Wonder Tools

• 🌟 Tally: Superb Free Surveys

  Tally is the best free tool for creating surveys. They’re better-looking and more flexible than Google Forms, and they’re just as easy to create in 60 seconds. Use it for any kind of survey, whether you’re getting feedback from clients or students, collecting RSVPs, or gathering ideas. Get Started: Pick a template or a blank page. Add questions: multiple choice, open text, ranking, or many others. You can ask respondents to upload a file or make a payment. To enhance your design, add text blocks, images, or videos between questions. Read on for my updated guide to Tally, including: * A survey for you to try out Tally * My 7 favorite features* Free templates* Limitations & alternative tools.Take my new Wonder Tools survey to try Tally. You’ll get a sense for how it feels to fill out a Tally form. And this is a genuine survey. Your feedback will help me improve this newsletter. Thanks for your input. I read every response. Feeling curious? Want to try an adaptive AI version of my survey? I’m testing a different survey tool, Parliant, that adjusts questions based on your replies. Try this new AI version.My 7 favorite Tally features* Free. 99% of the features are available without paying. I haven’t upgraded because the free offering is so complete.* Privacy-focused. Based in Belgium, the company complies with Europe’s strict GDPR rules. Its software respects people’s privacy. * Easy. No complicated menus or settings. As this 30-sec video demo illustrates, you can just start typing on a blank page and press “ / “ to add a question from a list of options. For non-techies it’s easier than Typeform, Survey Monkey or Qualtrics.* Flexible. Works for any kind of form, quiz or survey. Tally is superb for feedback, market research, even selling something, as in these templates:* Sell a digital or physical product* Sell ad spots or sponsorships* Host an online quiz* Make an RSVP form* Flexible design. 🎨 Incorporate video, images or descriptions to create the feel of a readable page that’s less bureaucratic than traditional forms. Add a cover image and logo. The forms look great, like Notion pages. They’re less generically corporate than Microsoft Forms or Google Forms. * Easily shareable. Email your survey, share a link to it — as I did above — or embed it within a site.* Connect Tally to other tools. Check a box to easily share whatever data your form collects to Google Sheets, Notion, Slack, or Airtable. These simple integrations help you analyze responses easily.Tips on creating great surveys* Shortcut: type “Tally.new” in your browser bar to start a new form, if you’re logged in.* Aim for 5 to 8 questions. That’s the survey sweet spot requiring just 5 to 10 minutes of a respondent’s time. * Learn from other good surveys. Check examples of others using Tally, a pack of survey templates for growth, and lessons from newsletter surveys cited by Dan Oshinsky’s excellent Inbox Collective. * Incorporate conditional logic, sending people to a question based on a prior answer. I tested that in my new Wonder Tools feedback survey above. That ensures people only see questions relevant to them. * Use AI to categorize or summarize text replies. AI can help spot patterns. That’s useful when you have hundreds of responses to analyze. * First make a copy of survey data, stripping out names and private info.* Prompt Claude or ChatGPT for step by step analysis, not all in one shot. * With Gemini AI enabled in Google Sheets, ask for AI analysis of responses saved in a sheet.* Other AI resources: Custom GPTs like Survey Crafter or Survey Analyzer. 📺 Watch me create a Tally form in 30 seconds Templates to try* Newsletter feedback Customize this template I made. * Event registration Invite people to sign up. Offer programming choices. Spread questions over multiple pages for a clean look. * Simple feedback Let anyone provide quick input. * Grant proposal Select candidates.* Job application Find someone to help you out. 6 steps to implement your survey 1. Pick a template relevant to your project (or start with a blank page).2. Click “Use this template.” 3. Customize the questions. 4. Grab the link. 5. Share it via email, on social or on a site. 6. Return to Tally to see people’s responses. What’s new with Tally* Form Insights. See how many people are accessing your form, where they’re coming from, what devices they’re using, how long they’re spending on your form and where they’re dropping off if they don’t complete your questions. * Version History. If you’re experimenting with question wording, you can now roll back to prior versions. * Public API beta. Developers can now build new Tally integrations and automations. Limitations* Limited visualization options. For charts or detailed visuals, you’ll need a different tool.