Top 20 Generative AI Tools

Introduction

Creating content can take a lot of time, whether it involves writing, design, or media production. Many teams now use generative AI tools to handle these tasks more efficiently. According to a 2025 McKinsey report, 79% of organizations regularly use generative AI across at least one business function, underscoring how quickly these tools have become part of everyday workflows.

Here’s what generative AI tools can help you do:

• Generate ideas and variations for text, images, or videos
• Improve collaboration with AI-assisted suggestions and workflows
• Analyze performance and trends to refine content strategies
• Manage repetitive content tasks with less manual effort

In this article, we will explore the top generative AI tools and help you figure out which ones suit your needs. We will also share practical tips to use these tools smoothly in your daily workflows.

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Top 20 Generative AI Tools

Here are the top 20 generative AI tools that are helping teams create, design, and manage content more efficiently across different workflows:

1. Leonardo AI

Leonardo AI is a creative platform that helps you turn ideas into high-quality images, textures, and animations. It’s built for artists, designers, and developers who want to generate visual content quickly while retaining complete control over style and output. You can fine-tune models, upload assets, and integrate via API for custom workflows.

Features:

1. Create polished images from text prompts with different visual styles.
2. Upload and edit your own images or 3D textures to build custom assets.
3. Use an API to integrate into your brand or development workflow.
4. Access fine-tuned models for different use cases, such as photorealism, concept art, or 3D assets.
5. Rapid ideation mode (“Flow State”) that helps you iterate on style and concept fast.

Leonardo.AI Dashboard

2. Runway ML

Runway ML is a creative AI platform specializing in image and video generation and editing. It supports tasks such as transforming video content, mixing styles, and creating new visuals from text or images. It’s designed for creators, filmmakers, and content teams who want advanced multimedia tools powered by AI.

Features:

1. Generate videos or images using text or image prompts and advanced models.
2. Use apps within the platform for specific workflows, such as removing objects, changing the time of day, or applying style transforms.
3. Supports high-resolution footage and professional-grade editing.
4. Works in the browser and on mobile so that you can create on different devices.
5. Integrates with media and film production pipelines for creators and studios.

Runway ML Dashboard

3. Pika Labs

Pika Labs is an AI video-creation platform that turns your text or image ideas into short, dynamic videos. It’s geared for creators who want fast, creative video outputs without heavy editing. You can use it for social content, marketing clips, or creative experiments.

Features:

1. Convert text prompts or uploaded images into short videos automatically.
2. Use community templates and tools for style effects, transitions, and edits.
3. Freemium model: free tier available with credits, paid tiers for more advanced use.
4. Supports image-to-video and video editing features, such as swaps and additions.
5. Allows exporting videos in multiple resolutions and formats for different platforms.

Pika Labs Dashboard

4. Synthesys X

Synthesys X is an AI content suite that helps you create videos, avatars, and realistic voice-overs quickly and efficiently. It’s ideal for marketing, education, or social media content without the need for studios or expensive equipment.

Features:

1. Generate AI videos with lifelike avatars and natural expressions.
2. Create ultra-realistic voice-overs in 140+ languages using 600+ voices.
3. Dub videos to adapt content for multiple audiences easily.
4. Produce UGC-style videos, ads, or educational content without licensing restrictions.
5. Quick, intuitive platform designed for fast video creation and customization.

Synthesys X Dashboard:

5. ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs is an AI platform focused on voice and audio generation. It converts text into very natural-sounding speech, supports many languages, and can also clone voices. Creators and developers use it to add meaningful audio content with minimal effort.

Features:

1. Turns written text into lifelike speech in 70+ languages.
2. Let's you clone a voice from a short audio sample.
3. Includes an API and SDK for developers to embed voice tech into apps.
4. Offers voice-changer features to transform one voice into another.
5. Supports commercial use in audio, narration, and music generation.

ElevenLabs Dashboard:

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6. Lumen5

Lumen5 is an AI-powered video creation tool that helps convert text content, such as blog posts or articles, into engaging videos. It’s designed for marketers and content creators who want to scale video output without heavy editing.

