Artificial Intelligence for Writers

I like to regard AI tools as a team of experts who assist me with the aspects of writing I don’t enjoy. Here are my favorite tools and how I use them.

Tools

Website Gemini.Google.com

Best Features remembering long conversations, deep research, producing images and audio overviews of uploaded documents.

Limiting Features Google has built several models, each with different capabilities, so you may have to switch between them. Experimental models use your data for future training. Login (Google account) gives you access to advanced features, past chats.

Enable Privacy In the left menu, click on Activity > Turn Off

Website Copilot.microsoft.com (for Windows 10 and 11, it’s also an app on your computer)

Best Features Excellent voice chat; one-click use from the Windows taskbar

Limiting Features Small query size (~2000 words); on the web, best experience is with the Edge browser

Privacy only for paid users (and free users who haven’t logged in) can opt out of model training [more info]

Website Chatgpt.com

Best Features Scene and text analysis, creating images (limited), canvas to do collaborative editing

Limiting Features advanced features like canvas or image creation have limited daily use. Login gives you access to advanced features, past chats, more than 5 queries.

Enable Privacy Click on your profile image; Settings > Data Controls > Improve the Model for Everyone > Off

Website https://claude.ai

Best Features uploading large documents, text analysis, understanding creative writing

Limiting Features Claude’s servers are often overloaded, so usage limits are often reduced, and model output is downgraded; requires login email or Google account.

Privacy By default Claude doesn’t use your input or output to train its models, UNLESS you provide feedback.

Ideogram create image from text descriptions

suno.com generate songs from lyrics

NotebookLM generate reports (and podcasts) from your uploaded files

Google Illuminate create audio overviews of webpages