The AI tools (currently) worth using for marketing
The list I wish existed when I started testing AI tools.
After all, the whole thing about AI is that it’s moving fast enough that something genuinely useful probably launched while I was writing this.
So, quick disclaimer: this isn’t the definitive list. It’s my list — the tools I’ve used, tested, or seen work for marketers in the real world.
What I’m sharing here are the tools I’ve actually used or watched other marketers use in their day-to-day work. Some are obvious. Some you might not have heard of. None of them are here because they have a good PR team.
With that said — here’s where I’d start:
For writing and brand voice → Claude: Best for newsletters, emails, and long-form copy that actually sounds like you. Feed it your brand guidelines and it holds them. Doesn’t produce that unmistakable “AI voice” most tools default to.
For strategy and thinking → ChatGPT: Less of a writing tool, more of a thinking partner. Use it to pressure-test ideas, build campaign frameworks, or work through a problem out loud. The o1 models are worth it for complex strategic thinking.
For research and documents → Gemini: Where it earns its place is with large inputs — massive spreadsheets, lengthy reports, multiple documents at once. If you’re doing research-heavy work or need to pull insights from a lot of data fast, this is the one.
For quick ad visuals → Nano Banana 2: Not glamorous, but fast. Good for spinning up test creatives before you invest in anything polished. The paid version closes the quality gap significantly.
For design without a designer → Canva AI: Magic Expand, background removal, AI image generation — all inside a tool most marketers already know. Won’t replace a designer, but it will stop you waiting on one for every small thing.
For ABM and demand gen prospecting → Clay: If you’re doing any kind of account-based marketing or outbound, Clay is hard to ignore. It pulls data from dozens of sources, enriches it with AI, and helps you build highly targeted lists without a full ops team. The learning curve is real but the output is worth it.
For understanding what’s working in paid social → Motion: Shows you why your creatives perform or don’t. Useful if you’re running volume on Meta or TikTok and need to stop guessing about what to kill or scale.
For meeting intelligence → Fireflies.ai: Records, transcribes, and summarises your meetings — but the useful part is what happens after. Search across past calls, pull action items automatically, and feed customer conversation insights back into your marketing. Stops useful information dying in someone’s notes.
For connecting your tools → Zapier: If you’re manually moving data between platforms, this is where to start. Straightforward automation for straightforward workflows.
For more complex automation → Make: Same idea as Zapier but built for multi-step, conditional workflows. The visual builder makes it easier to map out how everything connects. Worth it when Zapier starts feeling like a workaround.
For research without the noise → Perplexity: Marketing research that skips the SEO-optimized fluff and gives you actual sources. Faster than trawling Google for anything trend or industry related.
For turning long video into short clips → Opus Clip: Does the heavy lifting of identifying the best moments in a long video and formatting them for short-form. Useful if you’re trying to get more mileage out of webinars or interviews.
For editing video and audio → Descript: Edit video by editing a transcript. Filler word removal in one click. Voice cloning for corrections. Genuinely changes how long video editing takes.
For building landing pages and simple tools without a developer → Lovable: If you’ve ever had a campaign idea held hostage by a dev backlog, describe what you want in plain language and it builds functional web apps and landing pages. Not perfect, but fast enough to test an idea before investing properly.
For UI and front-end without code → v0: Similar to Lovable but skews more toward marketers who want polished, component-level design output. Describe a page or interface and it generates clean, usable code. Good if you’re working with a developer who can take the output further.
For stock content and voiceovers → Artlist: One subscription covers high-quality video, music, and AI voiceovers. Cleaner than cobbling together multiple stock sites and cheaper in the long run.
For ecommerce analytics → Triple Whale Moby: AI agents built on a serious base of ecommerce data. Less “chat with your data” and more “actually act on your data.” Relevant if performance marketing is part of your remit.
For real-time trends → Grok: Useful specifically for what’s happening on X right now. Not a general research tool, but good for staying current on fast-moving conversations.
This Week in AI
Perplexity launches Computer — Perplexity’s new multi-model system routes complex projects across 19 different AI models to get each task done by the best tool for the job. Think competitor analysis reports or full app builds, running autonomously for hours or months. Currently available for Max subscribers on web.
Google adds agentic features to Gemini and Opal — Gemini on Android can now complete multi-step tasks inside third-party apps like booking an Uber or ordering food, rolling out in beta on Pixel 10 and Samsung Galaxy S26. Google Labs also upgraded Opal, its no-code app builder, with an agent that automatically figures out the best approach to your goal and executes it.
Anthropic expands Claude Cowork for enterprise — Anthropic added a wave of new Cowork plugins covering HR, investment banking, design, private equity, and more, alongside connectors to Google Workspace, DocuSign, and WordPress. Admins can now build private plugin marketplaces and deploy AI agents across entire departments.
Coming up, I’m going to start going deeper on individual tools — what they actually do well, where they fall short, and how marketers are using them day-to-day.
Which tool would you want me to start with? Let me know!