10 Generative AI Apps to Boost Your Creativity in 2024

Just a handful of years ago, generative AI apps were virtually non-existent (to the public, at least). Now, they’re integrated everywhere, transforming how we design, write, and create.

Our 2023 DigitalOcean Currents report found that 78% of respondents anticipate an increase in their use of AI/ML this year compared to the previous year. From producing unique visual content to simplifying our copywriting, generative AI applications transform how we get work done.

Whether you’re looking to streamline design processes, generate unique content, rewrite website copy, or innovate in product development, the right generative AI tool can unleash your creativity. However, with so many new apps and platforms entering the market, it’s hard to know which are helpful and which are just distractions.

We’re here to help.

Below, we’ll explain everything you need to know about generative AI apps to help you find the best tools and solutions to transform your creativity in design, writing, planning, and strategizing.

What is a generative AI app?

Generative AI apps use artificial intelligence and neural networks to create new content—from text and images to music and code—based on patterns they learn from large datasets. These applications analyze data and generate new data instances that didn’t previously exist.

For example, you could ask a generative AI app the same question five times, and its answer will never be identical. It’s not simply using a formula or single algorithm—it’s running tons of complex processes (trying to mimic human creativity) to create original responses.

Generative AI tools use cases

Generative AI tools started with just text, but now they’ve expanded to include practically every form of content: music, images, videos, code, and more. Here are some common generative AI app use cases to help you grasp the scope of the possibilities:

• Content creation: AI-driven tools can automatically generate written content, such as articles, blogs, and reports.

• Graphic design: Generative AI can do everything from creating original artwork to designing marketing materials like logos and banners.

• Personalized marketing: Generative AI marketing tools can tailor marketing campaigns to each unique recipient by creating customized content that resonates with different segments of your audience.

• Video game development: AI apps can generate realistic and interactive environments, character dialogues, and plot developments. That’s how Starfield offered players nearly 1,700 planets to explore.

• Production: These applications help with scripting, animating, and editing films by generating creative content and visual effects.

• Music composition: Generative AI tools can compose music or assist musicians by generating chord progressions, rhythms, and entire compositions.

• Code completion: AI tools for web development can speed up software development in multiple programming languages by suggesting context-appropriate code snippets, automating routine coding tasks, and reducing errors.

Does your business need generative AI apps?

Generative AI apps might be fun for creating new lyrics or catchy guitar riffs, but they also serve a functional purpose for startups, businesses, and enterprises. Your organization can tap into these tools to streamline processes, remove redundancies, and liberate valuable brain power for more complicated tasks.

However, most AI applications require an upfront investment in capital and education, and some can be a complete waste of time. You’ll need to do some due diligence to maximize your ROI.

Here’s a breakdown of the pros and cons to help you determine if generative AI apps are right for your business:

Pros

• Improve creativity and innovation: AI is like a creative partner who never runs out of ideas. It can churn out unique concepts and fresh content that might take teams hours or even days to come up with, helping you tackle projects from clever new angles.

• Boost efficiencies: Use AI to cut down on the grunt work. Generative AI takes care of time-consuming, repetitive tasks of creating content and designs, freeing up your team to focus on the bigger picture and more complex challenges.

• Unlock scale: Need a thousand personalized marketing messages? No problem. Generative AI can scale up to meet your most ambitious projects.

• Reduce costs: AI can help you save on hiring for specific roles and reduce the hours needed for extensive project revisions.

• Help with decision-making: Generative AI can help you make decisions based on data. This means you get high-quality AI generated content that’s fine-tuned to your specific audience.

Cons

• Upfront investment: AI isn’t cheap, especially if you’re eyeing the more sophisticated tools. It’s an investment, which means there’s always an element of risk.

• Integration challenges: Fitting a new AI system into your existing processes can be tricky. It often requires some tech know-how and possibly training your team to get everyone on board and everything running smoothly.

• Quality concerns: While AI can produce content quickly, it might miss the subtle emotional nuances a skilled human creator can deliver. It can also be prone to AI hallucination, when an AI system fabricates details or generates false information.

• Ethical (and privacy) issues: There’s a big responsibility in using AI. You need to handle data carefully, consider AI privacy, and think about the ethical implications of using AI in your creations to avoid stepping into legal gray areas.

• Technological dependence: Relying heavily on AI can be a bit of a gamble. If the system goes down or there are glitches, it can disrupt your operations. Plus, it might limit your team’s opportunity to flex their own creative muscles.

Factors to consider when choosing a generative AI app

Shopping for generative AI business tools can feel like walking through a tech candy store—there are way too many colorful, promising options. However, not every shiny new tool will be the right fit for your business.

You’ll need to sift through the noise to find what really matters. This will help you narrow down your choices and find the generative AI apps that best match your needs and can actually streamline your projects.

Here’s what to consider when choosing a generative AI app for your business:

• Price: Budget always matters. Look into whether the AI app offers a subscription model, a one-time purchase, or scalable pricing based on usage. Make sure the cost aligns with your budget and the value it promises to bring.

