For many creators, their first reaction to generative AI tools like ChatGPT and DALL-E is fear: fear that they’ll be replaced, or that human creativity will stop being valued. Those fears are valid, but there’s another way to frame this new AI-centered world we’re entering. That is, AI tools can free humans of creative blocks and mundane tasks so they can be more creative. 

In fact, there is a wide world of AI tools designed specifically to help specific kinds of creators free themselves from the tasks that slow them down and hamper their creativity. Are you a playwright who’s trying to come up with the next scene? Maybe a musician trying to mix up an overused chord progression? Or, ahem, a podcaster who needs to make a quick correction to something you already recorded? There are AI tools out there for you.‍

Here's a list of AI tools for creators. Note that, while we call it the "ultimate" list (partly to get you to click on it), it's definitely not comprehensive; these tools are emerging and changing so fast it's almost impossible to keep up. These are just the tools we've heard the most about, been the most curious about, and found the most useful so far. It should be plenty to get you started with AI, so dive in — and start putting the robots to work.

• Podcasters
• Video creators
• Writers
• Visual artists
• Musicians

Another disclaimer: While different types of creators can certainly use tools outside of their wheelhouse — a podcaster generating AI music for an episode, for instance — it’s my view that when you can pay a fellow creative for their human work, you should. The result will almost always be better and more meaningful than AI can deliver.

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Podcasters

• Descript: Descript is an AI-powered editor that automatically transcribes your audio and video recordings so that you can edit them just like text. It also uses AI to remove background noise and improve recording quality with a click (via Studio Sound), detect filler words like “um” and “uh,” and can insert AI voices — even correct misspoken words with a synthesized version of your own voice, if you want — via its Overdub feature. Price: The free version enables 1 hour of transcription and 10 minutes of Studio Sound per month.
• Podcastle: Podcastle is a cloud recorder and AI-powered editor that lets you record a remote interview, edit, and mix all in one app. It also has transcription capabilities, an AI-powered sound quality tool called Magic Dust, and AI voices. Price: The free version gives you unlimited recording, 1 hour of transcription, and 3 uses of Magic Dust.
• Resound: Resound is an AI-powered audio editor built to automatically detect filler words like “um” and “uh” and remove them from your recording. Price: Free for up to one hour of editing a month; paid plans start at $12/month.
• Adobe Podcast: This is Adobe’s answer to Descript — an AI-powered text-based audio editor that can automatically enhance speech. It also enables remote recording. Price: Adobe Podcast is in beta, so it’s currently free to those who request and are granted access.
• Auphonic: Upload your file, and Auphonic will automatically optimize your recording and polish up the quality of the audio. You can choose from a variety of audio algorithms, including a leveler, normalization, filtering, and noise reduction, and it can even stitch an intro and outro onto your episode if you want. Price: Free for 2 hours of processed audio a month.
• Cleanvoice.ai: Like Auphonic, Cleanvoice is a standalone AI audio tool that can remove unwanted sounds, but it focuses more on speech imperfections like filler words, stutters, and those spitty, clicky mouth sounds. Price: The first 30-minute recording is free, after which there are monthly options starting at 10 Euros/month (around $10.60 USD) or pay-as-you-go options starting at 1.30 Euros an hour (around $1.38 USD).
• Listnr: If you want AI voices, Listnr’s got ‘em. Paste text into their text-to-speech converter, and the app will convert it into one of their 600 voices in seconds. At that point, it’s ready to turn into a podcast, use as a video voiceover, star in a Home Alone contraption to scare away burglars, whatever you need it for. Price: $9 for up to 10,000 words per month.  
