From the course: Content Strategy in the Age of AI

The three categories of AI tools

From the course: Content Strategy in the Age of AI

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The three categories of AI tools

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We just discussed the fact that over 100,000 generative AI tools are vying for your attention and introduced a few ways that you can identify the best tools for your needs. To truly narrow your focus, however, you can further categorize these tools into three main buckets of generative AI: template-driven, sketch-driven, and 100% generative AI. Template-driven AI tools are the most prevalent in the marketplace because they require little effort on the end user's part to produce a decent output. And typically, these tools take advantage of a library of pre-designed assets such as color palettes, icons, hero images, design layouts, et cetera. Users answer questions about the project that they're hoping to create, the AI interprets the answers, then strategically combines these assets to produce a semi-unique output. Now I say "semi-unique" because the tool might use the same assets across multiple customers but in different permutations. Template-driven AI tools are great to use if you're creating content on a budget, looking to brainstorm ideas, producing content for internal use only, or working with a generic brand. They are not ideal to use if you are hoping for a truly unique content campaign as they tend to use pervasive stock assets and make it hard to target specific audiences. Sketch-driven AI tools are very exciting for anyone who prefers to take a more organic approach to their visual content creation. And guess what? You don't even have to be a talented illustrator to use them. These tools can take any sketch that you present to them, in combination with a clear prompt that elaborates on your expected output, and produce high fidelity digital content in minutes. While sketch-driven AI tools are consistently evolving their capabilities, my favorite use cases for them currently rest in the field of product design. Imagine sitting in a brainstorm session with your colleagues as you sketch out a wireframe and user flow on your whiteboard. With sketch-based AI, you can use a photo of your whiteboard sketch to generate a fully customizable digital wireframe in minutes. Finally, there's fully generative AI. These tools don't pull from a bank of prebuilt assets like template-driven AI tools do. Instead, they produce entirely unique outputs informed by your prompts. Fully generative AI tools offer a very iterative approach to content creation. Your initial generations may not deliver perfect results immediately, but you can further hone the output with additional prompting and the use of editing tools within each platform. Fully generative AI tools tend to be the hardest to use but often produce the best results. This is because your imagination is your only limit to the content that you produce. The better you communicate your vision, in combination with leveraging their iterative functionality, the more likely you are to develop something beyond your expectations. But remember, all AI tools require practice. AI can be a fickle beast. It evolves rapidly, which means that prompts that worked one day might not work the next. It hallucinates, so you must fact-check your content. It sometimes thinks that all humans have dozens of fingers, and importantly, one tool is never enough. The best AI-driven content strategies rely on a healthy mix of template-driven, sketch-driven, and fully generative AI tools to produce your full content ecosystem. In this course, I'll show you how to do exactly that. But first, jump to the next few lessons where I'll introduce the best-in-class tools that you can leverage across these three categories.

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