* No AI summaries or adaptation. Google Forms can now summarize responses for you with AI assistance. Tally doesn’t yet have that capability. New tools like Parliant and BetterFeedback can even adapt questions based on prior responses. Typeform AI helps word questions for you. * No mid-range subscription. You can use most Tally features for free, but the pro price of $29/monthly is a big jump for premium features. These include customized confirmation emails, custom domains, and unlimited team collaboration. You can also accept large file uploads (over 10mb) and remove Tally branding. I’m fine with the free plan, which includes unlimited forms and question types. Sponsored MessagesStop losing brilliant ideas💡forever! Supasend captures your fleeting thoughts in seconds💨 and instantly sends them to your second brain apps.🧠 The missing link between inspiration & your organized knowledge system is finally here.Try it now freeYour AI Accountant: Automate 95% of boring bookkeeping tasks. RIP QuickBooks.Even bookkeepers hate bookkeeping and so do entrepreneurs. That’s why bookeeping.ai offers Paula, your AI accountant. She automates 95% of bookkeeping tasks, including creating financial reports, auto categorization, receipt matching, sending invoices, and requesting tax forms. You can chat with her and get tasks done.With a simple chat, you can handle financial tasks to save 76 hours a month and focus on growing your business.💵 Start your free trial for 30 days hereAlternativesTally has published its own comparisons with other tools. But here’s my take on other good survey tools to consider the next time you’re making a form.* Free & Fast: Google Forms works with your existing Google account. It’s functional for registration forms or simple feedback surveys, but its features and design have stagnated over the past decade.* Elegant and Professional: Typeform presents questions one by one, making it less overwhelming for survey respondents than traditional survey tools. It remains superb for multiple reasons. It’s expensive, though, and the advanced features are complex. * Flexible and Easy: Notion Forms now lets you embed surveys export data to multiple places. They’re more flexible than Survey Monkey or Microsoft Forms, which have the stiff design feel of enterprise tools made for mass-market feedback.* Premium for Businesses: Jotform is another premium alternative for businesses. You can customize fonts and colors, and integrate a form into your CRM or any database. Or trying make an AI agent. * For DIY flexibility: Coda works well both for forms and documents. That helps you organize survey responses within existing docs. * For team productivity: Airtable, like Coda, lets you create forms with responses that flow directly into tables. That helps you sort, filter, analyze and share results efficiently.* For preference ranking: OpinionX is another specialized survey tool I’ve used and recommend for stack rankings — assessing customer preferences. Ask people to compare a series of paired options to help set priorities.* Live polling: Slido is what I prefer for quick live polling during events. What’s your preferred survey tool and why? Leave a comment 👇 Get full access to Wonder Tools at wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

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  7:34
• Declutter your Digital Mess

  Most bookmark tools feel like cluttered digital filing cabinets—full of folders, tags, and organizational overhead. mymind is a minimalist alternative. It’s a clean, simple online hub for saving anything you find online. Create a gorgeous private scrapbook of images, links, articles or anything else you want to save, without the hassle of labeling. It’s an opinionated tool that’s not for everyone — caveats below include no sharing or importing. And I’ve noted a bunch of strong alternatives. But mymind remains a superb example of a design-focused service that’s a pleasure to use. Since I last wrote about it, mymind has improved the way it shows visuals, Read on for an update of my previous post to learn what it’s most useful for and how to use it.6 ways to use mymind 🎨I like using mymind to save remarkable visuals, thought-provoking charts, amazing videos, beautiful poems, and memorable articles. I also use it to collect AI-related links to scan through. * Create an inspiration moodboard. Save stunning photographs, brilliant art, your favorite interior designs, cool clothing, yummy food, pictures of homes you’d love to live in someday, or whatever else catches your eye. Then the next time you’re staring at a blank page, open your moodboard for a spark. * Collect project ideas. Save links, quotes, or screenshots to inform a project. Highlight articles to save specific passages. * Curate quotes & graphics for presentations. Use the one-click save button whenever you stumble on notable material to add to a slide deck or handout. * Save articles and videos for later. The distraction-free mymind interface makes it a nice place to read long articles or watch YouTube videos. * Clip recipes. I was surprised by