AI has the internet buzzing and the philharmonic tones are only growing louder with each passing day.
What does AI mean for marketing, content writers, graphic designers, website developers, and the future of people in general?
Some see these advancements as the beginning of the end for creators across the spectrum of content. Others see AI as the next advancement in the world of content creation and that fighting it is simply a lost cause.
Regardless of your position, ignoring the rapidly evolving world of consumer AI will only set you further behind as the rest of the world takes the AI bull by the horns and attempts to tame the digital beast.
Let’s get right into some of the latest advancements and tools that you may, or may not, know about and how you can start using them ASAP.
ChatGPT-4
Let’s kick things off with the biggest (or most well-known) player in the AI content generation space—ChatGPT.
This tool exploded upon release of ChatGPT-3, giving content creators the power to write, edit, and ideate pretty much anything they could think of, from business plans and business names to ebooks and social media posts.
That said, ChatGPT’s latest upgrade ChatGPT-4 just landed, and we are getting a very small taste of what it can do. One of the biggest leaps the platform has made is being able to understand and react to images. For example, in OpenAI’s Demo of ChatGPT-4, a user could upload a picture of ingredients (or the inside of your fridge) and ChatGPT-4 could then spit out a variety of dishes you could create using the ingredients provided.
Again, this is from a photo! One forward-thinking Twitter user accomplished exactly this—check out the Tweet below.
Needless to say that the way ChatGPT-4 is “thinking” about information is truly next-level. You can check out OpenAI’s documentation for a full rundown of the expansion of languages, knowledgebase, and overall power of the ChatGPT update.
Perhaps one of the most jaw-dropping upgrades is ChatGPT’s newfound ability to convert nearly illegible handwritten notes into functioning website code. Yeah, that’s right, fully functional code that could be used right now. We are still trying to wrap our minds around how rapidly ChatGPT is advancing and changing our industry.
Midjourney (Image AI)
Speaking of images, we can’t talk about generating AI images without talking about Midjourney. In all of our testing, Midjourney has been the standout for creating pretty much any type of image we are looking for. We did an entire blog post on using tools like Midjourney to build a brand from the ground up—you can click here to see that entire process.
But, what is the big deal about Midjourney?
Two things you need to know. First, Midjourney just dropped their latest update (version 5), and like ChatGPT, this update is not messing around. Throughout our testing, Midjourney has had an Achilles’ heel when it came to things like reflections, hands, eyes, etc.
All the little things that as a human are immediately noticeable as just being wrong. Like eyes going in different directions or hands having nine fingers, you know…little things like that.
In our initial testing of Midjourney version 5, the results and quality are simply incredible! At first glance you would be hard-pressed to believe the image below was anything but authentic, but it is all AI. But remember, AI is not perfect.
Remember how we said that AI had yet to nail realistic hands? Well, in the image below, her right hand is picture-perfect…but the left hand? Is that an extra finger?!
That said, this is simply light-years ahead of where AI image generation was only a few months ago. This brings us to the second thing you need to know. Midjourney is not just about trying to create realistic images, but also, unrealized images.
This is our fancy way of saying “things that don’t exist yet.” We have experimented heavily with using Midjourney to create concepts of products, landing pages, and web pages as well. Ideas that we might be able to take and flesh out into fully functional pages for landing page or conversion testing. Midjourney is truly an amazing way to unlock far more than silly images.
ElevenLabs (Voice AI)
Got a video that you really want to put a voice-over onto but don’t have the budget for that? Or maybe you did a video shoot with an influencer and wanted to put their voice over a piece of B-roll but getting them back for more filming is impossible. ElevenLabs might be exactly what you need.
In short, ElevenLabs is your personal text-to-speech voice-over studio.
Whatever you type in gets read out loud in surprisingly realistic fashion, with a variety of built-in styles and tones, which you can then download and add to your content.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg.
You can also train your own “voice avatar” based on recordings you already have and then make it say…whatever you want. If you search Twitter you can find some amazing examples of creators editing full conversations of historical figures from different eras that sound startlingly realistic.
Potential abuse of this technology aside, the possibilities are vast, and this is not that awful robotic voice you hear on every other TikTok—this is next-level.
This unlocks the ability for small businesses and content creators to knock out professional-grade voice-over content with a few simple keystrokes. And it’s free to try, so jump in and give it a shot, and get ready to be impressed.
D-ID (Avaitar AI)
This one’s mind-blowing and might be dipping into creepy territory.
If you haven’t seen AI avatars, well get ready. D-ID takes the idea of text-to-speech like ElevenLabs and pairs it with realistic (and not so realistic) AI avatars, letting you create explainer videos, welcome videos, and much more.
You simply type your text, pick your avatar style, click generate, and download your video. But why stop there?!
In our testing, we wanted to take it a step further.
We noticed they have the option to upload your own image and create your own avatar, so that’s what we did. We used an AI-generated image from Midjourney, uploaded it into D-ID, dropped in our text, hit generate, and our jaws hit the floor.
This technology took the default image and animated all the mouth movements, head movements, and even the movement and blinking of the eyes automatically. It was truly astonishing.
Our Eyes Are Focused On AI
In case it isn’t clear, this technology is amazing. In just a few short months, we have gone from considering how AI could help us write content to having web-building capabilities and voice-over studios available at our fingertips.
The possibilities are swelling and we are here for them 100%.
Imagining what we can do with this technology still comes down to the minds using them, the ideas we create, and the experiences we want to provide.
That is where the magic happens. Our team is flexing every possible creative angle when it comes to AI, seeing how it can help us (and our clients) work smarter, not harder.
But use of this tech and reliance on it are two different things.
Can AI speed up processes, help us deliver even better results for our campaigns, and reduce A/B testing times? It’s possible. So as we advance into this new age, we will keep you updated with everything we learn so you can make this technology work for you as well.