AI Tools for Meeting Notes, Recaps, To-dos

Remote teams and virtual meetings are commonplace post-Covid. Reviewing meeting recordings for takeaways and action items used to take hours. No more. AI has made this process much easier.

Here are six AI tools for creating meeting notes, to-do lists, and recaps. All offer extensive integrations with meeting platforms, calendars, customer management apps, and more.

Wudpecker

Wudpecker

Wudpecker transcribes and summarizes virtual meetings, with takeaways, action items, and recap-reminders of earlier sessions. It can also create an upcoming agenda based on prior activity.

Wudpecker’s AI assistant joins a meeting as a guest to record and take notes. Users can then pose questions to the assistant based on the notes.

The platform offers customized default settings for organizing and formatting notes.

Wudpecker’s free plan records and summarizes 10 meetings per month. Premium plans start at $16 per month and include the Ask Wudpecker feature.

Parrot

Parrot

Parrot is a virtual meeting assistant that supports multiple languages. It can create instant transcripts, summaries, and highlights. Clicking any highlight produces that part of the recording.

Parrot’s free plan includes five recordings per month and additional features such as screen capturing and summaries. The Pro plan starts at $24 per month, billed annually.

Otter

Otter

Otter offers similar AI-driven features — transcripts, notes, highlights — plus automatically adding slides to notes.

It can also summarize multiple notes and create actionable takeaways to email participants.

Otter’s free plan includes access to the Chrome extension and 300 monthly transcription minutes at 30 minutes per meeting. Paid plans start at $16.99 per month per user and offer advanced transcript search and collaboration.

Fireflies

Fireflies

Fireflies is an AI meeting assistant with a robust search to find key parts of a conversation easily. It offers powerful collaboration features, allowing team members to leave comments on the meeting notes, tag one another, and share (via audio) the most memorable moments from a meeting.

Fireflies’ free plan includes the Chrome extension and provides unlimited transcripts but limited AI summaries and 800 minutes of storage. Paid plans start at $18 per month with advanced searching and keyword tracking.

Tactiq

Tactiq

Tactiq is a ChatGPT-driven meeting assistant. The tool provides transcripts, notes, and summaries and composes follow-up emails based on the content. Users can create a knowledge base from the meetings.

Tactiq’s free monthly web plan and Chrome extension include 10 meeting transcriptions and five AI credits for notes, action items, or follow-up emails. Paid plans start at $8 per month.

MeetGeek

MeetGeek

MeetGeek creates meeting notes, “next steps,” and color-coded highlights.

MeetGeek’s free web plan and Android app include five transcription hours per month and storage for three months of transcripts and one month of audio files. Paid plans starting at $15 per month provide more storage, among other benefits.

18 Free Web Design Tools, Winter 2024

Free resources from the design community can enhance an ecommerce site. Here is a list of new web tools and design elements from winter 2024. The tools include generative AI shortcuts, logo creation, mockup generators, coding, animations, background images and audio, domain names, free fonts, and more.

All of the tools are free or have free plans, though most also offer premium versions. The fonts are free for commercial projects. Before using a font, be sure to verify its terms.

Free Design Tools

ThinkBuddy AI is a native ChatGPT client for macOS. Use voice or screenshots to ask AI, execute commands with text selection, create and save custom prompts, customize shortcuts for quick use, and dictate with Whisper. Choose from the selection of AI models to customize your macOS AI experience.

ThinkBuddy AI

Gem Domains is a free search engine for expired domains. Enter keywords, organic search data, price range, and more. Use it to find the domain for your next project.

Logo Packer is a web app that generates logo variations. Instantly create the variations (black, white, and inverse color), export in multiple formats, and stay organized with structured folders.

Shotune is a screenshot mockup generator. With its library of device frames, Shotune supports a wide range of devices, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers. Generate backgrounds to complement your mockup. Easily add text, shapes, and overlays to create a unique and personalized look.

Shotune

Smudge.ai is a Chrome extension that provides online access to ChatGPT-powered shortcuts. Create and edit engaging content, or bridge language barriers with AI-powered translations.

