8 Best Free AI Tools for Marketing and Content Creation

Artificial intelligence tools have taken the marketing world by storm. Staring at a blank screen and waiting for inspiration to strike may become a thing of the past as machine learning can now help with research, graphics, copy, and strategy.

You might hear this and immediately wonder about the price of such clever tech. But there’s good news—many of these high-quality tools have free plans.

In this article, we’ll look at eight of the best free AI tools that cover all parts of marketing and content creation. That way, you can choose which process or workflow you’d like to streamline and optimize to suit your needs.

1. ChatGPT
2. DALL-E-2
3. ElevenLabs
4. Canva
5. Hemingway
6. Grammarly
7. MarketMuse
8. Manychat

1. ChatGPT – AI writing tool for websites, blogs, or social media

While AI tools aren’t new, it was the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT that really set the internet on fire. It’s a sophisticated natural language processing (NLP) model that’s been trained with a huge amount of data to formulate human-like responses.

This AI tool uses neural networks and unsupervised learning, so it doesn’t need to be told what the right response is. As well as reducing writer’s block, it can help generate ideas for all types of marketing copy and content.

For example:

• Blog posts
• Product descriptions
• Author bios
• Landing page headlines
• Outreach emails
• Generate marketing copy
• TikTok or Instagram captions

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Like all NLP (natural language processing) software, it’s limited by the data it was trained on. In this case, that’s up to 2021. While it’s definitely one of the most impressive AI models, as it’s so resource-intensive, it’s not recommended for real-time apps like chatbots.

It’s also a limited version of GPT-4 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4)—a multimodal large language model with a background shrouded in non-open-source secrecy. Developers can use it as an API to build their own apps and services, but they have to pay for the privilege. 

2. DALL-E 2 – Create realistic images and art

Can’t draw but want to up your content creation game? Or maybe you need some help brainstorming the look of your animation’s characters? That’s exactly what AI image creators are for.

Another brainchild of OpenAI, DALL-E 2’s graphics software also uses deep learning NLP to create realistic art and images from text prompts.

Simply create an account, confirm a couple of details, input some text, and get your image from this free AI tool:

While it’s a seriously impressive piece of software, there are a few limitations. The most common pain points for creators using DALL-E 2 are that it struggles with:

• Coming up with graphics for more abstract subjects
• Dealing with multiple subjects and characteristics

You may also find the server overloaded with requests a lot of the time. So, don’t rely on it for any project that’s time-sensitive.

Other than that, you’ll need a bit of trial and error with your prompts to match your creative vision with the product on screen. But it’s a free AI tool you can have a lot of fun with.

3. ElevenLabs – AI text-to-speech software

Fancy trying the self-proclaimed “most realistic and versatile AI speech software, ever”? With ElevenLabs’ text-to-speech tool, you can create the most lifelike AI voices and make them say anything you want.

Choose from the following options:

• Clone voices from samples
• Clone your own voice
• Create a new synthetic voice from scratch

What you do with the voice is up to you. Here’s a demo of the audio content generator in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17_xLsqny9E&ab_channel=ElevenLabs

With just one minute of audio, the software can learn any speech profile. Or the generative model can help you build brand new voices. It’s also built to understand the logic and emotions behind sentences and how phrases tie together.

This makes the tone and intonation far more accurate than most other tools of its kind. Because of this, there are so many ways to have fun with this free AI tool:

• Narrating audiobooks
• Gaming and movie character vocals
• Podcast voiceovers
• Dubbed TV clips
• Voiceover for YouTube videos

Or whatever else you can think of. There’s a free plan that gives you 10,000 characters per month and the option to make up to three custom voices.

You’re only limited by the scope of your imagination with ElevenLabs. So, give it a try.

4. Canva – Design, writing, and editing features

Even graphic design platform Canva is jumping on the AI tools bandwagon with the release of its new Magic design, writing, and editing automation features. 

The team has created their own artificial intelligence writing tool called Magic Write that works as you’d expect—provide a prompt and get outlines for blogs, social media post captions, and ideas for content. Plus, a text-to-image converter to add your own written ideas to designs in visual form. This is another example of natural language processing.

On top of those, here are some of the newest additions to Canva’s Visual Suite:

1. Magic Design: Upload an image, choose a vibe or style, and access a curated selection of unique templates.
2. Magic Edit: Add or replace something in an image or photo with AI suggestions.
3. Beat sync: Automatically synchronize audio and videos.
4. Shape Assist: Polish up sketches with Canva’s AI drawing assistant.
5. Magic Eraser: Remove unwanted details and objects from your images.
6. Magic Presentations: Generate a polished first draft of your presentation with only a few words.

From kick-starting the creative process to replacing parts of photos with AI graphics, Canva’s new features have plenty of use cases. For example:

• Social media (e.g. LinkedIn posts, Instagram Stories, Facebook cover photos)
• Whiteboards
• Presentations
• Websites
• Video
• Documents

Unlike some other free AI tools where it’s not clear how the software was trained, at times, Canva shows you the creator whose designs were used to formulate the template. 

This could definitely be taken further, but it’s a lot more than many others are doing to combat a new type of plagiarism.

