AI tools are the latest discovery to include in modern workspace, and choosing the right AI apps can be a game-changer. They're here to automate the mundane, streamline workflows, and boost productivity. But with the AI scene exploding, where do you even begin to use AI? We're about to break down the 6 top-notch AI tools to include in your day, helping you tackle everything from task breakdowns to scheduling and beyond.
Ready for the lowdown? Let's dive into the 6 best AI productivity tools!
Zapier
Made for beginners and tech experts alike, Zapier is a no-code automation platform that connects over 6,000 apps. To create an automated workflow (called a Zap), just enter your trigger and one or more actions. It’s the easiest way to automate repetitive tasks and streamline your day — all without writing a single piece of code.
Plus, Zapier works incredibly well with AI. For example, you can build a Zap by using natural language to describe what you want to automate. Zapier is compatible with OpenAI, allowing you to bring AI to your everyday tools.
Pros
- Automates tasks and workflows between apps
- Compatible with over 6,000 apps
- Easy-to-use user interface (no coding experience required)
Cons
- Pricing is on the more expensive end of AI tools for extensive automation features
- Complex workflows may have limitations
Pricing
Zapier offers five different plans:
- Free (100 tasks/month, offers basics of automation, no-code editor, and single-step Zaps)
- Starter: $19.99/month billed annually (750 tasks, multi-step Zaps, filters and formatter)
- Professional: $49/month billed annually (2k tasks/month, unlimited premium apps, autoreplay, custom logic with paths
- Team: $69/month annually (2k tasks/month, unlimited users, premier support, shared app connections, live chat)
- Company: Reach out to sales team for a quote (advanced admin permissions, SAML single sign on, custom data retention)
Fellow
There are good meetings, and there are great meetings. The difference is Fellow and its AI powered automation features. Whether it’s a daily standup, a group call, or a one-on-one, Fellow seamlessly integrates with Slack, Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams to be a reliable meeting note-taking and transcribing app.
The app boosts productivity and engagement as it creates a panel in digital meetings and allows users to real-life collaborate on the meeting agenda and notes. Forgetting something important, getting distracted by switching constant tabs, and having different references is no longer an issue as Fellow integrates collaboration to the next level, so all team members are on board with the action steps.
Post-meeting Fellow offers meeting analytics to show how a meeting went, how engaged the team was, and offers AI-transcribed meeting notes, summaries, and automated feedback which can be searched and tagged.
Pros
- Centralized note taking and meeting experience
- Time saving with integrations and synced action items
- Structured meetings with collaboration features (real-time note taking and agenda)
- AI meeting summaries that can be searched and tagged
- Meeting analytics to show user engagement visa meeting
- Integrates with Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Slack, Zoom by connecting to tools such as Asana, Jira, Linear, and Zapier
- User friendly
- Makes meeting preparation, collaborative note-taking and action item tracking easy to access and follow
- Project management and task management is tracked and recorded to improve accountability
Cons
- More limited reporting features compared to specialized project management tools
- Integrations are less extensive than alternative project management tools
Pricing
Fellow offers four different plans:
- Free (max 10 members)
- Pro: $7/user/month billed annually (minimum 5 users up to 25 users, manage 1 on 1 meetings, meeting notes)
- Business: $10/user/month billed annually (starts at 10 users, expert guidance and analytics)
- Enterprise: Reach out to sales team for a quote
Otter AI
Important meetings call for detailed notes. Otter AI is an AI meeting assistant that records audio, writes notes, captures action items, and generates summaries. It does all the note-taking for you, so that you can be fully present in your meeting. And because it can record up to three concurrent meetings, it’s a great solution for those who are double-booked.
To simplify your workflow even more, you can ask Otter AI to automatically join any meeting that’s on your calendar. Simply integrate it with Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook, and you can count on your OtterPilot to be your extra pair of eyes and ears.
Pros
- Real-time AI summarization to create automated transcriptions
- Voice recordings that follow along the transcript and play automatically when you hit transcription words
- Highlighted conversation transcription with headings for topic changes
- Integrates and syncs to your calendars and automatically requests access to meetings on Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom
- Takes images of the meeting with time stamps
- Highlights and identifies speakers and what they are saying
- Chatbot feature called OtterPilot joins meetings and answers any questions that attendees ask in the chat, helping to drive the conversation forward
- Otter Pilot artificial intelligence feature is to capture images and slides and inserts them into the meeting notes, streamlining the meeting review experience
Cons
- Some features are limited in the free version
- Users may need time to get used to the interface and features (for example, once Otter AI is on the call, you would need to go back into the software to turn off the feature of automatic join or to kick the artificial intelligence tool out of the active call)
Pricing
Otter AI offers four different plans:
- Free (AI meeting assistant records, transcribes, captures slides, and generates summaries in real time, Otter AI Chat live with teammates to get answers to meeting questions, integrations, 300 monthly transcription, 30 minutes transcription, import maximum of 3 video or audio transcriptions)
- Pro: $10/month billed annually (Add teammates to workspace, advance search export and playback, 1200 monthly transcriptions minutes, 90 minutes per conversation, important and transcribe 10 video or audio recordings per month)
- Business: $20/month billed annually (Usage analytics, can join 3 concurrent virtual meetings, 6000 monthly transcription minutes, 4 hours per conversation, unlimited imports of video or audio files for transcriptions)
- Enterprise: Reach out to sales team for a quote (Single Sign-on, organization-wide deployment, domain capture, advanced security, OtterPilot for Sales
Copy.ai
With a name like Copy.ai, you may think the tool only offers copywriting support. However, Copy.ai makes a great writing assistant for a wide variety of written projects, including longform content, SEO projects, and even scripts for podcasts.