• Features: What can the app do for you? Check if its generative AI capabilities address your specific needs. Can it generate the types of content you need, whether it’s text, images, video, or something else?

• Scalability: Can the app grow with you? It’s great to have a tool that fits your current needs, but consider how it will handle increased demands as your business grows. Look for apps that can scale efficiently without hiccups.

• Quality: Quantity shouldn’t sacrifice quality. Review samples of the AI’s output or take advantage of a trial period to guarantee the quality meets your standards.

• Ease of use: You shouldn’t need to be a tech wizard to use your tools. An ideal generative AI app should have a user-friendly interface and require minimal training so your team can hit the ground running.

• Integrations: The best generative AI apps play nice with others, meaning they integrate smoothly with your existing systems and workflows. Does it integrate easily with your current tools?

• Support: Tech evolves rapidly, and so should your AI tool. Check that the app receives regular updates to improve functionality and security and that customer support is accessible when you need help.

10 best generative AI apps in 2024

We’ve combed through the market to bring you the top generative AI apps, eachdesigned to transform how you approach creativity—from automating tedious tasks to inspiring innovative content.

Whether you’re looking to design stunning graphics, craft compelling written content, or generate unique music and videos, there’s something here for every creator.

1. ChatGPT

ChatGPT is a conversational generative AI model (trained on extensive training data parameters) designed to understand and generate human-like text based on the input it receives. This application can engage in detailed discussions, answer questions, and provide explanations. You could use it for everything from content generation to customer service and coding assistance.

ChatGPT’s most useful function, though, is its memory. It’s getting better with more development, but the tool is one of the best for maintaining context over a conversation, adapting to user responses, and learning from interactions over time.

Key features include:

• Advanced natural language processing: Understands and generates responses by analyzing the context and nuances of the conversation.

• Contextual awareness: Maintains conversation history to provide coherent and contextually relevant responses over sessions.

• Customizable personalities and responses: Can be fine-tuned to match specific user needs or embody particular characteristics for more personalized interactions.

• Continuous learning capabilities: Improves performance over time by learning from interactions.

• Custom GPTs: Easily create GPTs, personalized versions of ChatGPT, tailored for specific tasks or needs by combining instructions, knowledge, and skills, without any coding required.

2. Crayon

Crayon is a market and competitive intelligence platform that leverages AI to give your business actionable insights and analytics. This tool enables you to track, analyze, and act on everything happening outside your four walls—from competitor activities to market trends.

Crayon aggregates and analyzes data from hundreds of sources to provide a comprehensive view that helps your business stay ahead of the curve. Its intuitive interface and automated insights help you quickly understand the competitive landscape and make smart, data-backed decisions.

Key features include:

• Competitive intelligence tracking: Monitors various sources to provide real-time updates on competitors’ activities.

• Market trend data analysis: Uses advanced algorithms to identify and report on emerging market trends.

• Customizable dashboards: Allows users to tailor dashboards to focus on specific data points most relevant to business needs.

• Insight generation: Automatically generates actionable insights, helping you make quick, data-driven decisions.

• Integration capabilities: Integrates with other tools and platforms to improve workflow and data accessibility.

3. Copy.ai

Copy.ai is an innovative tool designed to streamline the content creation process. It uses AI to generate marketing copy, blog posts, and social media content in seconds. Copy.ai only requires minimal user input, meaning it can do a lot more with a lot less.

This generative AI application focuses on automating copywriting tasks to allow you to get back to more complicated, high-quality content efforts. It provides templates, tools, and suggestions catering to different content needs, empowering you to use it across all business areas.

Key features include:

• Automated content generation: Produces high-quality copy across various formats, including blog posts, emails, and social media updates.

• Diverse templates: Offers specific templates for different types of marketing needs and industries.

• User-friendly interface: It is designed for ease of use, allowing even those without professional writing experience to create compelling copy.

• Customization options: Empowers users to refine and tailor content to fit their brand voice and style guidelines.

4. RunwayML

RunwayML is a cutting-edge platform that democratizes the power of machine learning for creative projects. It helps artists, designers, and developers integrate AI into all their workflows by simplifying complex AI models for video editing, visual effects, and image generation.

RunwayML provides an intuitive interface that can be run entirely in the browser (making it easier to experiment without downloads). The application supports a range of machine-learning models and provides real-time collaboration features for team projects.

Key features include:

• Browser-based functionality: Operates entirely within a web browser, eliminating the need for specialized hardware.

• Extensive model library: Offers access to a broad selection of pre-trained AI models that can be easily applied to different creative projects.

• Real-time collaboration: Allows multiple users to work on projects simultaneously and see changes in real-time, facilitating remote teamwork.

• User-friendly design tools: Incorporates drag-and-drop interfaces that simplify the creation and manipulation of digital content.

Custom model training: Allows users to train their own models with their data sets to provide greater control and customization… Descript

Descript is an all-in-one audio and video editing platform that simplifies the production process. It integrates advanced tools (such as automatic transcription, overdubbing, and multi-track editing) to make editing audio and video files quick and straightforward.

It uses powerful AI features to remove filler words and silence segments with a single click. The intuitive interface streamlines media editing tasks, transforming raw media into polished content with minimal effort.