Slogan Generator is a tool to generate one-sentence marketing summaries for your business. Enter your business description and audience, and generate 30 slogans for free. It’s a fun tool to help find the perfect hook.

Recraft is a generative AI design tool for creating and editing digital illustrations, vector art, icons, and three-dimensional graphics in a uniform brand style. Upload an image, and Recraft will replicate more in the same style.

Recraft

Codingoals is a platform to learn how to code JavaScript, React, and CSS through puzzles and challenges. Learn how to build a single-page application using JavaScript and understand the benefits of modern frameworks such as React or Angular.

Mix.audio is a multimodal AI music generator that creates and customizes quality background music. Use the wizard to generate royalty-free music by scanning your ideas through text, images, and even audio information.

Creatica is a web app that generates unique SVG and vector backgrounds. It offers a vast library of designs, from intricate geometric patterns to fluid gradients. Use the real-time preview to see how each customization impacts your design.

Creatica

BlitzBear is a web app for search engine optimization that cuts the manual work of improving your content. It combs through your articles and compares them against your competitors’ search engine result listings. It then serves your optimized pages after you preview and approve changes.

Audio Note AI is an app that turns thoughts into practical text. Speak your ideas, and let AI refine them into formats of your choice, such as journal entries, tweets, notes, lists, or LinkedIn posts.

Lottiebox is a Lottie animation library and set of animation tools to help users stand out from standard web experiences. Utilize pre-made, eye-catching animations for websites, presentations, newsletters, mobile apps, decks, email, and social media.

Data Dead Drop is a data storage bank that self-destroys content after access. Upload content and specify how long it should be kept. Share your link, or use it to download your file, which is automatically destroyed after being accessed a predefined period or number of times.

Data Dead Drop

Free Fonts

Leentank is a sans-serif display font in four styles. Rounded and geometric, Leentank is suitable for eye-catching displays and logos.

Leentank

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Kids Ballad is an all-cap handwritten font that’s friendly yet legible.

Kids Ballad

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Voye is a striking geometric sans-serif font for headlines, displays, and small paragraphs. Its simplicity conveys a modern elegance.

Voye

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Pingsan is a chunky, rounded display font with comfort and cheer. The feel-good characters lend a good vibe to any message or brand.

Pingsan

AI Tools for Logos and Branding

Brand identity is the impact of a company’s visual elements — logos, colors, fonts —  on its website, marketing campaigns, social media channels, emails, and more.

An effective brand strategy drives recognition, trust, and loyalty. The brand identity process used to take much time and money.

No more. With the following AI-driven tools, any business can create a brand kit in minutes with little money.

uBrand

uBrand

uBrand helps entrepreneurs create and launch brands. The tool can create a logo and identity from scratch.

Otherwise, register, upload your logo, and enter your URL. uBrand will then access your site, collect info, and generate an entire brand kit, which includes:

• Color palette and fonts,
• “About us” section and mission statement,
• Logo variations,
• Branding guidelines to publish on your site.

uBrand’s free plan includes a logo, fonts, colors, mission, and more. The premium plan at $29 per month includes enhanced AI-driven design, additional storage, and team collaboration.

Namify

Namify

Namify is a free brand name generator. Enter a description of your future business, and the tool will produce name suggestions.

The names come with a brand kit — logo, colors, fonts. Use name-creation filters for:

• Alliteration (repetition of a letter or sound),
• Alternate spelling,
• Compound words,
• Simplicity and recall.

Namify checks the name availability across leading social media channels — Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and YouTube.

Looka

Looka

Looka’s brand identity tools include a logo maker and a comprehensive kit with colors, fonts, templates, and more. The result is visual elements for website branding, social media profiles and posts, marketing collateral, and more.

Looka’s logo maker is free. The brand kit starts at $9.99 per month.

ChatGPT Prompts for Competitor Analysis

Digital transformation has spawned many new businesses and remade others. Identifying and monitoring competitors has never been more critical.

ChatGPT can help identify and analyze direct and indirect competitors, including those you’ve not heard of. Here are some essential prompts.

