7 Free AI Productivity Tools I Use Every Day

With AI, I think most people are past the hype of using or paying for tools that are basically just cool tech demos. We want tools to incorporate into our lives to save time, be more productive, or actually use in the real world. This is that list.

I'm going to cover the seven AI tools I use every day to increase my productivity, simplify and automate tedious tasks, and just get more done. There’s a few of these I was resistant to at first because sometimes you just get comfortable doing things the way you always have, but then I’d finally try them and have no idea how I ever lived without them. There are also five bonus tools at the end that don’t apply directly to what I do, so I don’t use them every day, but I research and test a ton of tools for this channel and they’re some of the most useful I’ve come across for the people that need them.

I’ll start with Arc browser, then Perplexity, which I have set up as the default search engine within Arc. After using this combo for a while, going back to using Chrome or Safari to search something using Google feels like using a flip phone. A couple of major quality-of-life improvements you notice right away are, first off, the vertical sidebar for all your bookmarks and tabs.

It's way easier to organize this way and doesn’t have that ugly look of 20 tabs up top like every other browser—at least if you're a tab hoarder like me. You can hide the sidebar; then it will pop back open when you hover, so you always have a clean look. If you start to have too many tabs open, you click this little broom button, and it will use AI to analyze and sort them into categories.

You can also create different spaces or profiles for work, personal, and school, or by interest. If you open up a tab that fits into a different profile, you can just drag it over there. Overall, there are way more options for organization, and having your workspace never feel cluttered is really nice.

Then, the split view windows are huge; just drag a tab out and it automatically jumps into split view, then it will resize them automatically as you drag. It's so much better than switching between tabs or using separate windows that are weird to resize. In a similar realm, if you're watching a YouTube video and click on another tab, it automatically switches to picture-in-picture.

This is already a feature on phones, so I don’t know why no other browser has implemented that. Just those features right there are such game changers, and now that I've used them, it seems insane that no one ever thought of them before. There’s some other cool stuff too, like it will rename downloaded files based on content, or it will show link previews when hovering over a link.

There are great keyboard shortcuts; you can screenshot or screen capture the full page natively. They have built-in easels, which are like a whiteboard for taking notes, drawing, and collaborating, and they’re always adding new stuff. They have a big focus on customization; you can toggle on and off features you like or don’t like.

They’re already integrated with a ton of AI features and made the experience much more modern and fast, but they also partnered with Perplexity, and you can set it to your default search engine, which takes the whole thing to the next level. So, Perplexity is a much faster way to get from question to answer. I’ll type in the search bar: “What are the key benefits of Arc browser?

” All right, instead of a list of links to go through, Perplexity basically searches the internet for you and condenses what it found all into a short page, like a personal AI research assistant. I have an answer, links to the sources that were used to get that answer, then some media like related images and videos, and suggested questions to continue the conversation with just a click. Using sources to formulate its responses cuts down on hallucinations significantly.

It's called retrieval-augmented generation, and it tends to be more accurate than just asking ChatGPT. It does all this extremely fast in a really clean interface with no ads, so I use it on the web and the mobile app every day. There are some really nice additional benefits if you use the paid version, like access to different advanced LLMs, so you can switch between GPT-4, CLA, Llama, and Mixol.

You can look into all that if you really like it, but the free version is amazing too. Perplexity is the first place I go when I have a question—before Google, before ChatGPT, or anywhere else. Next up is Notion.

Generally, in any productivity system or information-gathering system, you’ll have some sort of central hub where all your information gets stored, often referred to as your “second brain,” which is a perfect term. So how I think about this is you have the mind, machine, and method. The machine is all these tools for capturing and processing information, then the mind for it all to live in, and various workflows and methods to process and get it all there.

In my system, I have Notion as the mind. I would have included it in this either way, but they did also sponsor this video—thank you, Notion! Let’s do a couple of examples.

I’m always searching for new AI tools to test and information to save; basically, the only reason I have Twitter. I’ve seen a bunch of posts about this Arill avatar tool. I don’t have time to experiment right now, but I want to make sure I have it saved, so I have my AI knowledge.

Base in Notion as a pinned tab in Arc, so I'll drag that tab into split view, open up the Avatar folder, then copy it in there. Having all this stuff as just bookmarks gets really difficult to navigate; I keep it all in here to remember to read later or to reference if I'm making a video. Also, I have my whole content creation workspace in here, so I'll open up the YouTube folder and do a quick tour.

