Welcome back to our AI Tips for Everyday People series! In this second installment, we’re uncovering five powerful (and free!) AI tools that can supercharge your productivity, creativity, and daily life—but most people don’t even know they exist.
Each tool comes with specific prompts and actionable steps so you can start using them immediately. Let’s dive in!
1. Perplexity AI – Your Research Assistant
“Google on steroids”
Why it’s great: Unlike ChatGPT, Perplexity AI provides real-time, sourced answers—perfect for fact-checking or deep research without bouncing between tabs.
💡 Try this now:
“Find recent studies (2023-2024) on intermittent fasting and weight loss. Summarize key findings in bullet points.”
📌 Pro Tip: Click the “Copilot” toggle for follow-up questions—it digs deeper automatically.
2. ElevenLabs – AI Voice Generator
“Turn text into natural-sounding speech”
Why it’s great: ElevenLabs creates human-like voiceovers for free—ideal for audiobook snippets, YouTube videos, or even custom Alexa responses.
💡 Try this now:
- Paste this script: “Welcome to today’s podcast. Let’s talk about AI productivity hacks…”
- Select a voice (try “Rachel” or “Matilda”).
📌 Pro Tip: Use it to proofread essays—hearing your writing aloud catches errors.
3. Claude AI – The Best Free Alternative to ChatGPT
“Longer memory, better reasoning”
Why it’s great: Claude AI (by Anthropic) handles longer documents (up to 100K tokens!) and is less prone to hallucinations than ChatGPT.
💡 Try this now:
Upload a PDF and ask:
“Summarize this contract in plain English. Highlight any red flags in payment terms.”
📌 Pro Tip: Claude excels at comparing documents: “Spot differences between Resume_v1 and Resume_v2.”
4. Leonardo.AI – Stunning AI Art (No Midjourney Fees)
“Create logos, wallpapers, or social media graphics”
Why it’s great: Leonardo.AI offers free daily credits to generate high-quality images without DALL-E’s paywall.
💡 Try this now:
Prompt: “A minimalist logo for a vegan bakery, pastel colors, flat design, no text.”
📌 Pro Tip: Use Realistic Vision v5 model for photorealistic portraits.
5. Tome – AI-Powered Presentations in Minutes
“Death to boring PowerPoints”
Why it’s great: Tome turns your bullet points into visual, narrated decks with AI-generated slides and stock photos.
💡 Try this now:
Type: “Create a 5-slide presentation about blockchain for beginners. Include diagrams.”
📌 Pro Tip: Export as a video for social media snippets.
BONUS: 3 Advanced Prompts to Combine These Tools
- Research → Presentation:
- “Perplexity, find stats about remote work trends. Output in bullet points.” → Paste into Tome.
- Script → Voiceover:
- Write a YouTube intro in Claude → Generate voice with ElevenLabs.
- Logo → Pitch Deck:
- Design a logo in Leonardo → Drop into Tome for a startup pitch.
Final Thoughts
These tools eliminate hours of manual work—yet most aren’t mainstream yet. Start with one tool that solves an immediate pain point (e.g., Perplexity for research or Tome for work presentations).
Which tool will you test first? Let’s discuss in the comments!
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That Helpful Dad 