Identify Competitors

ChatGPT’s assessment of competitors is useful for understanding a brand’s positioning in the tool’s knowledge base. New companies will need to provide ChatGPT with background info on their industry and products. For testing, however, I pretended to be the founder of Substack. Here’s my prompt:

I am the founder of Substack. Who are my competitors?

ChatGPT’s response was spot on:

1. Newsletter Platforms:

• • Revue: Acquired by Twitter, Revue offers similar services allowing writers to publish and monetize newsletters.
  • Ghost: An open-source platform that focuses on professional publishing. It’s known for its simplicity and flexibility.
  • Mailchimp: While primarily an email marketing service, Mailchimp also offers features that could be used for newsletter monetization.
  • TinyLetter: Owned by Mailchimp, it’s a simpler platform primarily used for personal newsletters.
  • ConvertKit: A platform that offers email marketing services for creators, including paid newsletters.

2. Broader Content Monetization Platforms:

• • Patreon: Known for allowing creators to get paid directly by their fans through subscriptions, memberships, and per-piece payments.
  • Medium: Offers a partner program where writers can earn money based on reader engagement with their articles.
  • Ko-fi: A platform where creators can receive donations and sell subscriptions or products.

Features

What are my competitors’ unique features? This prompt can help founders with product development and positioning:

Create a table listing the unique features of each competitor and pricing.

Here’s ChatGPT’s response. I’ve repurposed the table for this article. Always ask ChatGPT for the date of its data if it doesn’t provide it. In my test, the response was based on the April 2023 update.

Audiences

What are my competitors’ target audiences? ChatGPT is very helpful for that type of analysis, in my experience. My prompt:

Go to each competitor’s site and analyze its primary audience. Create a table showing the competitor, the primary audience, and the site elements and pages that indicate the target audience.

Here’s the result, which, again, I’ve repurposed.

Responding to Competitors

Should I reposition my site based on competitive research? Here’s my prompt:

What should I do on my site to attract competitors’ audiences? Analyze competitors’ sites for the most effective tactics.

ChatGPT identified powerful tactics for Substack:

• Content variety: Showcase a diverse range of content that appeals to creators across different fields like coaching, writing, podcasting, music, and YouTube creation.

• Creator tools: Offer robust marketing and automation tools tailored for creators. These could include customizable landing pages, email marketing tools, and audience segmentation features.

• Monetization features: Highlight options for monetizing content, such as through digital product sales, paid newsletters, and memberships.

• Community building: Focus on features that help creators build and engage with their audience, like advanced email marketing and automation capabilities.

• Creator success stories: Share success stories or testimonials from various creators to demonstrate the potential of your platform for their creative and financial growth.

Weaknesses

What are my competitors’ weaknesses? I chose one of those companies, which I’ll call “Example” for this post, as a test. Here’s that prompt:

Research Example’s reviews and identify gaps Substack could address. What are the common complaints of Example’s customers?

ChatGPT searched Bing for several minutes before responding:

• Pricing Structure: Some users find Example’s subscription plans to be expensive, especially as their subscriber count grows. A more cost-effective pricing structure or clearer value for the cost could be an attractive alternative for users.

• Complexity for Beginners: While Example has evolved to offer a wide range of features, this has led to increased complexity. Users who preferred the platform’s original simplicity might be looking for a more straightforward, user-friendly option.

• Deliverability Issues: There are mentions of challenges with email deliverability. Ensuring high deliverability rates and providing transparent metrics could be a key selling point.

• Limited Free Plan Features: The recent reduction in features available in the free plan has been a point of contention. Offering a more generous free plan could attract users who feel constrained by these limitations.

• All-in-One Marketing Features: Some users feel that while Example offers an all-in-one marketing platform, the features are not as robust as they would like. Enhancing specific functionalities or offering more integrated solutions might appeal to these users.

• Customer Support: Improving customer support and providing more personalized assistance could address concerns from users who have had less than satisfactory experiences with Example’s support.