• Alitu: Alitu brands itself as an AI-powered one-stop shop for podcast production. You can record remotely with hosts or guests, polish up the audio, edit the content, generate transcripts, and publish all from a single platform. Price: After a 7-day free trial, the service is $38/month.
• Dubb: If you’re more interested in the recording part of podcasting than the marketing part, Dubb is for you. It uses AI to generate not only transcripts, but episode titles, show notes, newsletter content, Twitter threads, even generative AI TikTok videos. Price: You can get a podcast media kit for free, after which plans start at $24.99/month.
• Capsho: Similar to Dubb, Capsho uses AI to generate podcast episode titles, descriptions, transcripts, show notes, blog posts, newsletters, social media captions, YouTube descriptions, virtually any written content you need to market your podcast. All you have to do is upload your episode to the platform. Price: After a 7-day free trial, plans start at $29/month.
• Podcastmarketing.ai: Second verse, same as the first — this platform is another AI-powered tool that generates any written content you need to post and market your podcast. Its pricing scheme is a bit more flexible than the other platforms mentioned here, though, making it especially good for podcasters who don’t put out a weekly show. Price: Plans start at $9 for one episode a month, $16 for two episodes a month, and $30 for four episodes a month.
• Listener.fm: Another AI-powered tool for podcast show notes (there can never be enough, in my opinion), Listener.fm allows you to upload an episode with or without extra information like the episode name, host, and guests, and get back three title options, three summary options, and timestamps of the themes covered in the episode. Price: The Pro plan is $19/month for unlimited uploads.
• Melville: You're never going to believe this — it's another podcast show notes tool. Melville's differentiator is in its by-the-minute pricing (no monthly subscription fees) and its clean, intuitive interface. You can also ask the tool to regenerate your show notes in a different tone or format, which is something we haven't seen in other tools. Price: The first hour is free; after that, it's 22 cents per minute of your episode.
• Vizard.ai: For those who record video of their podcasts — whether that’s a full studio setup or just a Zoom recording — Vizard can automatically repackage that video into short clips designed to be shared over social media. The Descript-like editor lets you highlight the transcript of the clips you want to produce, make edits to the video, and adjust the orientation, background, and layout before exporting. Price: Free for a limited time.
• Flowjin: Flowjin can create social-ready clips of audio-only or video podcast episodes. With this tool, the AI chooses the clips for you so you don’t have to spend time poring through your episode looking for the best moments — but, fair warning, it chose weird moments for me when I tested it. Price: Your first 60 minutes of uploads are free; after that, plans start at $29/month.
• Vidyo.ai: Like Flowjin, Vidyo.ai uses AI to automatically choose highlight clips from your existing video (no audio-only clips for this tool). When I tested it, though, I was much more satisfied with the clips it chose than I was with Flowjin. Vidyo.ai also has an impressive selection of video templates for YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok formats. Price: Free for up to 75 minutes of uploads per month; paid plans start at $29.99/month.
• Lychee: If you’ve got a budget and you want video clips that are a step up from what an AI can produce alone, Lychee is a good option. The company combines AI technology with actual human curation to make sure that the video is as good as it can be. This means that it costs a little more and takes a little more time, but an actual human person has given it their stamp of approval. Price: $150 for three clips, with discounts for larger packages.
• Podintelligence: This is another AI tool that chooses clips for you, but it does things a little differently. The AI engine picks out a ton of clips — it produced 29 from my 30-minute podcast episode — and then adds keywords and a human-reviewed transcript to each one. The result is an impeccably organized, searchable database of clips ready for you any time you want to share a piece of content. Price: Your first piece of content is free; after that, pricing starts at $50 for one video or audio file up to 60 minutes long. 

