🔊 Old Hollywood returns: AI company ElevenLabs is bringing dead celeb voices to its Reader app. Soon, James Dean, Burt Reynolds or Judy Garland will voice your next audiobook. The app can turn PDFs and other text formats into voiceovers, too.
Best AI tools to create ads, write sales emails, A/B test products and more
Being a small-business owner or employee generally means you wear many hats. Believe me, I know. I’m a national radio show host, saleswoman, marketer, negotiator, strategist, mentor, analyst … I could go on.
That’s why I’m always on the lookout for things that make managing all those roles — for me and you — a little easier. We’re deep enough into the AI revolution that the tools aren’t just gimmicks. They’re actually useful.
Let’s take a look at what’s out there. If you give one a try, I’d love to hear about it. Drop me a line.
Meta’s next-gen moves
Meta’s generative AI ad software integrates with product images, crafts backgrounds that make them pop and lets you adjust sizes and formats in just a click. Its software can highlight your product’s unique selling points in multiple catchy versions. Access is rolling out, but you may already see it if you log in to your Facebook Business account.
Canva’s ‘Magic’ touch
Think of Magic Studio as Canva on rocket fuel. Take an existing design and flip, crop, adjust and redesign. Have a PDF featuring a phased-out product? Just zap it out. And if you’re reaching out to an international audience, Magic Studio’s auto-translate feature is your new BFF.
LinkedIn’s power play
LinkedIn’s Accelerate tool doesn’t just create ads; it analyzes your website and account, drawing insights to build a campaign that truly resonates. Auto-optimization ensures your campaign stays sharp, but you have complete control before hitting launch if you want to sprinkle in some personal touch.
Those are the big names, but what about startups? Yep, I found those, too.
New AI tools to help grow your business
- Beacons: Made for creators and influencers. It curates personalized pitch emails to help you find companies to partner with without all the work.
- DeepBrain AI: Drop in a script and get back a video featuring AI avatars.
- GrowthBar: Think SEO AI. GrowthBar provides keyword insights and backlink data and can even spy on competitors’ SEO strategies.
- Smartwriter.ai: For all the salespeople. This tool taps into public data to craft personalized emails tailor-made for the recipient, driving engagement and replies.
- Trellis: Attention online retailers. Trellis runs A/B tests, tracks conversion metrics and even automates promotional campaigns to maximize ROI.
- ManyChat: Getting a chatbot running on your site is cheap and easy. Craft sequences for FAQs, automate responses for common queries and integrate with tools like Shopify for a seamless customer experience — no coding experience required.
- RambleFix: When you just can’t find the right words, talk to RambleFix. It’ll clean up all your “um”s and “ah”s and draft a note, article, social media post or whatever you need.
Storage full? This might be why
When you always have a pro-quality camera in hand, you know what happens: You take a ton of pictures and videos. Do you need all six shots of your bagel or the three blurry videos of your dog being cute? Uh, no.
There’s a setting that might be to blame if you’re running low on storage.
Free Photoshop clone that runs in your browser
Photoshop is the gold standard for image editing and the choice of serious professionals and dedicated amateurs alike. There are other image editors out there, but they have limited functionality or are just about impossible for non-pros to learn. Maybe you want to clean up the family photos and let your artistic side flow, but the high-end image editors are too intimidating, and the free ones are too limited.
Free, simple way to convert your files to any format
Have you ever received a file and found out that none of your installed programs can open it? Not every computer has the same programs, program versions or even the same fonts. And what looks fine on your computer might look terrible, or not even open at all, on someone else’s system.