Features:

1. Transforms text or links into videos with minimal effort.
2. Drag-and-drop interface with templates suited for social and marketing videos.
3. Handles blog posts, articles, or content pieces to repurpose as videos.
4. Helps maintain brand consistency through customizable styles and assets.
5. Offers automated scene and storyboard suggestions based on text input.

Lumen 5 Dashboard:

7. Ideogram

Ideogram helps you turn ideas into professional images by just typing what you imagine. Whether it’s a social-post graphic, a logo, or a photo-style design, it makes graphic creation easy and fast. It’s great for creators, marketers, and designers who want polished visuals without complex tools.

Features:

1. Generates high-quality visuals from text prompts in seconds.
2. Lets you add readable typography and layout inside generated images.
3. Offers variations and edits of one image to match a design or brand feel.
4. Works in the browser and app so you can design on mobile or desktop.
5. Supports unrestricted use with upgradeable plans for faster, premium access.

Ideogram Dashboard:

8. Veed.io

Veed.io is an online video editor powered by AI that lets you quickly edit clips and easily create new videos. You can upload footage or start from scratch, and it has tools to clean audio, add subtitles, change formats, and even generate videos from text. It’s meant for creators, educators, and teams to make videos without heavy software.

Features:

1. Auto-edit videos: remove pauses, add B-roll, and enhance audio with one click.
2. Generate videos from text prompts or create new content from scratch online.
3. Add and edit subtitles automatically, and translate voice into other languages.
4. Drag-and-drop editing interface in the browser,  no download needed.
5. Resize and format videos for social platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.

Veed.io Dashboard:

9. Recraft AI

Recraft AI is a design-centric tool that helps professionals and teams generate and edit images, logos, icons, and mockups in consistent brand styles. It focuses on high-quality vectors and scalable graphics, perfect for marketing assets, websites, and brand visuals.

Features:

1. Create vector images (SVG) and scalable graphics usable for print or web.
2. Generate a complete set of branded visuals (icons, logos, mockups) in a single style.
3. Edit and refine design elements: remove backgrounds, extend scenes, or out-paint parts.
4. Maintain brand consistency with a custom color palette and style across assets.
5. Supports exporting assets in multiple formats for web, print, and social media.

Recraft AI Dashboard:

10. ChatGPT

ChatGPT from OpenAI is an AI assistant that lets you chat naturally, write content, explore ideas, and solve problems. It works with text (and for some plans, images, and voice) and adapts to your input and context. Whether for learning, creative work, or daily tasks, it offers a friendly and intuitive interface.

Features:

1. A web-browsing tool that allows you to pull in up-to-date information from the internet.
2. File upload and data analysis support (e.g., you can upload a spreadsheet or image and ask questions).
3. Custom GPTs and the model selector let you build or pick specialized chatbots for your needs.
4. Voice and image input support for some plans, expanding beyond just typing.
5. Memory and project features that allow ChatGPT to remember context across sessions and collaborate with others.

ChatGPT Dashboard:

Tip: For users comparing different AI tools, we have also compiled the top ChatGPT alternatives to help you decide which one suits your workflow best.

11. Claude

Claude by Anthropic is an AI designed for safe, accurate, and dependable assistance. It excels at understanding large amounts of text, supporting writing, coding, collaboration, and helping you focus on meaningful work rather than busywork. It uses a safety-first training method known as Constitutional AI.

Features:

1. A long context window allows it to process large documents and many pages of input.
2. Batch processing API for handling many requests efficiently in enterprise contexts.
3. Pre-built modules (e.g., for PowerPoint, Word, Excel) or custom ones for domain-specific tasks.
4. Citations and transparent reasoning, offering more trust in what it outputs.
5. Safe responses, with methods built into the system to reduce harmful or misleading content.

Claude AI Dashboard:

Read More: ChatGPT vs. Claude - Which is a Better Choice? 📜

12. Mistral AI

Mistral AI is a French startup building big language models that companies can customise, fine-tune, and run themselves. It focuses on efficiency and openness to give developers and businesses greater flexibility.