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Video creators

If you’re an experienced video creator, you might wonder why you need AI at all. Two reasons: one, there are a ton of very cool AI editing tools out there that can do things traditional editors can’t. And two, there are video generation tools that can be really handy for hearing how your scripts flow or seeing how two characters interact. You can also use them to create a rough example for a client before actually making the video. 

• Descript: Descript is an AI-powered video editor that will transcribe your footage automatically so you can edit it just like a word document. In addition to AI audio tools like Studio Sound, which will remove background noise and polish up the quality with just a click, it also features a powerful AI green screen feature that will detect and remove your background automatically so you can replace it with whatever you want — maybe outer space, a sunny beach, or a different cluttered office from the one you filmed in. Price: The free version enables 1 hour of transcription and 10 minutes of Studio Sound per month.

• Runway: Half AI image generator, half AI-powered video editor, Runway can either create a video from scratch using only text or edit your video with futuristic tools like background or object removal, motion tracking, and automatic “beat” detection, along with staples like automatic noise removal and subtitles. Price: Free for up to 3 projects/25 image generations with limited export options; paid plans start at $12/month.
• Aug X Labs: It’s automatic B-roll powered by AI. Just upload an audio or video recording and Aug X Labs’ prompt-to-video tool will add relevant images based on what’s being said. Price: The tool is in beta, so it’s free if you’re accepted.
• Pictory: Pictory is an AI-powered video generator and editor that can create videos from scripts and blog posts with AI text-to-speech voices and automatic B-roll footage. You can also use it to edit existing videos with a Descript-style text-based editor, and even create short snippets for social media with just a few clicks. Price: A free trial allows for 3 videos up to 10 minutes long; paid plans start at $19 per user per month.
• Synthesia: You’ve heard of text-to-speech, but what about text-to-virtual-avatar? With just plain text (in up to 65 languages), Synthesia generates a realistic looking virtual avatar to deliver your lines talking-head style. Instead of watching stock footage paired with an AI voice, you can watch a realistic “person” walk you through an instructional video or product demo, which, while definitely in uncanny valley territory, is a lot more engaging. (Descript uses Synthesia for internal presentations all the time, in fact.) Price: The personal plan is $30 for 10 video credits/month.‍
• Synthesys: Like Synthesia, Synthesis generates a virtual AI presenter from any lines of text in up to 66 languages and 254 different voices. It can also do straight AI voiceovers if you already have a video that needs a narrator. Price: $23/month for just AI voiceovers, $31/month for AI avatars, and $47/month for both.‍
• D-ID: D-ID can generate talking humans, but it can also generate talking monsters. That’s because it can combine facial images — either real ones or AI-generated ones — with audio or text to make them speak. Price: After a 14-day free trial, plans start at $6 for 10 minutes of video a month.‍
• Elai: Elai mixes automatic video generation with AI avatars for a really easy way to make videos in minutes. You can generate footage from a blog post URL, product images and descriptions, or even a slide deck, then choose your human avatar and put the AI to work. Price: Plans start at $29 for 15 minutes of video per month.‍
• InVideo: InVideo lets you create entire videos in minutes from a script, article, or blog post — or existing footage — with an eye-popping 6,000 templates organized by platform, industry, and content type. It can also remove backgrounds, add AI voiceovers, and automatically resize your video for any platform. Price: Free for up to 40-minute videos with limited AI tools; free plans start at $30/month. ‍
• VEED: VEED is a web-based video editor that can do screen recording, automatic subtitles, AI voiceovers, and a bunch of other things to make your videos look polished and professional. Price: Free for videos under 10 minutes; paid plans start at $25/month.
• FlexClip: Another web-based video editor, Flexclip’s claim to fame is its collection of AI tools: namely, an AI image generator, an AI video script generator, and a text-to-video tool that will automatically create an image slideshow and subtitles based on your video script. Price: Free for limited functionality; paid plans start at $19.99/month.

Writers

Of all the AI tools for creatives, the ones for writers are probably the most diverse. That makes sense — writing a poem is different from writing a novel, which is different from writing a screenplay. There are apps that can write for you, summarize what you wrote, give you ideas, and even help you structure your story. They can cut down on research time, brainstorming time, editing time, and general writing time — and that leaves you with more time to write the stuff you want to write.

• ChatGPT: You know her, you love her (or at least tolerate her). We’ve already laid out how to use ChatGPT to improve your creative process, but in short: it’s great for generating ideas for headlines, topics, interview questions, even what should happen in the next paragraph. You can use it to chat with historical figures or characters in your story; it can recast your writing in a more formal voice or a more casual tone; it can edit your work not only for grammar and spelling but conciseness and clarity. You probably shouldn’t use it for researching facts, but otherwise, it’s a writer’s one-stop shop. Price: Free at the moment, though there’s a waitlist for a $20/month premium version.
• HyperWrite: This is a Chrome extension that acts as an AI-powered writing assistant. You can ask it to give you suggestions (kind of like autocomplete on your phone) or it can write whole paragraphs from the topics you provide. It’s also got an image generation feature. Price: Free for the basic version.
• Sudowrite: Designed specifically for fiction writers, Sudowrite can analyze your characters, tone, and plot to generate the next beat of your story in your voice. It can also add more vivid descriptions, expand short passages, and even suggest areas to improve. Price: Plans start at $10 for 30,000 AI words per month.‍
• Subtxt: This narrative writing app existed long before its AI text-generation component, so that now it’s a powerful tool for writers of short stories, books, film, and TV to build better stories with a powerful narrative framework. The app can even teach you more about narrative theory to improve your story’s plot. Price: Plans start at $25 for up to 100 AI tokens per month.

• Laika: This AI writing assistant is trained on your writing. Upload your stories, essays, articles, and journal entries, and the tool creates an echo of your own voice that will then offer suggestions in your style. It’ll continue your thoughts, invent characters for you, even generate images of the things you’re writing about. Price: Laika is currently in closed beta, but you can get on the waiting list. 
• Boo: Boo is an AI writing assistant that prides itself on its simple, distraction-free interface. It has a built-in ChatGPT-style AI assistant, smart autocomplete for writing suggestions, and templates for particular types of writing, like product descriptions, blog posts, and newsletters. Price: After a 3-day free trial, plans start at $8 for 10,000 words a month.
• Lex: Think Google Docs on AI. Lex has real-time collaboration, formatting, everything you’d want from a word processor in the cloud, but it also has an AI assistant that will help you come up with ideas for your writing. Price: Lex is currently in beta, but you can get on the waitlist to use it for free.