I have video ideas built into almost every page, so I can always see what's in progress, what's upcoming, or be able to jot down a quick idea at any time. There are resources, sponsors, ideas, to-dos, and things to improve, whether that's critiques people leave in the comments, which are often valid although not always worded constructively, or my own criticisms of myself, which aren't always worded constructively either. I suppose we don't need to open that one.

Let's open up the video ideas, then productivity tools. It's got the sponsor as Notion, then it starts as research and notes where I dump everything, but in an organized manner. So here's how I do that: I know I'm going to include Arc, so I'll use this prompt in Perplexity: "Summarize Arc browser in one sentence, then give me a bulleted list of the key features, then a list of sources I can use for further research.

" Boom! Now I can copy that into Notion, then turn everything into a collapsible section with a drop-down arrow. So I can do that for every tool and then move them around, delete the ones I test and don't like, add notes on them, and then it starts to form an outline.

I will steadily work that into a script and then I'll throw title and thumbnail ideas in here throughout the process. Then there are some checklists to make sure I get everything taken care of during the load process. I can't deep dive into the whole setup, but I also love that Notion has AI integrated throughout.

It's really helpful! Say I'm working on the script here; I'll highlight a section: "What is a good analogy for this? " or I'll have it reformat paragraphs into bullet points.

A lot—Notion is really powerful. There are all sorts of automations you can do, you can collaborate; any page you create you can share as a website—it's endless! But I'll just leave it at what I spend the most time using it for, which is content creation.

I thought it would be helpful to show how all these tools can work together. The method I have, two message management apps that are huge timesavers for messages across every app besides email: Text. com is one of these; that's just been a game changer.

So, I have a lot of social media accounts, and I try to avoid spending time on these platforms for the most part. So, instead of going from Twitter to Instagram to Discord and just forgetting that LinkedIn even exists, Text. com brings them all into one place.

I can just dedicate a block of time and bust through all of it and avoid any of the algorithms. It includes the non-algorithm-based apps like Slack and WhatsApp and everything else too, and since it's all private DMs, I'd have to blur out basically my whole screen to show it, so I'm going to cover it quick. Basically, it's one unified inbox for all your apps.

It has AI integrated, so you can easily draft responses with ChatGPT, get automated summaries and translations. The inbox is also just really organized, where you can search messages or pin important conversations to the top. There's stuff like send later, keyboard shortcuts, a customizable UI, and a ton of other features that make it just way better.

Another great part that needs to be mentioned is their focus on privacy, so they ensure end-to-end encryption of your messages and send them directly to the messaging platforms, so they never touch the Text. com servers like a digital post office. This is the only tool on the list that you don't get much in the free plan; you can only link a couple of accounts.

It's $15 per month to be able to link them all. I thought it was still worth a mention because it is a huge timesaver, and I haven't found a good free option. The other big part of this is managing email, which can also be overwhelming and time-consuming.

So, using an AI email assistant can help you get to inbox zero. This is another one where I didn't want to show private emails, so I'm using other clips instead of blurring everything. Missive is integrated with OpenAI, so you can quickly create and reply to emails, fix grammar and spelling errors, translate messages, and even customize the AI to your specific needs using your own prompts.

One aspect that stands out with Missive over some of the others is the team integration. It's great for collaborating; you can share custom prompts with your team. The ability to collaborate around important emails with your team easily, instead of forwarding and writing back and forth, or jumping into Slack or something, is really nice.

You do get a lot with the free version. Canva is the ultimate timesaver for all sorts of graphic design, like social media graphics, presentations, infographics, marketing materials, and educational materials. It's amazing how easy it makes it!

For my video about AI mobile apps, I needed a graphic showing all the apps in their various categories, so I jumped into Canva and made it really easily. In that same video, I needed one for the difference between ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot features. I couldn't find a good-looking one online anywhere, so I just whipped one up in Canva, and it looked awesome.

It would take a crazy amount of time for me. . .

To make something half as good in Photoshop or Illustrator, I've been using those platforms for over a decade, and that already sped things up a ton. They have a bunch of AI features rolled out as well, where you can create custom templates from a text prompt. If you have a design you need to resize to a different aspect ratio, it will analyze and resize it in the best way.