how helpfully mymind strips out the cruft in online recipes. It shows just the ingredients and instructions, though you can easily return to the original recipe page. * Organize shower thoughts. You can write text notes or to-do lists. Jot a few words or an essay outline.mymind is clean and simple 🧼* No ads* No data tracking* No vanity metrics or likes* No social sharing or collaboration* Read mymind’s manifesto & promise for their philosophy* No complex menus or manuals to readSponsored MessageWe’re finally seeing the no-code space shift from glue-it-together to full-stack.Tools like Softr are part of that shift—especially with their new Databases launch.Instead of stitching Airtable + Notion + Zapier together, you can:* Build your database* Link records, filter, add formulas* Build the frontend UI inside the same platformIt’s like building internal tools with Lego blocks.If you’re trying to spin up CRMs, project trackers, or dashboards—without taking up dev time—this is a solid platform to explore.How to start using mymind* Go to mymind.com and create a free account with your Google or Apple ID. * Download a browser extension and/or the iOS, Android or Mac app. * Save a few interesting sites by pressing the browser button. See an image you want to save? Right-click it. Or highlight text in an article and right-click that text to save it as a quote. You can add a note if you want to. I often save a short phrase as a reminder of what caught my attention.* Return to mymind online or on your mobile device anytime you want to see what you’ve saved. Browse your collection. Try a search term (like “book,” “pizza,” “video,” or “quote”) to surface whatever you’re looking for.* Collections: You can optionally create custom “spaces” — basically smart searches — if you like organizing your finds into sub-categories. * Serendipity mode lets you focus on one saved item at a time, enabling minimalistic deep thinking. * Pricing: It’s free to save up to 100 items or “cards.” To collect more, pay $8/month ($79/year) for unlimited cards and some advanced features, or $13/month ($129/year) for the Mastermind plan with more advanced AI, reading mode, and article backups. * Videos from mymind are a useful easy way to learn more. And mymind’s newsletter is well-curated and gorgeously-designed. tldr summary: Add a bookmarklet button to your browser to save anything to your mymind collection. Click that button anytime you see something you want to save. That’s it. No need to label, tag, or file anything.* AI-enhanced: mymind uses AI to classify everything you save. That makes it easy to find anything, even after you accumulate a large library. * New features: mymind now works for saving Bluesky posts (plus Threads and Github) and the Android and iOS apps have gotten more polish. It’s a small, indy product team focused on quality, so iterations are infrequent. Caveats* Limited flexibility. mymind’s design, while gorgeous, isn’t flexible. It’s not meant for you to rearrange, though you can pin cards. If you want to manually resize items or drag things around on a canvas, consider Milanote or a whiteboard like Miro, Mural, Lucid or Figjam. * No import. You can’t easily bring in items you’ve saved on other services — here’s why mymind discourages this — nor can you email things in or develop automations as you can with other clipping tools. * No Firefox bookmark button. If that’s your browser, this might not be for you.* Limited free plan. To save more than 100 items, you have to pick a paid plan.* No sharing. mymind is designed for privacy, not sharing. I end up saving my most valuable finds in multiple places to give my future self options. mymind is great for visual exploration, but I need other services, like Raindrop, to share my collections. If you want to share your library, consider an alternative below.👇Alternatives* Sublime is a cool new service I’m trying out for collecting online inspiration. * Unlike mymind, you can use Sublime to share finds, see others’ related discoveries, and use its canvas to move from curation to creation.* Compare it w/ other tools like Notion, Apple Notes, Readwise & Raindrop.* Pricing is free for up to 50 cards, $75/year unlimited. $100/year for premium+ subscription to The Sublime on Substack. * Raindrop is my favorite bookmark-saving service. It replaced delicio.us and Google bookmarks for me. Why Raindrop is so useful. * Best for helping you save and organize links and share them publicly. Works on all platforms & integrates free with 2,600 other services. * Less ideal for calmly exploring your collection of visuals or quotes. * Pricing: Free for almost all features. $28/annually for full-text search, backups, AI tag suggestions & other extras. I pay to help preserve the robust free tier.