ChatGPT Prompts for Customer Personas

Generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT have access to much data to respond to our needs. Marketers can use that info for many purposes, including understanding their audiences and creating buyer personas.

Here are three examples.

Personas for Search Queries

It’s difficult to force ChatGPT to search Google. But it does search Bing.

A handy audience prompt is to instruct ChatGPT to analyze search results (i.e., Bing) and reply with the target persona of each page-1 listing. Here’s my prompt for the query “buy laptops”:

Search Bing with “buy laptops” and provide detailed target personas for each page-1 organic listing. Create a table of each persona and include ideas on better targeting that type of buyer.

Here’s the response, which was helpful:

“Based on the search results for ‘buy laptops,’ we can identify several buyer personas for laptop customers. These personas can be categorized based on their needs, preferences, and purchasing behavior. Here’s a table outlining these personas and strategies to target them effectively.”

I repurposed the table for this article.

I have developed a custom GPT to streamline this type of research — just enter your keyword.

Competitors’ Personas

ChatGPT is an excellent competitor research tool. It can identify their good and missing tactics.

I first searched Google for the top-ranking listing (“Wired” magazine article) from my query.

ChatGPT can access URLs unless they block its crawler, which would require pasting the entire text into the prompt. Here’s my prompt.

This URL is from my organic search competitor: [enter URL]. Analyze the page and tell me the targeted buyer personas. Create a table listing each persona and the page elements or wording that informed your conclusions. 

Here’s ChatGPT’s response:

“Based on the provided text, it’s possible to identify several buyer personas that the article on ‘How to Buy the Right Laptop for You’ targets. I’ll outline these personas in a table, along with the page elements or wording that suggest these are the target audiences.”

Again, I repurposed the table for this article.

Evidently this article is targeting multiple audiences, something to keep in mind when I’m composing my own. I could repeat this exercise for other top-ranking URLs for my keyword.

Reddit Personas

ChatGPT cannot access Reddit. But I still prompt an analysis of Reddit content by downloading a PDF page from that site — “Print” > “Save as PDF” in your browser —  and uploading it to ChatGPT.  Thus a prompt including a Reddit thread about your company or a competitor is possible.

For a test, I uploaded a PDF of a Reddit thread titled “I’m looking to buy a laptop and I’m confused.” Here’s my prompt:

Analyze the Reddit discussion in the attached PDF and extract user personas from it. Create a table listing the personas, likely interests, and how to best approach and engage them.

And here’s the response:

“Based on the excerpt from the ‘I’m looking to buy a laptop and I’m confused’ discussion, we can analyze and extract user personas for members likely to be active in such a community. This analysis focuses on the types of users who are engaged in conversations about laptop choices, particularly those considering factors like processor type, battery performance, and cost.”

Here’s the repurposed table:

Next Prompts

Once ChatGPT identifies personas and content ideas, prompt it to:

• Expand or narrow a keyword list to target each persona better.
• Analyze content and suggest tactics for targeting each persona.

AI Is Transforming Online Video

I’m amazed at the impact of generative AI on videos. Impressive apps and features are announced seemingly weekly. All make video marketing easier and more effective.

With Midjourney launching a video-generation feature and Bard introducing advanced video analysis, AI-powered video creation and consumption is becoming mainstream.

Much has changed since I profiled four AI video generators in August. Here are three more.

Invideo AI

Invideo AI generates videos from text prompts. It creates and edits videos from prompts and narrates them.

The app requires the Edge browser or Google Chrome to work properly.

When creating a video, select a “workflow” style: “YouTube shorts,” “YouTube explainer,” “Recent events,” or “Script to video.” Then select the video length (up to 15 minutes) and provide details and settings, such as style, voiceover (gender, English variation), and background music.

I chose “YouTube explainer” and provided the following prompt:

What is SEO, and why do businesses need it? Add sections (with stats) on how Google is a dominant marketing channel, how organic search works, and how to rank in results.

I then designated the target audience (“Business Owners”), look and feel (“Minimalist Modern”), and the host platform (“YouTube”).

Designate the target audience, look and feel, and the host platform.

