will answer it with in-text citations and a list of sources. When clicked, these take you straight to the website referenced.
However, I found that Perplexity is at its best when researching scientific/mathematical topics. Factual errors are rare, but Perplexity still makes mistakes like other AI websites.
The 'biggest threat to Google yet' raised over 70 million dollars in January 2024 to get even better at helping you research using AI.
Perplexity.ai Best Features:
Focus - Perplexity can cite sources from across the web. Or, it can limit sources to academic papers or social media like YouTube and Reddit.
Document Upload - After uploading a document to Perplexity.ai, you can ask questions about it. This is great if you need tricky concepts explained or want to find similar sources.
Integration in Arc – Perplexity can now be set as the default browser in Arc, a new browser which is quickly growing as the best alternative to Chrome.
Perplexity.ai Limitations:
Secondary Sources - Often, Perplexity will only cite the source from which it retrieved information. Make sure you follow the references to their original sources.
No Innovative Output - Perplexity doesn’t respond well to commands like other AI websites can. I asked it to structure a paragraph differently, but it continued to generate information in the same layout.
Perplexity may see heavy competition from Google, as it rolls out AI Summaries called "Overviews," as announced at Google IO in May 2024. Will Perplexity be able to create more value? Perhaps its add-free offering is key.
Perplexity's Pricing:
Perplexity.ai’s free version is limited to 5 daily questions with 100-word answers. Perplexity’s free version will give you a good starting point for your research as long as you phrase your questions well.
For $20 a month, you can upload unlimited files and ask up to 300 questions daily. The paid plan also allows integration with GPT4. This is worth considering if you consistently run out of free questions.
Click here to try Perplexity.ai for free.
Consensus - Best for Gathering Current Sources and Understanding Sentiment in Your Field
In 2021, the Journal of Marketing found that “Articles with more abstract, technical, and passive writing are harder for readers to understand and are less likely to be cited.”
Well, Consensus measures conclusions in recent studies and articles to answer your inquiries and help you find credible academic sources. For example, I found the above quote with the help of Consensus!
You can only ask certain types of questions, but Consensus’s home page is filled with advice on getting the best results. If you get stuck, the site has a comprehensive help section. Just click the ‘?’ in the upper right corner.
Consensus then provides you with a summary of its findings, a consensus meter, which answers your question (so long as it’s a yes or no question), and a list of all the sources it used to formulate that answer.
Consensus Best Features:
Lists by Quality - Consensus measures an article’s currency, how many times it’s been cited, where it was published, and its relevancy to your question to rank it.
Study Snapshots - Individual articles and studies have ‘Study Snapshots’. This includes who was tested, the sample size, and the methods used. You can filter results by these categories, too.
Copilot – This month, Consensus launched a Copilot, which helps you do research, create content, and give you answers in any format (including 'explain it to me as if I were 5'.)
Consensus Limitations:
Limited Findings - Sometimes, Consensus won’t be able to find enough information on a topic to give you a definite answer from academics in your field.
Specialism Limitations - Like other AI websites, specific questions about widely studied topics work best. Specificity will likely hinder you if you’re studying a slightly obscure topic.
Consensus is simple but very good at what it does compared to other AI websites. If you’re writing a paper or an article with an educational tone, it provides an excellent basis for further research and a possible thesis/conclusion.
You’ll receive 20 credits a month on Consensus’s free version. Asking questions and viewing study snapshots each cost 1 credit. The premium version, at $6.99 a month, offers unlimited answers and Study Snapshots. But, with the amount of sources provided, you should be able to get by with the free version.
Click here to try Consensus for free.
NotebookLM - Best for Understanding and "Brainstorming With" Large Files
Have you ever received a document and felt overwhelmed by the volume of information?
NotebookLM, Google's new AI-powered research tool, makes it far easier to understand and interact with complex documents. This innovative platform allows you to conduct a Q&A about your uploaded sources, whether they're PDFs, Google Docs, YouTube videos and even web pages.
