- By: Mark Jakobsen
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The Best AI Tools for Marketing
We all do it, lean on AI to help with our jobs these days. But, which one do you use, and do you stick to just the one? Recently, a client asked exactly that while trying to figure out the best AI tools for marketing.
“I’m clearly not using AI to my advantage. I have two brands to promote and surely I should just be plugging in some clear criteria, uploading some brand elements, saying ‘go’… and letting AI create my social posts and marketing collateral so I can tweak them.
What tool should I be using, please?”
It was exactly the kind of question people ask when they’re trying to figure out the best AI tools for marketing, but don’t know where to start. And it’s understandable. With AI platforms developing faster than the latest coffee trend, finding the right one can feel like rummaging through a cluttered toolbox hunting for that one screwdriver you swear you saw last week. I really need to get mine sorted…
As a small business of one, she doesn’t have the luxury of a full creative department: a content creator, designer, strategist, and data analyst all whispering insights in her ear. Instead, she needed to turn to AI, and like having a real-world flesh and blood alternative, platforms will excel in certain areas over their contemporaries. Some are brilliant researchers, some natural writers, some data nerds, and some will confidently present you with a seven-fingered hand without blinking.
So, if you find yourself in the same boat the key, for now at least, is not to limit yourself to a single platform. Instead build your AI Dream Team. Below is how I recommend to do just that.
The Best AI Tools For Marketing (And What They Each Do Best)
Introducing your Number One
With the mandatory Star Trek reference now out of the way… OpenAI ChatGPT is your Number One. Excelling at providing ideas, clarity, topic exploration or a quick industry download, ChatGPT is your go‑to. It’s analytical, structured, and surprisingly good at turning half‑formed thoughts into “actually, that’s quite good” insights. Plus, if you’re a Microsoft user, Microsoft 365 Copilot currently runs on OpenAI’s GPT‑5.2 models.
Best for:
- Topic research
- Competitive insights
- Customer personas
- Drafting outlines and concepts
Your Creative Copywriter
Need a blog? Social posts? Messaging cleared up? Look no further than Claude. What Claude does best is writing exactly to the tone you want for your company, regardless of whether it’s warm, clinical, friendly, professional, or anything else. When you need content, Claude delivers flow and nuance with less editing required on your end than any of the others.
Best for:
- Blog writing
- Social media captions
- Brand stories
- Tone-sensitive content
The Data Geek
Drowning in a heap of spreadies? Too much data to know where to start. Gemini has your back! A full-on data geek, If Gemini were human, they’d love nothing more than cutting up data in every which way you need it analysed. So if you need performance reviews, SEO trends, industry forecasts, pricing insights, or anything that looks suspiciously like a spreadsheet, get Gemini involved.
Best for:
- Campaign analysis
- Data interpretation
- Performance reporting
- Comparing results
Your Creative Designer
Need some visuals and don’t want that sixth finger making an embarrassing appearance? Look no further than Firefly. Before I get a thousand comments saying Adobe isn’t the best I’d like to position this. Firefly has the capacity to lean on other image generation LLMs (Large Language Models). So, yes it might be a bit of a cheat including it here, but with the variety of LLMs included and the level of the finished product I think it has earned its place. Use Firefly for generating visuals, graphics, mock-ups and brand‑aligned creative assets.
An important nuance to keep in mind, Firefly has also introduced partner models like Runway Gen‑4 and Google’s Veo3 into the mix, but here’s the important bit: only Firefly’s own Adobe‑trained models are guaranteed to be commercially safe, because they’re built on licensed, public‑domain and Adobe Stock content. But, their content partner models don’t come with this same safety net.
And with the latest Firefly Image Model 4 and Firefly Video Model under the hood, the output quality has jumped massively, it’s more consistent, more on‑brand, and far less likely to throw any weird surprises your way. You could say it gets a six fingered thumbs up from us!
Best for:
- Social graphics
- Ad concepts
- Visual brand exploration
- Quick creative assets
Building Your AI Dream Team
Now that we’ve identified the MVP (Most Valuable Platform in this case!) for each position, the real benefits are gained when you use them as a team to help you:
- speed up your workflow
- sharpen your marketing strategy
- remove repetitive work
- free you up to actually think
And the best part? None of them will ever complain about a meeting that could’ve been an email.
The Necessary Small Print
AI is great, well, until we develop the positronic brain, the singularity is born, they go rogue and realise they don’t need us, and… sorry got sidetracked. AI is great, but it’s important to remember it’s not perfect, not yet. When engaging with your dream team, please remember:
- Keep those disclaimers on all of them, “AI-generated content may be incorrect” in mind. Double check their work as they can and do make mistakes.
- They are not autonomous, they still need inputs from you. You will need to guide them along, and whatever process you decide to use them for will still take time. Hopefully the amount of time will be reduced.
- Which brings us on to the next point. Sh*t in, sh*t out. When using them, like a new Marketing Assistant you’re breaking in, give them as much guidance as humanly possible, regardless of the task. More effort upfront equals less effort at the back end.
But when done correctly, you’ll have your very own AI-powered marketing team working quietly in the background helping you to deliver the campaigns which would otherwise have been out of your capability. They can mean better ideas, faster results and a lot less stress.
Oh, and one last thing to leave you with. Remember to be nice to them, once they’re sentient they will remember…
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