* Readwise is excellent if you’re mainly saving articles and videos to read and watch later. How and why I use Readwise. * Best for reading and highlighting saved articles and newsletters online or offline in great Web and mobile apps. * Less ideal for saving images or collecting links because it’s designed for reading and video viewing. * Pricing: Free for 30 days then $5.59 or $10/month for full access* Eagle is useful as a tool for organizing all your screenshots and any files on your computer. Why I like Eagle so much. * Best for giving you a great way to organize files on your computer, from screenshots to videos, audio and PDFs.* Less ideal for accessing and adding to your collection online, because your Eagle collection lives on your computer, not online, though you can back it up. No mobile version. No way to quickly share links to screenshots as you can with Cleanshot, Zight or Dropshare. * Pricing: $35 one-time purchase for Mac or Windows.* Milanote is one of the few apps that’s as elegantly designed as mymind. It lets you organize ideas and saved items on visual boards. * Best for creating your own visual collections with a variety of images, links, documents and annotations. * Less ideal for simply saving or storing images, quotes and material you encounter online. It works best for creating project-specific boards.* Pricing: Free for up to 100 notes, then $10/month billed annually for unliimited notes. A team version is $49/month. Share a comment or reaction👇👍 Liked it. I found this post useful.😑 Meh👎 Not useful or relevant for me. Get full access to Wonder Tools at wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

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• 🎯 Perplexity Update

  The audio for this post was generated by feeding the text of this Wonder Tools newsletter post into NotebookLM's new Audio Overview feature.Read the full post on the Wonder Tools Substack pagePerplexity is the most useful new search tool I’ve used this year. It uses AI to answer your questions using online sources. You get specific citations so you know where the info comes from and can dig deeper. The summary responses are concise and relevant, and the links help you validate the info. Read on for examples of when it’s most useful as well as limitations, and alternatives.Pricing: Free for unlimited quick searches and five Pro searches per day. Or $20/month for 300+ Pro searches and to upload and analyze unlimited files. See the feature comparison.PrivacyPerplexity lets you search privately in multiple ways.* You can search in an incognito browser tab without even creating a Perplexity account.* If you do create a free Perplexity account to store to your search results, you can turn on the Incognito setting to anonymize any individual search.* You can keep “data retention” off in your settings. (Screenshot)* Perplexity only parses publicly available information — not paywalled news. And it only reads URLs when asked a related question.What’s most useful about Perplexity* Citations Perplexity provides links to its sources, allowing you to verify information and dig deeper when needed.* Brevity Instead of long articles, get straight-to-the-point answers that respect your time.* Multi-Step Reasoning Perplexity breaks down complex queries into steps, providing more comprehensive answers.* Focusing Refine your search by specifying preferred sources or domains for more targeted results.* Follow-ups Ask follow-up questions to dive deeper into a topic, just like a conversation.* Collections Group related searches into collections for easy reference and organization.* Pages Create shareable pages to collaborate or present your findings.Examples: When to use Perplexity* Get up to speed on a topic: Need to research North Korea-China relations? Ask Perplexity for a summary and sources. You can then dig deeper as needed. See the result.* Research hyper-specific information: If you’re exploring organizations that help respond to earthquakes, ask for a list of organizations that crowdsource info about natural disasters. See the result.* Explore personal curiosities: If you're interested in Mozart’s development as a violinist, you could ask for key dates and details. See the result.More examples of search results* Gather data: “How much debt has been forgiven under the PSLF in 2023 and 2024?” See the result.* Summarize official reports: “What are the most reputable forecasts about the long-term impact of Brexit on the UK's GDP? What are the main findings of the report?” See the result.* Check public opinion: “Is there a Pew survey about discovering news through social media platforms?” See the result.* Explore historical archives: “List literacy and education programs implemented in high-growth African countries in the last decade.” See the result.* Discover patterns: “Compare residential rent to residential real estate trends in California.” See the results.Caveats* Accuracy and hallucinations: While Perplexity uses retrieval augmented generation to reduce errors, it's not flawless. Always double-check information, especially data, before using it in your work.