Upload your documents, and NotebookLM will provide you with summaries, key topics, and suggested questions to explore.
NotebookLM works best for research-oriented tasks, helping business leaders digest and synthesize information like market reports, research, and data efficiently. It's also great for generating study guides, outlines, and even audio summaries of your content.
Unlike some AI tools, NotebookLM is currently free to use – which provides incredible value as it can handle files much larger than anything ChatGPT would accept! The platform allows you to upload up to 50 files per user, with each file containing up to 500,000 words
It also provides citations, making it easy to verify information and track sources, reducing the opportunities for hallucinations.
NotebookLM Best Features
Interactive Document AI - NotebookLM's layout is user-friendly, allowing you to view your sources and interact with the AI simultaneously. You can ask questions about specific sections, request summaries, or even generate new ideas based on your uploaded content
AI-Powered Drafting - NotebookLM excels at generating outlines, study guides, and even podcast-style audio overviews of your documents. It can help kick-start your writing process by providing structured formats and creative insights
NotebookLM Limitations:
Source-Only Chat - NotebookLM is designed to work exclusively with your uploaded sources. It can't answer general knowledge questions or provide information outside of your documents
Hallucinations - Like other AI models, NotebookLM can occasionally produce inaccurate information. Always double-check important details using the provided citations
NotebookLM is currently free to use, making it an excellent tool for anyone dealing with information-heavy tasks. Its integration with Google Workspace and ability to handle multiple document types make it a versatile assistant for research and note-taking
Click here to try NotebookLM for free.
AI Websites for Content Creation and Copywriting
Copy.ai - Best for Copywriting and Realizing Digital Marketing Strategies
According to Coherent Market Insights, the global copywriting industry is worth $25.29 billion as of November 2023. This is only expected to grow, with the industry's estimated value in 2030 at $42.22 billion. Copy.ai is a valuable resource in this rapidly expanding industry.
Much like other generative AI websites, you input a prompt, and Copy.ai writes your copy. It’s great for blog posts, social media ads, captions, and email and text marketing. However, it doesn’t forgo the fun things - it wrote a wonderful poem for me.
Copy.ai would be great for teams of writers. But, the free version only includes 1 seat in your workspace, making collaboration a little difficult.
Copy.ai Best Features:
Brand Voice Analysis - By feeding it examples of previously written copy, Copy.ai provides an in-depth analysis of your brand’s voice. This is used when generating copy and helps you create tone-consistent content materials for your brand.
Infobase - If your copy includes a lot of niche terms or jargon, simply add them to the Infobase. By hashtagging the term in your prompt, Copy.ai will generate copy accordingly.
Workflow Generator - Copy.ai’s workflow generator is perfect if, for example, you want to categorize your content, measure review sentiment, or nurture leads.
Copy.ai Limitations:
Specific References - Copy.ai cites its sources and includes generic links when prompted. However, it won’t include specific stats or expert quotes from around the web.
Customer Assistance - Thankfully, Copy.ai is very easy to get the hang of. However, there’s no way to access the customer support page from the editor.
Copy AI Pricing:
In the pro plan, which costs $36 a month or $432 annually, you get 5 workspace seats for your team, unlimited text generation, and 500 workflow credits.
If your team creates copy daily, this is worth it, especially since the 2000 free words don’t last long. However, $36 monthly might be a little expensive if you're a freelancer.
Click here to try Copy.ai for free.
AI Websites for Meetings, Podcasts, and Music
Otter AI - Best for Transcribing and Collaborating on Meetings
According to research, we spend around 23 hours weekly in meetings, over half of which are unproductive.
Another study shows that employee productivity was 71% higher when meetings were reduced by 40%. And Atlassian research points out that leaders work nights and weekends because they're in back-to-back meetings during the day.
Wouldn't it be nice to let AI take our meetings instead? Well, that's exactly what Otter AI, the most popular AI-powered transcription service we track in our AI Top 100, excels at.
Otter captures and organizes meeting notes, answers questions about them, and lets you get back to what matters.