There's an AI writing assistant, Magic Eraser, Magic Replace, and Magic Edit. Honestly, Canva has saved me an immeasurable amount of time, and you can do a ton of this all for free. However, you will come across some templates and graphics that are only included in the Pro Plan.

Then, there is, of course, ChatGPT. I assume 99% of the people watching use ChatGPT or another LLM already. If not, I have basically a full course that I uploaded for free here on YouTube that goes over every feature and how to utilize and implement them into your work and life.

So, feel free to check that out. I use it for a lot, but the thing that's my most frequent use of all is brainstorming. Having someone, or something, I guess, to bounce ideas off of is huge.

Even if the ideas it gives back aren't perfect, it helps to think out of the box and spur on more thoughts. I've run pretty much everything through ChatGPT to ask for critiques. Sometimes I take the advice; sometimes I don't, but it's almost always helpful.

Then, of course, there are a thousand other things to use it for. Those are all the apps I use every day. Now, I want to cover some more tools that are awesome, but I don't have as much personal experience with since they don't apply to what I do.

There are so many AI tools that come out all the time, and most people don't have the time to sift through and test them all out. But this is what I do every day, so I want to just show some of the other most useful tools I've tested that can hopefully be helpful to someone out there. Forms.

app is an easy way to create really nice-looking forms, surveys, and quizzes. This could be a customer feedback survey, contact form, or a quiz for a trivia night, or to send to your co-workers or followers. It's really easy to use.

I created a customer feedback form about my bakery. It quickly uses AI to generate the whole thing, then I can modify it from there. I can add an image up top, then I can switch the theme out; I like that one.

Now, I can modify any field; I can have AI rewrite them or add any new fields and options I want, and that looks nice. Now, I can see how that looks on a tablet or on mobile. That was really easy.

So, let's try a quiz—a 10-question quiz about generative AI knowledge—and boom, we've got all our questions! I'll test out an animated theme that looks pretty cool. Once your quiz or form is ready, you can connect it to all sorts of applications.

You can share it with their web link or by embedding it, then there are various ways to view the responses. This makes it super easy to create all this, so if that's something you need, you can try it out for free. There are plans to upgrade based on your usage.

Definitely a huge time-saver! Otter is an AI meeting assistant. It can record and transcribe your meetings in person or on Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams.

Then you can search the text to play back the audio at adjustable speeds, then tap the words to jump to different spots. It can highlight key points to review later and has automated slide capture that it will insert into the notes. I've tested it, and it works great and should be super helpful if you have a lot of meetings—to be able to review them, but also to be able to stay focused and attentive during the meeting instead of having to take your own notes.

Humata simplifies the process of reading and extracting valuable information from complex files. You can summarize findings, compare documents, search for answers within files, and provide citation links. So, it's a powerful tool for enhancing productivity, improving comprehension of research materials, and uncovering insights in documents and historical data and trends.

One of their taglines is a good way to summarize this: asking is faster than skimming. Recast allows you to turn online articles into audio summaries in a conversational format. You upload any article, news, or blog post, and it will use AI to generate a back-and-forth dialogue between virtual hosts.

They explain and discuss key points of the article, so it sounds just like a podcast. It's a pretty cool way to listen to articles on the go and can be helpful for retention to hear it as a conversation. Today's interesting news is about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Jony Ive, who was Apple's design chief.

The two have teamed up to create an AI-powered personal device and are currently seeking funding. We don't know much about the device yet, except that it won't resemble a smartphone, given that Altman is a big investor in the Humane AI pin. With Gamma, you can use AI to design engaging presentations, documents, and web pages with all the text and images generated in under a minute.

This is a demo website I made in a previous video. I asked for a landing page of a tattoo shop and got the entire site made with all the copy, and it generated all the images in around 30 seconds. Then, I quickly customized the theme and regenerated images where I wanted, then asked the AI assistant to.

. . Rewrite a section, and this was the result: you can publish to a Gamma.

do site or your own custom domain. For people who don't have any design or coding skills, this is the quickest way to spin up a website that you can fully update and edit on your own. It works just as well for presentations and documents too.

Then, I guess the bonus is futurpedia. com recommendations every week. While you're there, you can sign up for the newsletter and get AI tools, news, and tutorials delivered directly to your inbox, alongside over 200,000 others who are learning to leverage AI in their personal, creative, and professional lives.

Thank you so much for watching! I'll see you in the next one.