Key features include:

• Automatic transcription: Converts speech in your videos and podcasts to text, allowing for easy edits right in the transcript.

• Overdub and voice cloning: Lets users correct or update audio by typing new text, which is then spoken in the cloned voice of the original speaker.

• Filler word removal: Automatically identifies and removes unnecessary filler words like “uh” and “um,” cleaning up recordings.

• Screen recording and video editing: Integrates screen recording capabilities with robust video editing tools to simplify content creation for tutorials and presentations.

• Collaborative workflow: Supports real-time collaboration across teams.

6. VocaliD

VocaliD is a generative AI app that creates personalized digital voices for people who rely on synthetic speech to communicate. It blends recordings of the user’s vocal remnants with a donor voice database to deliver custom voices that reflect each user’s unique personality.

It improves the user experience and addresses a massive market gap by personalizing a technology that has been one-size-fits-all for too long.

Key features include:

• Emotionally expressive speech: Improves synthetic speech with emotional variance, making conversations more natural and engaging.

• Accessibility-focused design: Focuses on ease of use for individuals with speech impairments by integrating seamlessly with various communication devices.

• Wide application: Suitable for individuals, educators, and companies looking to provide inclusive communication solutions.

7. Synthesia

Synthesia uses AI to create professional-quality videos from text in minutes. It can generate realistic digital avatars and voiceovers in multiple languages, empowering your business to produce scalable video content quickly and efficiently. Synthesia lets any business (with or without fancy cameras and studios) make videos with just a script.

Key features include:

• AI-powered avatars: Creates lifelike digital avatars that can speak in natural human voices.

• Text-to-video technology: Converts simple text scripts into fully animated videos.

• Multilingual support: Offers voiceovers in multiple languages, making it easy to produce content for global audiences.

• Customizable templates: Features a range of video templates that can be customized to fit brand guidelines and messaging needs.

• No filming required: Eliminates the need for filming equipment or on-camera talent.

8. Amper Music

Amper Music empowers users to create unique, professional-quality music tailored to their needs. It uses artificial intelligence to analyze music theory and combine sounds and instruments to generate original compositions.

Amper Music provides an easy-to-use interface that lets you input style, mood, and duration to create custom music tracks in a fraction of the time. Content creators, game developers, and filmmakers can use it to make original music perfectly aligned with a project’s emotional tones and narratives.

Key features include:

• Rich music library: Offers a wide range of instruments and styles to ensure the music fits various creative needs.

• Fast composition: Generates music quickly, enabling rapid production cycles and iterations.

• Royalty-free output: All music created with Amper is royalty-free, allowing commercial use without additional licensing fees.

• Collaborative capabilities: Enables teams to collaborate on music creation.

9. Rytr

Rytr is an AI-powered writing assistant designed to help you generate high-quality text content for blogs, emails, and social media posts. It’s great at adapting to different writing styles and tones, providing real-time suggestions and improvements to streamline the writing process.

Key features include:

• Flexible content creation: Capable of writing in multiple formats and styles, from formal business prose to casual blog posts.

• Tone and style customization: Users can select the desired tone and style to guarantee the content matches their brand voice and audience expectations.

• Language efficiency tools: Offers grammar checking, plagiarism detection, and readability enhancements.

• SEO optimization: Helps write content optimized for search engines.

• User-friendly interface: Features a simple, intuitive interface that makes it easy to produce content quickly.

10. Frase.io

Frase.io helps marketers and SEO specialists create and refine their work more efficiently. It uses AI to provide keyword suggestions, content briefs, and SEO insights that align with the latest search engine algorithms.

Frase.io will automatically generate detailed content briefs that include competitor data analysis, outlines, and keyword research to help you better structure content to outrank the competition. It also provides an AI-driven content editor that suggests real-time improvements.

Key features include:

• Automated content briefs: Generates comprehensive content outlines with keyword suggestions, headings, and questions to answer.

• SEO optimization tools: Provides insights into SEO best practices and helps users optimize content for search engines.

• Question research: Identifies common questions asked to help you create content that addresses real audience needs.

• Content scoring: Evaluates the SEO quality of content against competitors to provide clear metrics on how it is likely to perform.

• User-friendly content editor: Offers suggestions for writing improvement, including synonyms, tone adjustments, and readability.

Accelerate your AI projects with DigitalOcean GPU Droplets

Unlock the power of NVIDIA H100 GPUs for your AI and machine learning projects. DigitalOcean GPU Droplets offer on-demand access to high-performance computing resources, enabling developers, startups, and innovators to train models, process large datasets, and scale AI projects without complexity or large upfront investments

Key features:

• Powered by NVIDIA H100 GPUs with 640 Tensor Cores and 128 Ray Tracing Cores

• Flexible configurations from single-GPU to 8-GPU setups

• Pre-installed Python and Deep Learning software packages

• High-performance local boot and scratch disks included

Sign up today and unlock the possibilities of GPU Droplets. For custom solutions, larger GPU allocations, or reserved instances, contact our sales team to learn how DigitalOcean can power your most demanding AI/ML workloads.