You can record meetings directly, import audio and video files, and receive real-time transcriptions. It also supports editing and sharing notes, highlighting key points, and tagging participants.
Otter AI's Best Features:
- Real-Time Transcription: During meetings, Otter AI provides live transcription, allowing participants to follow along and capture every detail. The transcripts are impressively accurate, even with different accents and speaking speeds.
- Collaboration Tools: Teams can collaborate on transcripts, adding comments, highlights, and images to enhance clarity. This makes post-meeting follow-ups more effective and organized.
- Integrations: Otter AI integrates seamlessly with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet, ensuring that transcriptions are available across popular meeting platforms. This feature is invaluable for maintaining a unified workflow.
- Search and Organization: Otter AI's advanced search capabilities allow users to find specific meeting parts quickly. It also organizes notes by speaker and keyword, making reviewing and referencing past meetings easy.
Otter AI's Limitations:
- Accuracy with Background Noise: While Otter AI performs well under typical conditions, heavy background noise can affect transcription accuracy. Ensuring a quiet environment can mitigate this issue.
- Limited Free Plan: The free plan has a cap on monthly transcription minutes, which may not be sufficient for frequent users. However, the premium plans offer ample minutes for most business needs.
Otter AI's Pricing:
The Pro plan offers 1,200 minutes of transcription per month, real-time transcription, and advanced export options for $16.99 per month or $110 per year.
The Business plan, at $30 per month per user or $240 annually, includes everything in Pro, but boosts meeting minutes to 6,000 and adds team collaboration features, enterprise-level security, and priority support.
Click here to try Otter AI for free.
Descript - Best for Podcast Editing
Descript is an all-in-one podcast and audio editor. With Descript, you can remove background noise, remove filler words, and add captions to your podcast video.
Generative AI comes into Descript with its transcription. You can then use the other features from the ‘script editor.’ I found that Descript’s transcription AI was slightly more accurate than Krisp’s.
The free version includes one watermark-free export, 60 minutes of transcription a month, and up to 720p video quality when exporting. Bear in mind that transcription rounds up. So, if you’re editing eleven 4.5-minute videos, you’ll have used your quota.
Descript Best Features:
Remove Filler Words - Through the ‘script editor,’ you can delete filler words highlighted in blue. Theoretically, you can also remove entire sentences.
Regenerate - To smooth out the remaining audio, Descript offers a beta feature called Regenerate. This was impressive and worked well when I tried it.
Adding Captions - Forget downloading transcripts and creating SRT files. Descript will add the transcript directly to your video as captions. You can then edit their placement, size, and color.
Descript Limitations:
Relatively Complex Interface - While the editor’s usability is great once you’ve got the hang of it, this takes a while. It can be overwhelming unless you spend a few hours reviewing the tutorial.
Limited Free Version - Descript’s free version seems to be offered more as a way for users to try out the platform than to provide them with long-term assistance.
You'll need the pro version if you’re editing more than one 60-minute podcast every month. This is billed annually at $288.
For example, at FlexOS, our team edits the Future Work podcast twice a month. But, with bite-sized 15-minute episodes, the free version of Descript would work perfectly for us.
Click here to try Descript for free.
Suno AI - Best for Music to Energize Team Meetings and Events
Prompting a song? Yes, this is the world we now live in.
Suno AI is revolutionizing the way music is created, with apowerful AI-driven platform that lets you generate unique songs from simple prompts.
While primarily designed for music enthusiasts, Suno AI has intriguing applications in a business context like enhancing team meetings and corporate events with your own custom song.
Suno AI's intuitive interface enables users of all skill levels to create music effortlessly.
This makes it an excellent tool for adding a creative touch to various business settings, such as warming up team meetings or creating a lively atmosphere during town halls. Teams can even collaborate to compose a song together, fostering a sense of unity and creativity.
Suno AI's Best Features:
- User-Friendly Interface: The platform is designed to be accessible, making it easy for anyone to create music. This is perfect for business environments where quick, engaging activities are needed.