It’s true that ChatGPT by OpenAI is one of the more impressive AI-powered writing assistants to come out in recent years. However, we appreciate Copy.ai’s platform which clearly caters to copywriters. With templates and writing tools like Sentence Rewriter, Tone Changer, and Pain-Agitate-Solution, Copy.ai offers a solution for just about every copywriting situation.
Pros
- Tailored especially for writing projects
- Model-agnostic, meaning it works with a variety of AI models, allowing it to stay flexible and current
- Offers a wide library of templates to support various types of content creation
- Lets you save your brand voice, so you can ensure a consistent voice with every piece of generated content
Cons
- Only works via chat communication
- As users onboard, it may take time and experimentation to achieve desired content style
Pricing
Copy.ai offers five different plans:
- Free (1 seat, 2000 words in chat, 200 bonus credits)
- Pro: $36/month billed annually (5 seats, unlimited words in chat, 500 workflow credits)
- Team: $186/month billed annually (20 seats, unlimited words in chat, 3k workflow credits)
- Growth: $1000/month billed annually (75 seats, unlimited words in chat, 20k workflow credits)
- Scale: $3000/month billed annually (200 seats, unlimited words in chat, 75k workflow credits)
Clockwise
Whether it’s finding time for a team call, deep work, or your personal life, we could all use a scheduling assistant. Clockwise is an AI-powered scheduling and calendar automation tool that makes it easier for you to build a sustainable schedule.
Clockwise works by understanding your unique preferences, like:
- How much Focus Time do you want every week?
- Do you prefer to meet in the mornings or the afternoons?
- What time do you want to set aside for lunch or walking the dog?
Then, it uses AI and machine learning to proactively create your ideal day. It finds the best times for you and your teammates to meet (while considering their schedules, too), and it works to protect your Focus Time and whatever’s most important to you. Clockwise minimizes how much time you spend managing your calendar, which can often feel like a full-time job on its own.
Pros
- Clockwise’s new AI Scheduler, powered by ChatGPT, makes scheduling as easy as having a conversation (learn more here)
- Can optimize time for your entire team
- Syncs with Slack and Asana
- Includes scheduling links for effortless external scheduling
Cons
- Requires a professional Google or Microsoft email to sign up
Pricing
Clockwise offers four different plans:
- Free
- Teams: $6.75/user/month billed annually
- Business: $11.50/user/month billed annually
- Enterprise: Reach out to sales team for a quote
Magical
Magical is a productivity app that lets you automate the repetitive tasks that are eating into your day. You can use Magical for a variety of items of your to-do list, from data entry to writing. What makes Magical different from other automation tools is that it doesn’t rely on integrations, making it super easy to set up and even easier to use. Simply download the Chrome app, and Magical will appear on whatever website you’re on.
Pros
- Works with over ten-million websites
- Requires minimal setup
- Includes an AI-powered writing tool
- Built-in privacy
Cons
- Currently available only on Chrome and Edge
Pricing
Magical offers four different plans:
- Free (template actions, 30 monthly transfer actions, 5 enrichment actions, unlimited template storage, community support)
- Core: $6.50/user/month (basic + unlimited template actions, 30 monthly transfer actions, 10 AI actions)
- Advanced: $12/user/month (Core + unlimited template actions, 500 transfer actions, 100 AI actions, 50 monthly enrichment actions, manage team content & members)
- Enterprise: Reach out to sales team for a quote (unlimited template & transfer actions, 500 AI actions & AI controls, 150 monthly enrichment actions, SSO, SCIM and Reporting, Custom onboarding & support)
Going forward
Optimizing productivity can be done in a variety of ways with the help of AI tools. Depending on what users need optimized, you can feel confident that there’s a tool that’s just for you. With the needs of busy work days and the growing need for work-life balance, Clockwise offers the best solution for calendar optimization and integration.
To recap:
- Zapier: Ideal for variety of users wanting seamless integration and automation across diverse apps
- Fellow: Best for teams to collaborate in meetings with real-time note taking and automatically transcribed meeting summaries that can be searched and tagged
- Otter AI: Excellent for users wanting to automatically join several meetings with AI assisted transcriptions according to speakers with documented voice recordings and visuals
- Copy.ai: Great for users focused on written content creation and needing support with prompts, brainstorming, branding templates and content organization
- Clockwise: Best for busy teams who need to find time together, while protecting deep work
- Magical: Helpful tool that follows users as they work across tasks, automating messaging and data entry to reduce the copy-paste hustle or need to switch tabs for AI writing assistance
About the author
Judy Tsuei is a Simon & Schuster author, speaker, and podcast host. She’s been featured in MindBodyGreen, BBC Travel, Fast Company, Hello Giggles, and more. As the founder of Wild Hearted Words, a creative marketing agency for global brands, Judy is also a mentor with the Founder Institute, the world's largest pre-seed accelerator. Judy advocates for mental and emotional health on her popular podcast, F*ck Saving Face. Follow along her journey at WildHeartedWords.com.