Invideo AI will then create a script, select visuals, insert the voiceover, and provide a ready-to-download video. I could then edit it by adding prompts, removing visuals, and changing voiceover, as examples.

In my test, both the script and voiceover were of impressive quality. I didn’t change a thing. I could have tweaked the background music, but the result was terrific overall.

The tool has a built-in video editor to alter generated videos, brand them, add or remove chapters, or upload your music.

Invideo AI offers a free trial account with 10 weekly minutes of watermarked videos. Premium versions start at $20 per month for 50 monthly minutes, watermark-free.

HeyGen

HeyGen creates personalized videos for email campaigns. The tool mimics a user’s facial expressions and speaking style.

Users can upload a video or record themselves talking, looking straight into the computer camera, with pauses. Users must then record themselves consenting to the tool accessing that video to create a personalized avatar. Lastly, users submit a script for the new AI-generated video.

I did that. The video quality was scary good. I could see myself “saying” words from the script, perfectly mimicking my speaking style. The audio needed adjusting to replicate my voice, but that may have been unnecessary had I recorded on an external microphone.

HeyGen users can record themselves speaking, looking directly into the camera.

Once the initial video is created, users can clone it to add the names of subscribers or customers. It takes seconds to create many personalized videos to then send in emails.

HeyGen’s free trial provides a 1-minute video with a personalized avatar and 300 voices. Premium versions start at $29 a month.

Dubecos

Dubecos is a mobile app that translates users’ videos into any language using their voice.

Users can upload a video of themselves speaking or record it directly in Dubecos. Users then select their source language and the translated version, which can include subtitles.

The result of my testing was excellent! It kept my voice, pace, and intonation.

Dubecos users can select their source language and the translated version, which can include subtitles.

Download Dubecos from Apple’s App Store or Google Play. To test, Dubecos translates the first video for free. After that, it is $3.99 a month for 15 minutes of AI-powered translation and lip-synching.

Does ChatGPT Know Your Company?

As more people turn to generative AI for answers, marketers are contemplating the evolution of search engines and the visibility of millions of websites. Marketers now gauge the likelihood of a brand or product appearing in ChatGPT responses.

ChatGPT cannot use what it doesn’t know. So start by determining whether ChatGPT has archived your business and products in its knowledge base. This is similar in concept to Google’s index.

Next, compare what it knows about your company to competitors. Here are prompts to do that.

• What are my most successful competitors?
• What do you know about [COMPETITOR NAME]?
• Which company is better: [COMPETITOR NAME] or [MY COMPANY]?
• What are the marketing tactics of [COMPETITOR NAME]?
• Which company has the best marketing strategy, [COMPETITOR NAME] or [MY COMPANY]?
• If I need a [ITEM or SERVICE], which product would you recommend and why?

In my testing, ChatGPT avoided choosing one company over the other, but the dialog indicated the tool’s assessment of the weaker options.

ChatGPT on SEO Tools

For example, when comparing Semrush and Moz, ChatGPT was spot on:

“While Moz also offers robust keyword research tools with valuable features such as keyword suggestions, SERP analysis, and keyword lists, Semrush is generally more comprehensive in terms of the depth and breadth of keyword data available. This makes Semrush a preferred choice for professionals who need in-depth and extensive keyword research capabilities.

“However, if you are a beginner or if you prefer a more straightforward tool, Moz might still be a good choice due to its user-friendly interface and simpler data presentation.”

I could continue the dialog with these prompts:

• How is Semrush more in-depth? What data supports that view?
• What are other in-depth SEO tools?
• Which one is best for an SEO agency with a limited budget?

Here ChatGPT recommended Semrush:

“If your budget allows for only one tool and you’re running an SEO agency, Semrush is often recommended as the most comprehensive choice.”

This is a strong indicator of Semrush’s prominence in ChatGPT. So I continued:

• What should Ahrefs change in pricing or marketing for it to be the top recommendation?

Some of ChatGPT’s responses were accurate based on my knowledge of Ahrefs:

• “Highlighting unique features: Ahrefs could enhance its marketing efforts by focusing on its unique selling propositions, such as its powerful backlink analysis capabilities and extensive data index.