- Collaborative Tools: Teams can work together on song creation, enhancing collaboration and team spirit. This feature can be particularly useful during team-building exercises or brainstorming sessions.
- Vast Sound Library: Suno offers a comprehensive library of sounds and samples, enabling users to add depth and variety to their compositions. This can be a fun way to introduce new themes or ideas during meetings.
- Social Sharing: Once a song is created, it can be shared directly on social media or within the company’s internal platforms, making it easy to celebrate and disseminate team creativity.
Suno AI's Limitations:
- Feature Complexity for Novices: While the platform is user-friendly, those unfamiliar with music production might find some features complex. However, basic song creation remains straightforward.
- Free Plan Limitations: The free plan allows limited song creations per month, which might not be sufficient for frequent use in a corporate setting. The premium plans offer more extensive features and capabilities.
Suno AI's Pricing:
Speaking of price, Suno lets you generate AI songs for free, but also offers two paid options:
- Basic Plan: Priced at $9.99 per month, it includes up to 600 songs and 300 generation attempts, with unlimited downloads and the option to make results private.
- Growth Plan: At $29.99 per month, this plan includes 3,000 songs and 1,500 generation attempts, along with enhanced features like unlimited downloads and privacy options.
Conclusion:
Suno AI is not just a tool for music creators but a versatile platform that can make any business environments better by bringing music into it.
Whether it’s to break the ice at the start of a meeting, energize a team-building activity, or create memorable events, Suno AI offers a creative outlet that can enrich the work experience.
Try Suno AI for free to create AI music.
Frequently Asked Questions about AI Websites
1. What is generative AI?
Generative AI websites are computer systems that have been trained on existing data.
Using what they ‘know,’ they can generate similar content, such as text or images.
See our full guide to AI in the Workplace here.
2. How can AI make my life and work easier?
There are so many AI websites out there. They can automate routine and repetitive tasks, freeing up more time for you to focus on creative, interpersonal, and higher-level responsibilities.
Furthermore, some AI-powered tools can help you streamline workflows and enhance decision-making with data-driven recommendations.
With the ability to continuously learn and improve, AI can increase efficiency, lower costs, and augment human capabilities across every industry and role. From tools like Midjourney for creating images to Blaze, a tool to improve your writing.
If you want to explore ways to leverage the advancement of AI, check out our guide on how to use AI in 2024.
3. Should I use AI?
As shown in our latest report, more and more people use generative AI at work, especially among GenZ and millennials. And 81% say the technology has improved their productivity, including 43% who say it significantly improved it.
AI websites like those I suggested on the list can quickly analyze data, summarize documents, write drafts, answer your questions, and even more.
You can use these AI tools almost daily to save considerable time and be more efficient at work. (And it’s also great for learning new concepts or just having fun with the innovations!)
However, ethical questions remain about when using AI websites is appropriate.
So, my advice is to use them mindfully and ensure that you review and refine their outputs. And avoid sharing confidential information to protect sensitive data of you and your company.
Need more AI tools to make your work and life 10x easier? Check out our Top AI Websites, Top AI Tools, How to Use AI, Free AI Tools, AI Productivity Tools, AI Recruiting, and AI Accounting.
Use our Prompt Generator to create 10x more powerful prompts and see more value from your ChatGPT usage.
Want to learn more about AI? Check out our guide to AI Trends, AI Statistics, AI Prediction, AI Cold Outreach, AI in Remote Work, AI in the Workplace, AI in Management, AI in HR, and Women and AI.
Wrapping it Up
And there you have it: 10 free AI websites to make your work and life easier in 2024.
You may need to spend a little time getting the hang of these AI tools and exploring all of their features. But in the end, this is worth it. They’ll save you huge amounts of time in the future.
Many of these AI websites are designed with remote teams in mind, so share them with your colleagues and find your favorites.
Have you tried any of the AI websites listed above? If so, we’d love to hear your thoughts and tips for getting the most out of them!
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