If the first thing you think of when you hear “AI” is ChatGPT, you are not alone. But the technology has evolved beyond a simple question-and-answer chatbot and now works across multiple platforms and uses. You can ask AI to organise your email, or help you create a new website, even if your coding knowledge ended around the peak of HTML.
While some tools are free, many require a subscription to really get the most out of them. And as always, they should be used with a bit of human oversight. As the companies turning out these tools so often remind us, AI can get it wrong.
Productivity
CoPilot
For most businesses, CoPilot may be a good place to start. Microsoft has integrated OpenAI’s technology into its own system, building CoPilot into everything from word processing and spreadsheets to coding. That means you can use CoPilot to draft a first effort of that all-important document, or to make sense of the data in an Excel sheet.
The key benefit though isn’t only what the technology can do, it is in how it handles your data. Companies that are enterprise customers of Microsoft’s services can be sure that their data is not being used for training any large language models (LLMs), using the same safeguards that you already apply to your internal data.
RM Block
Gemini
Google may have got off to a rocky start with Bard, its original AI chatbot, but its transition to Gemini has been much smoother. You might be familiar with the chatbot popping up in Android smartphones or in Google Workspace, but the company has been developing it as much more than a low-grade Clippy (Microsoft’s famously intrusive paperclip assistant of yore). You can draft emails, write documents and create images using the tool.
Google has also created Gemini Notebook, originally named Notebook LM, a research tool that will help you get to grips with various topics through the sources you provide. That could be a white paper on new regulations, a YouTube video outlining new methods of working, or a PDF of a company’s annual report. You can create a frequently asked questions document based on the sources, or have Notebook generate an audio podcast discussing the topic.
And you can still ask Gemini to come up with some pithy jokes and little-known facts to entertain people at a networking event.
Notion
Notion has built a name for itself as the place to go when you or your team want to be organised. The workspace allows you to build databases, write notes, track projects and so on. Once you get to grips with the system you can personalise it to your own preferences, creating templates that can be used repeatedly by your team, or repurposing those created by others for your own use.
The latest version of Notion AI has extended its capabilities, helping you organise and edit the work inside your existing databases on the system. You can create agents to handle repetitive tasks or ask the AI for help with deep research. It can compile reports based on your data while you sleep, which is always an alluring prospect. And it will safeguard your data too – no training, no unwanted saving.
Fireflies AI
When it comes to meeting notes and transcripts, new tools are popping up all the time. They connect to your calendar and offer up their services at the right time, automatically taking notes, transcribing the entire meeting and sending on the details, plus any action points, to the meeting participants.
While the big platforms have integrated their own notetaking capabilities, there are times when you might be working across multiple platforms and situations. In that case, a third-party solution that works across a number of different services is needed.
Step forward Fireflies, an AI-powered notetaker that can attend your virtual meetings, record in-person ones or transcribe calls. You can upload audio and video files to have it transcribe for you, eliminating the need to sit through long meetings you have missed just to find the relevant actions you need to take.
Fireflies also complies with data protection rules in the EU, and it promises that it won’t use your data for training – a key consideration when you are transcribing confidential meetings.
As always though, the output should be carefully checked. A dropped word here and there could change the entire meaning of a sentence – something that could have drastic consequences for a business further down the road.
HireVue
The bane of many a jobseeker, HireVue is an AI-powered screening tool for potential candidates. It carries out automated video interviews with prospective employees, helping to narrow the field before the in-person interviews get started.
There are drawbacks, however, to allowing AI to take over some of the recruitment process, not least that you may miss out on a good candidate who doesn’t meet the AI criteria. There are some things in life that need the human touch.
Creating
AI has become a divisive subject in the creative industry. With more companies turning to AI tools to create projects, where does that leave the talent side of the industry?
To ensure that AI slop does not become the norm, there is a balance to be struck between using AI for convenience and accepting everything it churns out. Already, AI “speak” has become recognisable, so a human touch at some stage of the process is still advisable. Claude, for example, has begun watermarking text to allow it to be identified as AI generated.
If you do want to build some AI into your creative tasks, however, there are plenty of options out there – depending on what you want to build.
Canva AI
Canva has made a name for itself in the design world. The online design tool is used for everything from newsletters and social media posts to presentations and posters.
But sometimes you need another person to bounce ideas off. Now Canva has integrated an AI assistant that can do just that. You describe what you want to create and Canva AI will point you in the right direction. That could be polishing up some documents, or changing your brand identity.
The company also says it will learn your style, with a memory function that will keep your personal preferences in mind too.
Vibe coding
Creativity isn’t all about art and design though. If you haven’t heard of vibe coding, you have missed out on a growing movement that is transforming how software is created. Instead of needing training in software development, there are a growing number of tools that will help you create your project without the need for complicated code.
Lovable
Lovable gives you a web-based tool to create what you want using natural language. You tell it what you want to create, and Lovable will help you build it.
Figma
If you are looking for an alternative, Figma is another tool that is relatively easy to learn and will bring coding and design together in a web-based interface. There are plenty of guides and templates to get you started, so whether it is a user interface that you are struggling with or a mobile app you are mocking up, you can find your way through the system quickly and easily.
Claude
If you have a bit more experience, Claude Code can be a good tool to use to work through your code blocks, or to sort out some of the less interesting bits of the task.
Tines
If you want your business to support the home team, Irish tech unicorn Tines has created a new product, Tines 3B, that will help you build your own AI apps and agents, using natural language.
That doesn’t mean, however, that you can simply replace all your software engineers with AI coding. There is still a place for experience and knowledge that isn’t limited to what the AI training models have covered, especially when something goes wrong.