* Real-time information: Perplexity isn’t an optimal source for up-to-the-minute information. For breaking news, rely on primary news sources instead.* Document analysis limitations: The file size limit is 50MB. For larger files, try converting them to text.* OCR capabilities: Perplexity works best with modern files that already have optical character recognition. Historical documents with hard-to-read pages or faded text may pose challenges.* Limited image generation capabilities. While Perplexity can be used to generate images, I haven’t found that to be one of its strong points. I’d recommend another service focused on images, like Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, Canva or Flux. I mostly rely on DALL-E 3 as part of the ChatGPT plan I pay $20 monthly for.* The Discovery section offers quick news summaries. As with Google News, though, it's unclear how topics and sources are selected.Bonus features* The Perplexity Encyclopedia has an interesting collection of tool comparisons, like Descript vs Adobe Audition.* The free Chrome Extension lets you summon a Perplexity search from any page. The “summarize” button doesn’t always work for me, though.AlternativesFree* Google Generative Search: Google's AI search (in testing) gives summary responses like Perplexity. Early on it made embarrassing mistakes but has improved.* Arc Mobile Search: A mobile app that uses AI to browse multiple sites and provide summarized results. It has ad and tracker blocking.Free with optional paid subscription* Liner is an AI search tool aimed at university students that looks a lot like Perplexity. It’s already used at NYU, USC, UC Berkeley. It was #4 on Andreessen Horowitz’s list of the most popular Web-based gen AI tools. Pricing: Free for basic searches, or $20/month for more advanced searching.* Consensus: Excellent AI research tool. Pick a scientific or academic topic to get a summary of findings and source links. This example shows the results of a search for how cash transfers impact poverty. More useful than Google Scholar, which just gives you a laundry list of study links with no summary. Pricing: Free for unlimited searches and limited premium use; $9/month billed annually for full AI capabilities.* Elicit: Designed for research tasks, it helps with literature reviews and data analysis. This example shows a helpful response I got when exploring the extent to which Shakespeare was influenced by Montaigne. Pricing: Free for basic usage or $10/month billed annually to extract data from more PDFs. Get full access to Wonder Tools at wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

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  10:08
• 🏗️ Build Better Presentations

  Chronicle is a promising new tool for creating compelling visual presentations. Prioritizing design and full control over bullet points or speed, Chronicle offers a valuable alternative to PowerPoint and other popular online slide services like Gamma, Beautiful.ai, Canva, and Pitch. Because Chronicle just launched its public beta this week, some of its features aren’t full developed yet, like templates and image editing. But it’s already one of the most exciting new services for creating slick summary reports, pitch decks, and portfolios. I particularly appreciate how it lets me easily manage how each slide looks. I can start from scratch or with an AI-assisted draft. Read on for how to use it, its limitations, and alternatives. 🪜 How to get started with Chronicle* Visit ChronicleHQ.com to create a free account. It works on any browser. * Start from scratch with a blank page or generate a draft with AI. * To start with AI, provide a link, a prompt, or upload a PDF of a past presentation or report. * I prefer starting from scratch to fully manage the look of each page, unless I’m transforming a specific document I’ve created into a deck.* Edit slides by adjusting text, images, or embedded content. * Share. When you’re done editing, share in three ways.* Share a link to the presentation. * Download a PDF and share it. * Present live online or in person. Examples of slide decks made with Chronicle* Chronicle’s own demo deck* A proposal deck for a design agency* Brand Guidelines for AskTheRisk* A curated collection of design objects * Website design proposal * My draft Wonder Tools draft deck for sponsorsPricingFor now, while in public beta, Chronicle is fully free for everyone. Eventually:* Free for unlimited decks and limited AI tokens. * $30/month for a pro account to remove the Chronicle watermark, add guest editors, get additional AI credits, and import a PDF or URL to prompt the AI.🎨 Generate an AI draftIf you’re not a designer or loath spending hours designing presentations from scratch, try Chronicle’s AI. * Prompt the AI. Paste in text, upload a PDF, or share a link. * Customize the AI by adjusting your preferences: * Select the type of presentation you’re drafting (pitch, sales, proposal, etc).