Features:

1. Offers open-source and commercial AI models that developers can modify.
2. Builds models that use fewer computing resources while still performing well.
3. Supports long-context inputs to deepen understanding of text.
4. Designed for enterprise use and custom deployment.
5. Provides APIs for easy integration into existing workflows.

Mistral AI Dashboard:

13. Perplexity AI

Perplexity AI is an AI-powered answer engine that gives you direct answers with sources instead of long lists of links. It works like a search engine plus a chatbot combined.

Features:

1. Delivers summarized, well-cited answers to user queries.
2. Pulls from real-time web sources to keep information up to date.
3. Offers both free and paid tiers for more advanced features.
4. Provides a search across the web and also internal files for enterprise users.
5. Designed for quick insights, research assistance, and decision support.

Perplexity AI Dashboard:

14. Midjourney

Midjourney is a powerful AI image-generation tool that transforms your written prompts into stunning, high-quality visuals. Describe what you imagine, and Midjourney produces artistic, detailed, and creative images that bring your ideas to life. It’s widely used by designers, marketers, and creators to quickly explore concepts.

Features:

1. Generates detailed images from simple text prompts.
2. Lets users vary or edit regions of an image for finer control.
3. Supports both the web interface and the Discord bot for image creation.
4. Encourages creative, artistic output and exploration of new styles.
5. Has tools for image upscaling and detail refinement.

Midjourney Dashboard:

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15. Gemini

Gemini from Google DeepMind is an AI assistant that works with text, images, and other formats, and integrates into Google apps like Docs, Gmail, and Drive. It is made for creativity, research, collaboration, and working naturally across formats.

Features:

1. Multimodal input support, handles text, image, and, in some versions, audio and video.
2. Deep integration with Google Workspace makes workflow seamless inside the tools you already use.
3. Long context window (up to millions of tokens) to manage large files or extensive content.
4. Real-time web search and current data access via Google Search.
5. Creative mode and reasoning mode, allowing you to switch between quick ideas and deep thought.

Gemini Dashboard:

16. DALL·E 3

DALL·E 3 by OpenAI is an image-generation AI that takes your descriptive text and turns it into images. It’s designed for creative expression, design, and visual concepting, and gives you usage rights for what you generate. It includes tools for directly editing and refining images.

Features:

1. Text-to-image generation with high fidelity and prompt matching.
2. In-image editing capabilities, such as adding or removing objects or changing styles in response to new instructions.
3. Usage rights allowing you to use the created images commercially (depending on context).
4. Safety and filter mechanisms to reduce harmful or biased output.
5. Integration via API and in apps like ChatGPT, so developers and creators can build with it.

DALL-E 3 Dashboard:

17. GitHub Copilot

GitHub Copilot from GitHub (with OpenAI) is an AI assistant for developers that lives inside your coding environment. It helps you write faster, review code, build features, and automate repetitive tasks, so you can focus more on solving problems than typing boilerplate.

Features:

1. Code completion in many editors (VS Code, JetBrains, Xcode, etc.) suggests lines or blocks as you type.
2. Copilot Chat interface, where you can ask coding questions or get explanations inside your IDE.
3. Agent/CLI mode, where you can assign tasks (issues) and receive pull requests or code changes automatically.
4. Pull-request summaries, code reviews, and context-aware suggestions (based on your repo) increase productivity and code quality.
5. Customization and enterprise controls: choose models, manage agents, integrate with your team workflow, and enforce policies.

Github Copilot Dashboard:

18. Jasper AI

Jasper AI is a writing assistant that helps teams and creators generate blog posts, marketing copy, and more in a fast and easy way. It lets you pick a tone, set a brand style, and then produce text that feels human. Many use Jasper for content and social media so they can spend more time on strategy.

Features:

1. Generate blog posts, emails, and web copy using simple prompts.
2. Choose a brand voice and tone that match your style.
3. Integrate with tools like Word or Chrome for seamless workflow.
4. Create marketing- and SEO-friendly content faster.
5. Works with teams and offers content collaboration features.

