13 innovative AI tools that are changing content creators' work processes, from ideation to production to editing

What it does: Firefly is an AI service that Adobe has incorporated into all its tools, powering features like Generative Fill in Photoshop. Firefly has many content-ideation and editing options, like custom templates or fonts, text-to-image prompts, text effects, generative image removal to remove unwanted objects or text, and recoloring. Most of the features require a desktop app and aren't mobile-friendly yet.

Who likes it: Tony Santos, YouTube video editor; Sheila Marmon, CEO of digital-ad network Mirror Digital; Manasi Arya, creator; Lissette Calveiro, founder of talent-management firm Influence with Impact; Rowan Cheung, founder and CEO of AI newsletter The Rundown; Phil Ranta, CEO of social platform Spree; and Jordan Orme, video editor and cohost of "The Editing Podcast"

Why they like it: "Their Generative Fill feature has made thumbnail generation twice as fast and 10 times better once you learn how to use it correctly," Ranta said.

Meanwhile, Arya finds Illustrator's Firefly features particularly useful because of its text-to-image capabilities. "You can type in exactly what you're looking for, and it immediately pops up," she said. "It's really fun to use and super easy."

Marmon said many people she works with find Firefly indispensable for creating content and that it's been a "gem for our staff and creators."

What it does: Fireflies uses AI to help with note-taking, summarizing, and analyzing virtual meetings.

The tool integrates with all the major conferencing platforms, and it can be used to record and transcribe video and audio calls, as well as to highlight key points, generate tasks and action items, and collaborate with team members, including analyzing talk time, sentiment, and monologues for coaching purposes.

The note-taker integrates with project-management platforms like Asana and Trello to generate tasks using voice commands during meetings, and meeting recaps can be shared automatically on collaboration apps like Slack, Notion, or Google Docs.

Who likes it: Avi Gandhi, founder of consulting firm Partner with Creators, and Rowan Cheung, founder and CEO of AI newsletter The Rundown

Why they like it: Fireflies can help get the most out of virtual meetings and streamline tasks without worrying about taking notes or missing anything during the meeting.

"I don't always end up looking back at my transcription notes, but when I forget a thing or two from my meetings, it's nice to have the option to review," said Cheung.

What it does: Notion is a connected workspace that allows teams to share documents, take notes, manage projects, and organize their knowledge.

The company rolled out several AI products in 2023, including Notion AI, an AI assistant that helps generate summaries of text and makes suggestions to enhance a user's writing; Notion Projects, a project-management system; and AI Autofill, which allows users who store large collections of meeting notes, tasks, and other content to use AI to generate summaries, extract action items, and more.

The most recent AI feature, Q&A, provides users with a way to get quick answers to questions drawn from their docs, projects, meetings, and notes through AI and has had over 100,000 signups on the day of launch in November.

Who likes it: Lia Haberman, UCLA Extension instructor; Rowan Cheung, founder and CEO of AI newsletter The Rundown; and Taylor Loren, social-media consultant

Why they like it: Notion has become a go-to tool for many creators and companies to manage their projects — and it's spun a cottage industry of templates that some creators have turned into a full-fledged business.

"Notion is a place where I store all my notes," said Cheung. "It's literally my second brain. Without it, my mind would probably explode."

What it does: Opus Clip is an AI tool that does "one niche thing really, really well," said social-media consultant Taylor Loren.

The video-editing platform offers a variety of tools to cut long-form videos into shorter clips that can be repurposed across short-form social-media platforms like TikTok, Instagram reels, or YouTube shorts.

It also adds captions, removes filler words, and offers templates for short-form videos.

Who likes it: Lia Haberman, UCLA Extension instructor; Taylor Loren, social-media consultant; and Lindsey Gamble, associate director of influencer innovation at influencer firm Mavrck

Why they like it: Loren said Opus Clip can help significantly cut down editing time for creators and people who dabble in content creation and facilitate repurposing.

Gamble also said: "A tool like this is helpful not just for traditional creators but also for those like myself who work a full-time job and create content around their industry but are limited on time."

What it does: Similar to Fireflies, Otter is an AI-powered note-taker that integrates with video-conferencing tools and works to transcribe, summarize, and store information from virtual meetings. Teams can collaborate on the live transcripts, make notes, and generate action items.

Who likes it: Katarina Terentieva, chief creative officer at media-production company Louder Group; and Lia Haberman, UCLA Extension instructor

Why they like it: After testing out and experimenting with different AI tools, Otter is one of the few that Haberman has continued to use.

"It's been so helpful in letting me focus my attention on the conversation instead of being distracted taking notes or trying to remember next steps," Haberman said. "It gives me a full transcript of the call at the end, plus key takeaways. It recognizes people I have recurring meetings with and also sends a transcript to anyone on the meeting invite."

What it does: Runway helps facilitate and streamline video editing and video creation through AI. The company's cofounder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela previously told BI he is on a mission to simplify storytelling, in two main ways: helping to "see the world" with video editing, and "generating things in the world" with content generation.

The platform provides text-to-image generation, text-to-speech voice generation, and ever-developing video tools that enable text-to-video, image-to-video, and video-to-video creation. Runway also has a host of editing tools including background and object removal, and it enables real-time, secure collaboration on projects.

Runway has been used by teams working with YouTube superstar MrBeast and the Oscar-winning movie "Everything Everywhere All at Once," among others.

Who likes it: Jordan Orme, video editor and cohost of "The Editing Podcast"

Why they like it: Runway is helping filmmakers and people who work with videos streamline certain tasks that have historically been particularly difficult or time-consuming, like rotoscoping, the act of isolating subjects in a video to change their background. Orme said as a video editor, Runway has helped him stylize videos and create new clips.