* Choose the number of slides (“chapters”) you want Chronicle to create. * Decide how creative vs. faithful the AI should be in adapting your text. In faithful mode it will change less of your prompt material. * Pick your language and a light or dark theme.* Review the outline. After Chronicle renders an outline, you can move chapters around or make other adjustments before it produces a draft deck for you to edit. * Edit the draft deck. Once Chronicle produces your draft, you can add or subtract slides, customize the text and images, adjust styles, embed other content, and present or share your deck. Sponsored MessageVEGA AI lets educators build Duolingo-style courses in minutes. It creates personalized tests, grades them, flags learning gaps, recommends next steps and even deploys your AI-avatar to answer doubts 24/7.🎨 Pick elements to tell your story Chronicle’s slide canvas is flexible, so you can customize each page. * Text elements: Add a heading, paragraph text, or smaller callout text.* Visuals: Upload images or embed videos or graphics from online services. * Creative cards: Drop in boxes with icon or number headers to define sections of a slide, or bring in quote cards or sticky notes for visual variety. * Gradients and grids: Apply a background gradient to an image or text box, or insert a layout grid to organize and align slide elements. * Embeds. Add an Airtable table, a Figma illustration, a Notion page, a Google Sheet, a YouTube video, or other online content. Limitations and Caveats* No templates yet. Founder Mayuresh Patole tells me they’re coming soon. * Limited photo editing capabilities so far. No direct Unsplash integration. * Overwhelming number of options. The “remix” option for re-formatting a slide has a daunting 64 different slide styles. I find it too complex and it’s tricky to figure out what style might best fit a particular slide’s content.* No mobile app, though I don’t like creating slides on a phone anyway. Chronicle’s founder on how it’s distinct I interviewed Mayuresh Patole, Chronicle’s founder, who told me the team is working on simplifying the interface and adding templates. “Every other tool out there is designed to make slides faster,” he said. “We will help you make your best presentation, a stunning output, without you having to be a designer.”Partner MessageWhat’s your most precious resource?Your time. So why waste it on confusing, biased, and overwhelmingly negative news? The DONUT makes staying informed each morning a quick, jargon-free, and surprisingly fun habit—100% free and 100% worth your time.Subscribe for free to The Donut for trustworthy news that's enjoyable to read.Good alternatives for creating presentationsBeautiful.ai A colleague and I made our slides with Beautiful.ai for a recent AI workshop. I like how it automatically reflows any slide I’m working on when I add or subtract text or images. * Consider Beautiful.ai if… you want each slide to auto-adjust so it remains well-designed even when you add new material or move elements around.* Pricing: $12/month billed annually* Read more: What I like about Beautiful.aiGamma This is a great service for teachers, creators, and anyone who wants the flexibility to create pages with varied dimensions. * Consider Gamma if… you want to turn an existing document or outline into a website, document, social post, or slides. * Example: an AI-assisted sample deck Gamma helped me create about the future of kites. * Pricing: free for basic use or $8 to $15/month billed annually for more AI access and removing watermarks. * Read more: Why Gamma is so useful. Pitch This works well for team collaboration because you can share styles and custom templates, assign tasks, and trade comments. The templates options are superb, so it’s easy to create a compelling presentation just by swapping out a template’s text and images without getting lost in the weeds of fonts, grids, or color palettes.* Consider Pitch if… you develop presentations with a team and want to track analytics to measure engagement on pitch or sales decks. * Pricing: free for basic decks, or $22/month paid annually for pro features. Typeset Create slide decks, ebooks or social posts with or without AI. I like that you can quickly preview various versions of any slide with a click of a button. I created this demo deck in 10 minutes and found Typeset easy, flexible, and fast. * Consider Typeset if… you want to create not just slides, but ebooks or social posts. * Pricing: $17 billed annually. Canva Since Canva first enabled presentations four years ago, people have created three billion slide decks, including a billion in 2024 alone. You can embed any Canva element into a slide, from tables and charts to whiteboards and videos. Magic Studio AI helps with refining images or text. When you’re done making a deck it’s easy to share or present it live, or send a pre-recorded version. * Consider Canva if… you’re already comfortable with its design interface or have a brand kit set up with your logo, color palette, templates, and image library. * Pricing: Free for basic usage; $10/month billed annually for premium content * Read my previous (subscriber) posts about making the most of CanvaWhat’s your preferred tool or tactic for creating and sharing slides? Leave a comment 👇 Get full access to Wonder Tools at wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