• “Community engagement and education: Stepping up efforts in community engagement and offering more educational content (like webinars, tutorials, and case studies).

• “User success stories: Showcasing success stories and case studies of how different agencies have leveraged Ahrefs for SEO success could be a powerful tool in attracting new customers.”

Awareness

Targeted ChatGPT prompts are an essential first step in knowing the tool’s awareness and evaluation of your company and its comparison to competitors. Those insights can reveal your brand’s strengths and weaknesses and the data ChatGPT uses for its conclusions.

Ecommerce Product Releases: December 11, 2023

This week’s rundown of new products and services for merchants includes email marketing, B2B payments, streaming video ads, marketplaces, supply chain tools, and generative AI.

Got an ecommerce product release? Email releases@practicalecommerce.com.

Product Releases: December 11

Product discovery platform Zoovu launches gen AI for ecommerce. Zoovu, an AI-powered product discovery and ecommerce experience platform, has introduced Advisor Studio, combining generative AI with large language models and enriched product data. Shoppers see recommendations and product detail pages based on their preferences. Advisor Studio also allows companies to embed an AI-enabled assistant, named ZOE, on product pages to answer questions.

Zoovu

GoDaddy launches email automation for custom campaigns. GoDaddy has launched automation for email marketing campaigns. The tool automatically allows businesses to customize, schedule, and trigger email communication using templates, including welcome emails, confirmations and cancellations, appointment bookings and reminders, abandoned cart emails, and more. Users can customize and personalize the emails to include imagery, tone, and the recipient’s name, email, and other personal details.

B2B payment platform TreviPay introduces all-in-one payments. TreviPay, a B2B payments and invoicing network, has released an all-in-one payments platform. Business buyers can pay upfront with a card, ACH, or mobile wallet or later with net terms (30, 60, or 90 days). Credit and debit card payments are supported for customers in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the U.K., Europe, and Australia in 16 payout currencies.

Amazon and IPG Mediabrands partner on streaming video ads. Amazon Ads announced a three-year agreement with IPG Mediabrands, the media and marketing division of Interpublic Group. The partnership will connect brands with relevant audiences via Prime Video ads starting in early 2024. Prime Video ads will initially roll out in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Canada, followed by France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia later in the year.

IPG Mediabrands

Payments platform Adyen and BNPL-provider Klarna extend partnership. Adyen, a global payments platform, announced a strengthening of its partnership with Klarna, a buy now, pay later provider. Adyen has offered customers Klarna’s suite of payment methods for over 10 years. Now, Adyen will assume the role of one of Klarna’s acquiring banks for consumer offerings, starting in Europe, North America, and Asia.

U.A.E.-based supply chain startup Omniful launches with $5.85 million. Supply chain and ecommerce enablement startup Omniful has emerged from stealth with $5.85 million in seed funding led by VentureSouq. The U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia-based startup has built systems for ordering and warehouse and transport management, enabling merchants to tap hyperlocal and omnichannel commerce, manage their orders efficiently, and track inventory in real-time. Omniful states that it also equips third-party logistics providers.

Canada-based fintech Nuvei enters global payments partnership with Microsoft. Nuvei Corporation, a Canada-based financial technology company, has partnered to deliver payment services to Microsoft’s customers in select markets. Microsoft will start using Nuvei’s payments technology in the Middle East and Africa while also leveraging Nuvei’s knowledge of local markets to optimize recurring billing and individual transactions across product ranges.

Nuvei

ISX Financial extends open banking solution PaidBy to Wix’s U.K. merchants. ISX Financial, the developer of open banking payment platform PaidBy, has partnered with website builder Wix. Through the partnership, Wix’s U.K.-based merchants have access to PaidBy’s open banking payments service, wherein merchants’ customers can pay directly from their current banking app or web portal. PaidBy utilizes the U.K.’s open banking network, connecting U.K.’s largest banks.

