A.I. Tools for Top Communicators

Are you aware that we’re witnessing the steepest growth in artificial intelligence ever?imagined! In 2020, the number of AI start-ups grew by 40%. Gartner Global reports that?investment in AI technologies topped $49 billion. LinkedIn reported that job postings-related?AI skills and machine learning has nearly doubled since 2020. All of this growth has enhanced our everyday living. Surely you've asked Alexa or Siri to help you manage your schedule or check?on the weather. You may have enjoyed a personalized playlist on Spotify, or had navigation?assistance when driving to an appointment.?

Since this newsletter is designed to help you with ideas on performing stronger in your work and home life, it’s time to consider AI tools to help you become top communicators. All of the resources listed below are free to use, not simply free trials followed by subscriptions. Look for a special announcement at the end of this issue and sign up for more learning. Ready to?use AI to help you speak, write, listen, design and research stronger??Let's get started!

1. For practicing your tone, energy, pacing, pronunciation and organization:?

Yoodli.ai — If you follow me on LinkedIn, you probably know that I’m a Yoodli.ai superfan. Since the inception of this video-based recording platform, I’ve found it to be instrumental in my clients’ and students’ progress from a vocalics (tone, speed, energy and fillers) perspective and now with the capability to help learners structure better content for their speeches. Yoodli.ai has the capacity to help you practice for interviews with impromptu questions and the latest feature allows you to evaluate your impromptu speaking in Zoom meetings. Final shout out for Yoodli.ai is the game section with impromptu drills like Spin the Yarn and Metaphor Mania that give you data on fillers, articulation, structure and more.?

2. For help with writing structure, spelling, vocabulary and word choices:

Grammarly — an advanced writing assistant that helps you improve your writing by providing real-time grammar, spelling, and style suggestions. It offers a range of features including error detection, vocabulary enhancement, and plagiarism checking — all making it an indispensable tool for enhancing the quality and accuracy of written content. You get 100 prompts per month for free.

ChatGPT and Bard AI — two AI-powered language models developed to simulate human conversations. ChatGPT is meant to mimic a human conversationalist. It remembers what you said earlier in a conversation and refines tone, direction, structure, and overall content of a message. I like to feed it a paragraph that I’ve already written and ask it to tighten it while keeping my authentic voice. Or I may drop in a piece of content and ask it to convert it to a checklist. You can use it to write or?refine emails, memos, social media posts and any other writing tasks. Remember that ChatGPT bases its expertise on existing data and is limited to offering information available through 2021. Bard is similar to ChatGPT AI model, and developed by Google. In comparing the two for writing, Bard doesn’t have a built-in plagiarism detector but it can provide more accurate and specific?answers. It generates responses using the internet, so it may be better choice for writing that?explains topics, answers questions, automates tasks, etc. Both of these tools are free although Chat GPT just came up with a paid AI Chat app.?

Otter.ai — a useful tool for transcription that I use when watching a speaker’s video and want to record instantaneous feedback. It recognizes my voice and is trained to add comas in the right places. You can also use it to record and transcribe meetings, interviews, lectures, and other spoken content in real-time. The app automatically converts spoken words into text, making it easy to?review, search, and share the transcriptions. It’s free for 30-minute conversations, up to 300 minutes each month. If you’re a faster speaker than you are a writer, also consider using Notes on your Iphone or the new Voice dictation feature embedded into Word.?

3. To be a more attentive listener in meetings or phone conversations:?

Fireflies.ai — app that you can use with either Google or Microsoft to help transcribe, summarize, search, and analyze all your voice conversations. The tool integrates with various communication platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. It can automatically join and record?meetings, ensuring seamless integration with existing workflows. A disadvantage of this tool is that although you get 800 free minutes per month, it doesn’t do well with reading accents and there’s a learning curve with the tool which somewhat negates the 800 free minutes. Back to me being a Yoodli.ai superfan, one of their latest features not only transcribes the conversation but also gives you feedback as a listener and it does it in real time! Are you interrupting too much or talking too fast? Not listening enough and talking too much? Very useful feedback for communicators.

4. To make your visual communications stand out:?

Canva — a graphic design platform that gives you a wide range of templates and tools for creating various visual content, from LinkedIn posts to content for presentations slides. The free version of Canva includes a substantial collection of pre-designed templates, graphics, fonts, and other design elements to help create visually appealing and professional-looking slides. Their recent addition of “Magic” AI tools offers fast results with design, writing and image editing.

Mmhmm — a presentation and video communication tool that helps you present slides and information more successfully. You may have seen me use this on LinkedIn Lives or YouTube videos.?Instead of sharing your whole screen — which means you can’t see your audience and your audience can’t see you — Mmhmm sets you up like a late-night host, where you’re presenting information?on a screen that floats above your shoulder. For me, mmhmm is a showstopper; whenever I use?it in a seminar, the chat blows up with people asking about the app vs. asking me about my content. (I guess that’s a plus for the app.) Their free version offers basic functionality and features, allowing users to enhance their video presentations and virtual meetings with virtual backgrounds, slide presentations, and screen sharing.?

SlidesAi.io — an AI-powered assistant makes it fast and easy to create quality presentations and slide decks. Their basic version is free and allows for three free presentations per month with a maximum of 2,500 characters.

Google Slides, PowerPoint and Keynote — Recently improved, these three platforms allow you to?design slides with more efficiency and using better-looking images than before. Google Slides?has a magic slides add-on that seamlessly fits into your Google workspace. A caution regarding slide design and usage: these tools help you create higher quality slides but remember, when you stand in front of a group to pitch an idea, YOU are the communicator, not your slides. Super fancy slides can sometimes be distracting. Craft your message first and then design your slides. In some cases (and at some companies), slides are discouraged. Stand up, share your idea, state how it will?benefit the audience and why it’s better than all other competing options. Remember to use?slides strategically.?

5. To help you research your topic, your audience and review literature:

Crystal — If you’re meeting with someone for an interview, pitching an idea to someone or have been working with them for a while, check this out. Crystal uses publicly available information via LinkedIn and the wider internet to assess an individual’s personality. You get 10 free profiles at first. I asked my colleague Shelby to use Crystal on each of us —?the graphic below shows what the app revealed. It uses DiSC profile features to compare your own characteristics to those of the person you’re researching. Shelby and I work together a lot so I’m particularly happy to see our alignment in the Collaboration category!

ChatGPT and Bard AI (links above) are two free, open-source options.?The key to doing good research with?these powerful AI tools relies on the quality of your prompts.? Instead of giving you a list of tips, I’ve scheduled a Linkedin Live event with THE expert on using generative AI models for research.

Join me this Thursday for LinkedIn Live! To help us all better navigate the mechanics of?communicating with AI’s help, I‘ve invited my friend Dave Birss, LinkedIn instructor and influential content creator on LinkedIn to join me. Dave is “admired for his marketing expertise, insightful?perspectives, and ability to foster creative thinking among his audience. His posts and articles?continue to inspire and educate professionals across various industries.” (This last part as written?by ChatGPT and I can confirm that it’s 100% true!) Join us for a conversation this Thursday, July 20th?at Noon EST. Sign up on this link.

Thank you for reading and please share this Stronger newsletter with someone you think would benefit. Since the idea of AI tools for communication is quickly evolving, I’m sure that I’ve missed some. If you know of a tool that will help our readers become a better communicator (and is FREE), please add it in the comments. The list will keep growing as technology swiftly progresses!