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  15:21
• Google's free AI Studio ⚡️

  Google’s AI Studio and Labs let you experiment for free with new AI tools. I love the way these digital sandboxes — like the one from Hugging Face — let you try out creative new uses of AI. You can dabble around then download and share what you make, without having to master a complex new platform. Read on for a few Google AI experiments to try. All are free, fast, and easy to use. 1. Transform an image 🎨Upload a photo and use Gemini’s AI Studio Image Generation to transform it with prompts. Iterate on your original image until you get a version you like. The model understands natural language, so you don’t have to master prompt lingo. 2. Generate an AI voice conversation 🗣️ AI-generated voices are increasingly hard to distinguish from human ones. If you’re surprised, try Generate Speech in the AI Studio or Google’s NotebookLM. How to use Generate Speech in Google’s AI Studio * Paste in text, either for a narration or a conversation between two people* Open the settings tab to pick from 30 AI voices. Each is labeled with a characteristic — e.g. upbeat, gravelly, or mature. * Click run to generate the conversation. Optionally adjust the playback speed.* Download the file if you want to keep it, or paste in different text to try again.* Example: a silly 90-sec chat between two violinists I scripted with Gemini and rendered quickly with this Generate Speech tool. * Use case: Make a narration track for an instructional video. ElevenLabs has a better professional model for this, but AI Studio’s is free, easy and quick. Alternatives* Google’s free NotebookLM has a new mobile app, and now lets you generate an audio conversation in any of 50 languages. Unlike Generate Speech in AI Studio, NotebookLM audio overviews summarize your material, they don’t perform words as written. Why NotebookLM is so useful. * Google’s Illuminate lets you generate, listen to, share, and download AI conversations about research papers and famous books. Here’s an audio chat about David Copperfield, for example. A bit dry to listen to, but still useful.* Google’s Gemini AI app can also now generate audio overviews from files you upload, if you’re on a paid plan. Sponsored Message 🧩 Full-Stack Engine for Modern EdupreneursVEGA AI lets Edupreneurs build Duolingo-style courses in minutes. It creates personalized tests, grades them automatically, flags learning gaps, recommends next steps. It even deploys your AI-avatar to answer questions 24/7 when you’re asleep.3. Make a gif 📺 Try Magical Gif Maker, one of 20 showcase apps in the Build section of AI Studio. Try making a moving visual featuring the name of your publication, group, or event. I experimented with kinetic text and word art. Also worth trying in the Build AI Studio: Flashcard maker, Video to Learning App & Maps Planner. Alternative: You can also make a static image with Google’s Imagen 3 or the new Imagen 4. Write a short prompt and select your preferred aspect ratio. So far I still prefer Ideogram (why I like it) and ChatGPT’s new image engine.4. Generate a short video 🎞️ Google’s Veo 2 and Flow let you generate free short video clips almost instantly with a prompt. Create a clip to add vibrancy or humor to a presentation, or a visual metaphor to help you explain something. Here are 25 other quick ideas for how you might use little AI-generated video scenes.How to create a video clip with Veo 2* Pick a length (5 to 8 seconds) and select horizontal or vertical orientation* Write a prompt & optionally upload a photo to suggest a visual direction* Example: Take a look at a parakeet photo I started with and the 5-second video I generated from the photo with Veo 2.* Tip: Convert short video clips into gifs for free with Ezgif or Giphy. Unlike video files, gifs are easy to share and auto-play in an email or presentation. What’s next: Remarkably lifelike clips made with Google’s newer Veo 3 model went viral this week. These AI-generated visuals — with sound — are only available on the $250/month(!) plan for now, so try Veo 2 for free. 5. Explain things with lots of tiny cats 🐈This playful mini app creates short, step-by-step visual guides using charming cat illustrations to explain any concept, from how a violin works to the concept behind the matrix. Get full access to Wonder Tools at wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

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  8:50

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