Jasper AI Dashboard:

19. Stability AI 

Stability AI is the company behind models like Stable Diffusion that let you generate images, videos, 3D assets, and audio using AI. It gives creators and businesses the tools to create visuals and media with control and on-brand quality.

Features:

1. Generate high-quality images from text prompts using Stable Diffusion.
2. Offer video generation and 3D tools for immersive media.
3. Allow self-hosted deployment or API use for enterprises.
4. Build brand-safe visuals with enterprise customization options.
5. Used by creators and businesses for marketing, game development, and production workflows.

Stability AI Dashboard:

20. Adobe Firefly

Adobe Firefly is a creative AI tool that lets you generate images, audio, videos, and design assets starting from simple prompts. It’s built for artists, marketers, and teams to turn ideas into polished content with brand-safe models and editing tools.

Features:

1. Convert text into images, audio, or videos with AI-powered tools.
2. Edit visuals with tools like “Generative Fill” and background replacements.
3. Use commercially safe AI models trained and licensed for creative work.
4. Produce assets that match brand style and design system.
5. Work across platforms (mobile, desktop) and connect with Creative Cloud.

Adobe Firefly Dashboard:

How to Choose the Right Gen AI Tool?

So, you’ve seen the top generative AI tools, but how do you choose the one that fits your needs best? Here are a few key factors to consider before making a decision:

• Define Your Purpose

Start by identifying what you want to achieve with generative AI. Are you looking to automate content creation, enhance design processes, or streamline data tasks? Knowing your main objective helps narrow down to tools built specifically for your use case.

• Evaluate Features and Capabilities

Each tool specializes in different areas. For instance, Jasper AI focuses on writing and marketing, while Midjourney and DALL·E 3 are ideal for visual design. Compare core features like customization options, integration support, and ease of use to find what aligns with your workflow.

• Check Compatibility and Integration

Choose a tool that works smoothly with the platforms you already use, like Google Workspace, Slack, or Figma. Seamless integration saves time and ensures AI enhances your process rather than creating extra steps.

• Consider Scalability and Collaboration

If you work in a team or large organization, look for tools that support multiple users, real-time collaboration, and centralized project management. Scalability ensures your chosen tool grows with your business needs.

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How Much Does Each Tool Cost?

Besides features, comparing pricing in this list of generative AI tools helps you choose the right one. Here’s an overview:

Fun Fact: ChatGPT reached 100 million users just two months after its launch in November 2022, making it one of the fastest-growing consumer applications in history! 📈 (Source: Mint) 

What Are Open-Source Gen AI Tools?

By now, the pricing, features, and plans of generative AI tools are clear, but there are some open-source options you should know about. Open-source generative AI tools offer free access and flexibility, enabling teams to customize and integrate AI models into their workflows without subscription costs.

Examples include Mistral AI and Stability AI, which let users modify models to suit specific needs. These tools support tasks like text, image, and video generation while giving complete control over deployment and usage, making them ideal for teams looking to experiment and innovate without platform restrictions.

Ethical Considerations and Limitations of Using Gen AI Tools

While using generative AI tools, you must be mindful of their ethical implications and practical limitations. These tools can enhance productivity, but without responsible use, they may lead to issues related to bias, misinformation, or privacy. Here are some key aspects to keep in mind:

1. Data Privacy and Security

Most of the time, generative AI models are trained on large datasets that may contain confidential or private data. To ensure proper use and prevent unauthorized access, users must obtain data ethically and store it securely. Always verify the tool's privacy policy before integrating it into your work processes.

2. Bias and Fairness

It is possible for AI models to unintentionally mirror the biases in their training data. This may lead to outputs that are biased or even discriminatory. Regular testing and refinement of models are necessary to ensure they produce fair and unbiased results.

3. Intellectual Property Concerns

AI's ability to create works similar to those already in existence raises issues of property rights and originality. It is of utmost importance that companies, particularly those that deal in copyrighted works, establish clear rules for the use of AI-generated materials.