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5. Hemingway – Improve content readability

Hemingway is unique to this list of free AI tools as there isn’t just a limited plan. It’s completely free. If you’re a content creator looking to improve your writing skills, this is the app for you.

You can write directly on the main web page or copy and paste something you’ve been working on elsewhere. Instantly, Hemingway App will point out anywhere the software thinks you can improve.

The color-coded highlights help show you areas where you could improve your wording. For example:

• Blue: Adverbs and qualifiers that could be unnecessary.
• Green: Passive voice where you can replace it with active voice.
• Purple: Complex terms with simpler alternatives.
• Yellow: Lengthy sentences that could be shortened or split.
• Red: Dense and complicated sentences that are hard to read.

It’s a super user-friendly proofreading solution that helps you think about the way you phrase things. Review this often enough, make changes, and you’ll see a marked improvement in your writing in no time.

It’s not the most sophisticated free AI tool on this list, but it works just fine. Plus, you don’t need a credit card or any details to sign up. Just head to the domain and get started.

6. Grammarly – Content writing and editing assistant

Grammarly is an AI copywriting tool you’ll likely have heard of. Using techniques like machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing, the software combines rules and patterns to make suggestions to improve your writing.

The free version of this AI tool can help with the following:

• Misspelled words and typos
• Punctuation mistakes
• Imperfect grammar

Grammarly’s AI-powered algorithm is also constantly being trained by users. You can choose to accept, ignore, or mark suggestions as incorrect. By doing so, the software learns more about the nuances of language and makes better suggestions over time. This can make it much easier to generate marketing copy, write long-form blog posts, and even work on your creative stories.

There’s even a plagiarism checker that compares your text to over 16 billion web pages and academic papers. If you’re reviewing other writers’ work for your site, it’s a great way of making sure there’s been no copying and pasting.

While Grammarly Premium has over 400 types of checks, the Free plan lets you access the most critical of those to help point out common mistakes you’re making and get better over time.

The company is also developing a new feature called GrammarlyGO, which will let you use generative AI technology to improve your communications on email, social media, and in your documents.

Whether or not that’ll be free is too early to predict, but you can make use of Grammarly’s other free tool right now.

7. MarketMuse – AI content planning and optimization

Most top-rated SEO tools don’t have a free plan and only analyze the first 10–30 pages of content. However, MarketMuse is different.

Its patented topic modeling technology uses AI technology to quickly scour thousands of web pages to determine the most important topics and variants. That way, you know what you need to cover to ensure your piece of content is better than the rest.

MarketMuse believes traditional keyword metrics are poor predictors of success. They believe a site’s competitive advantage is actually based on its current level of authority and previous content strategy—a lot more personalized than many other tools lead us to believe.

While the Free plan is limited, you can still access versions of these features:

1. SERP X-ray: See how top-ranking content is structured (with no averages).
2. Heatmap: Find gaps in topic coverage (with no site-level analysis).
3. Topic Navigator: Better understand a topic before creating content based on it.

Creating consistently great content doesn’t happen by chance. There’s a data-based strategy behind each and every successful site.

The free version gives one user access to limited page-level insights and up to 10 queries per month. If you’re only publishing content every now and then, this could be a perfect addition to your free AI tool tech stack.

8. Manychat – AI chat marketing

Chatbots seem to have exploded onto the marketing scene. According to Gartner, their use will become the primary customer service channel for around a quarter of organizations by 2027.

Having artificial intelligence software on hand to chat with customers when you’re not around can help in so many ways. You can use it to:

• Move warm leads along the pipeline
• Answer basic customer questions
• Collect customer feedback
• Help with order updates
• Send links and content

Manychat’s Free version offers just that and works with Instagram DMs, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp. These chatbots can help you with the following:

• Chat automation: Engage up to 1,000 contacts with unlimited custom flows.
• New customer acquisition: Access to basic Growth Tools that can help drive leads.
• Contact segmentation: Use up to 10 customer “Tags” to help you organize your audience.
• Email support: Get help anytime from the Manychat pros.

This technology helps you connect with customers at every stage of the pipeline—from recovering abandoned carts to sharing updates and answering support questions.

The Free plan gives one team member access to Manychat’s basic features and the ability to engage with up to 1,000 contacts—no credit card required. Used right, this type of conversational marketing could take your business to the next level.

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Conclusion

There are hundreds—if not thousands—of free AI tools out there. But that doesn’t mean they’re all worth trying. In fact, there are many that make big promises and fail to live up to them.

If you’re a solo entrepreneur or startup that needs to streamline your marketing and content creation efforts, the eight free AI tools listed above are tried and tested quality apps. However, the technology and industry are both constantly evolving. So, what’s free now may not be in the near future. 

Until then, make the most of each and let artificial intelligence help out with image, audio, and text creation. Plus, creating a solid SEO strategy that’ll give you the best chance of ranking highly and getting your name out there.

Why not do some research of yourself to find the right artificial intelligence tool for you, whether it’s an AI video generator or powerful knowledge extraction tools, we’re sure there’ll be one out there for you.

If you’d like to find more free AI tools to try out, head to the Top Apps homepage and filter our suggestions by “Free”.