Visual artists

While there’s been plenty of controversy over the use of AI image generators in the art space, these tools have a place in an artist’s toolkit, especially in the early stages of a piece. Sometimes artists find themselves stuck creating the same old work in the same old style, and AI image generators can give them new and unexpected ideas that they can use as a starting point.

• Midjourney: Midjourney is one of the many image generators that have taken the art world by storm. You use it by sending chat prompts to the AI in Discord, which is good and bad — you get to see everyone else’s art, but they also get to see yours. The images it creates can be truly breathtaking, as long as you can navigate the quickly scrolling chat box. Price: Free.
• Stable Diffusion: Another famous image generator, Stable Diffusion allows you to ask for a particular image with both a positive prompt and a negative prompt. You can also adjust a “guidance” slider that determines how closely the image generator sticks to your prompt. Price: Free.

• DALL-E 2: Made by OpenAI, the same company that built ChatGPT, DALL-E 2 is also capable of stunning AI-generated images. It’s particularly good at copying different art styles and can produce photorealistic images more successfully than other generators. Price: Free.
• Lexica: Lexica isn’t strictly generative AI, but we’re including it here because it can make you better at using generative AI tools. It’s a search engine for every image ever made using Stable Diffusion, and considering that many prompts are probably repeated, it’s a good way to get an image result without the wait. But it’s also perfect for learning what a given prompt might generate and figure out what wording might work best for your next image. Price: Free.
• Craiyon: Made by the team that created the older image tool DALL-E mini, Craiyon will produce nine images at a time from any text prompt. Price: Free.
• Stockimg.ai: While other image generators let you explore the potential of the medium, Stockimg is specifically designed for practical purposes like book covers, logos, posters, digital wallpaper, and the like. Price: It’s free to try once, and paid plans start at $19 for up to 500 image credits per month.
• Canva's Text to Image: That's right, this popular tool for content creators now has its own AI image generator, and it's more intuitive than most. Type your prompt, choose your style from six options, then choose whether you want landscape, portrait, or square orientation. The tool will generate four images to choose from, and you can keep generating more until you get it right. Price: Free, at the moment.
• Adobe Firefly: Yes, the mega-giant of graphic design has gotten in on the generative AI game. But unlike many of the tools on this list, its AI is integrated into a tool many designers already use every day, so they can use text-to-image, generative fill, generative recolor, extend image, and many more tools in their usual workflow. It's also entirely trained on licensed images — no internet scraping here. (Personally, I use generative fill to expand overly cropped headshots of podcast guests for my YouTube thumbnails on a weekly basis. It's great.) Price: Included with certain Adobe Creative Cloud apps, currently including Photoshop (Beta) ($21/month), Illustrator ($21/month), and Adobe Express ($10/month). Or you can get all Adobe apps for a flat $55/month.

Musicians

AI-based music generation tools are often marketed as a way to create music without being able to play an instrument. While that’s possible, the result is usually pretty bland. But when musicians and composers use these tools as just one part of their creative process, they can cut down on time spent tinkering and experimenting and land on that perfect musical idea faster — leaving them with more creative energy to polish up the rest of the piece.

• Score by Amper Music: Though it’s designed for content creators to quickly make soundtracks for videos and podcasts, Score has a few perks that are great for musicians: it allows you to adjust the structure of the piece so that it hits the climax exactly where you want it to, and it uses proprietary samples of real instruments to avoid the humdrum sound of stock music. Price: $5 license fee per track for personal projects.
• AIVA: Need to create another movement for an existing piece? AIVA lets you upload your own MIDI file to influence the AI composition process and produce something new that sounds similar. You can also start from scratch with a wide variety of preset styles. Price: Free for the basic version.
• Ecrett Music: This is another tool designed to make music for online content, though Ecrett is more stringent about how you use the tracks — in essence, you can only mix or add lyrics to the music if it will be used in a podcast, video, or game. But using it to inspire your own compositions is completely free! Price: Free for a trial plan with no downloads.
• Soundraw: Like Score, this AI music tool allows you to adjust the song’s structure to fit your tastes — just lengthen the intro or move the chorus around with a few clicks. If you plan to use the track as music itself and not the soundtrack to content, there are specific guidelines the platform requires you to follow. Price: Free to generate unlimited songs; $20 per month for up to 50 downloads per day.
• MuseNet: Created by OpenAI — the same company behind ChatGPT and DALL-E — this completely free tool can generate 4-minute musical compositions with up to 10 different instruments in a ton of different styles. Its coolest feature is its ability to blend styles and use an existing piece as a jumping off point to an entirely new composition. Ask it to compose with an intro from The Pink Panther Theme in a bluegrass style and see what it comes up with. Price: Free. 

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