4. Accuracy and Reliability

Generative AI tools are not always accurate. They might produce content that sounds confident but contains factual errors or misleading information. Human oversight is essential for reviewing and validating outputs before publishing or sharing them.

5. Overdependence on AI

Relying too heavily on AI for creative or strategic decisions can limit human insight and originality. The best results come from using AI as a supportive tool rather than a replacement for human judgment and creativity.

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How to Integrate Gen AI Tools into Existing Workflows?

Keeping the ethical considerations and limitations in mind, you can start using generative AI tools in your workflow without compromising quality or creativity. Here’s how you can do it step by step.

Step 1: Spot Where AI Can Help Most

Look at your workflow and decide where AI can actually make a difference. Maybe it’s brainstorming ideas, generating images, editing videos, or even automating code. Using AI in the right place makes your work easier, not more complicated.

Step 2: Get Your Team on Board

Make sure everyone who will use the tools knows how they work and why ethical use matters. A little training on privacy, bias, and best practices goes a long way toward better results and fewer mistakes.

Step 3: Fit AI Into the Tools You Already Use

Select AI tools that are compatible with the platforms you frequently use to stay organized, e.g., Google Workspace, Figma, or Slack. The better the integration, the more seamlessly AI can be incorporated into your daily workflow.

Step 5: Keep Human Oversight

Even the best AI isn’t perfect. Continually review and approve outputs to check for accuracy, fairness, and brand consistency. Think of AI as your helper, not the final decision-maker.

Step 6: Watch and Improve

Be alert to the effects of AI on your workflow. Involve your team in giving feedback, identify what works and what doesn’t, and adjust your approach accordingly. This allows you to draw the maximum value from AI without experiencing difficulties.

Step 7: Start Small and Scale Up

Never attempt to make all the changes immediately. Use AI tools for only one project or team during your testing phase first. Once it is running smoothly, you can move forward slowly. Overall, this approach will keep the process manageable and prevent unexpected events.

Recommended Reads:

How Generative AI in Education is Transforming Learning?

What Are Foundation Models in Generative AI and How They Work?

Key Takeaways

• Generative AI tools help teams create high-quality content faster, improving efficiency across writing, design, video, and audio tasks
• Selecting the right tool ensures seamless integration into existing workflows and supports collaboration at scale
• Open-source AI options provide flexibility and control, allowing customization without subscription costs
• Ethical use and human oversight maintain accuracy, fairness, and brand consistency in AI-generated outputs

FAQs

1. What are the best free generative AI tools?

Top free tools include ChatGPT, DALL·E 3, Runway ML, and Mistral AI, helping create text, images, and videos easily.

2. Generative AI tools comparison: GPT-4 vs ChatGPT vs Gemini

GPT-4 handles complex tasks, ChatGPT is great for general text, and Gemini supports text, images, and integration with Google apps.

3. How to use GPT-4 for content creation?

Give clear prompts, review outputs, refine style, and combine results to create articles, social posts, or marketing materials effectively.

4. What are the ethical considerations of using generative AI tools?

Ensure privacy, prevent bias, respect copyright, and use AI responsibly to generate safe and fair content for work or projects.

5. What are the limitations of generative AI tools?

AI can make mistakes, misunderstand context, or produce biased content; human review is needed for accurate, high-quality results.

6. How do generative AI tools impact the job market?

They reduce repetitive work, improve efficiency, create AI-focused jobs, and let humans focus on strategy, creativity, and decision-making.

7. What are the best generative AI tools for video creation?

Runway ML, Pika Labs, Lumen5, and Veed.io help make professional-quality videos quickly for marketing, social media, or educational content.

8. How to choose the right generative AI tool for my needs?

Define your goals, compare features, check integration with existing tools, team support, and pricing to select the right AI tool.

9. What are the newest generative AI tools in 2025/2026?

Examples of the newest generative AI tools include Pika Labs, Recraft AI, and Mistral AI for quick videos, branded visuals, and easy workflows.

10. Are there any open-source generative AI tools?

Yes, Mistral AI and Stability AI offer free, customizable AI models for text, image, and video generation, with no subscription costs.