Alcove launches Shopify app to unify carbon credit management and sales. Alcove, a carbon credit inventory management platform, has released a Shopify app. The app enables carbon credit project developers on Shopify to manage and sell credits generated by any type of carbon removal or avoidance project. By integrating Alcove with Shopify, developers can unlock new revenue streams to sell and scale carbon credit operations.

B2B payments platform Mondu partners with Mangopay for marketplaces in Europe. Mondu, a B2B payments company, has announced a collaboration with Mangopay, a marketplace infrastructure provider. The two companies will empower B2B marketplaces across Europe with tools to manage payment flows, including buy now, pay later. Mangopays states that it has supported over 2,500 platforms and marketplaces through programmable e-wallets and payment infrastructure.

Google launched Gemini AI, a large language model. Google has launched Gemini, its latest large language model, in three versions. Gemini Nano is a lighter offering to run on Android devices natively and offline. Gemini Pro is a more capable model that will soon power standard Google AI services and is the backbone of Bard. Coming soon is Gemini Ultra, Google’s most powerful LLM, designed for data centers and enterprises.

Google Gemini

AI Tools for Video Timestamps, ‘Key Moments’

Google ranks YouTube videos prominently in organic search results. For certain queries, Google shows multiple YouTube videos on top of results, sometimes with a rich snippet thumbnail.

But there’s another way to make videos even more visible in search results: “key moments.”

“Key moments” in search results elevate a video’s visibility. Click image to enlarge.

When clicked, key moments unfold to show sections within a video. For example, Google’s top-ranking video for “how to learn knitting” includes these key moments:

• “How to make a slipknot: 1:00”
• “How to cast on: 3:24”
• “How to actually knit: 6:32”
• “Knitting the second row: 13:55”

When clicked, key moments unfold to show sections within a video. Click image to enlarge.

Google sometimes generates key moments automatically. But the best way to ensure inclusion is to create clickable timestamps informing Google (and YouTube search) of a video’s components.

Here are the timestamps for the knitting video above.

The best way to receive “key moments” in SERPs is with clickable timestamps. Click image to enlarge.

Creators can insert the timestamps manually, but it’s time-consuming. New generative AI tools can do it in seconds.

What follows are four such tools. All require a voiceover (for a transcript) because they analyze text to assign chapters within the video.

Instant Chapters

Instant Chapters generates timestamps automatically using AI. Provide the YouTube video URL and select how many chapters you want it to generate.

The tool comes with a free, unlimited 7-day trial. A credit card is required. After that, it costs $9 per month for unlimited videos.

Zubtitle

Zubtitle generates subtitles for any uploaded video and, via the built-in assistant, a headline, summary, social media posts, and a “timeline,” i.e., timestamps.

Zubtitle’s “Bootstrapper” (watermarked) version is free forever. Premium plans start at $19 per month for 10 videos, 20 minutes total.

Decipher

Decipher is an AI-powered tool for audio and video files. Upload a file, and it will generate a transcript with a summary, pull notable quotes, create social posts, generate subtitles (for key moments), and suggest a title. (For subtitles, click “Chapters” in the left-hand panel.)

A limited version of Decipher is free. Paid versions start at $29 per month for 240 minutes of audio or video.

Taja

Taja optimizes YouTube videos for search on Google and YouTube. Input a YouTube video URL, and Taja will generate a description with clickable chapters, tags, and a title.

Taja offers a free 7-day trial, credit card required. Paid plans start at $17.50 per month for four videos.

AI Tools to Analyze Complex Documents

Generative AI is handy for condensing and simplifying vast amounts of info. Use cases for marketers and business execs include:

• Explaining complicated documents, such as patents.
• Summarizing long narratives into key points and definitions.
• Extracting important sections of ebooks and whitepapers for blogs and promotional materials.

What follows are four gen AI tools to accomplish those tasks. To test, I instructed the tools to analyze a 2023 patent from Google for Search Generative Experience, with three prompts:

• What is this document about?
• How does SGE select external resources in its answers? Do the resources originate from organic search results?
• Define essential terms from the document.

My goals were to evaluate the accuracy of the responses and check for “hallucinating” — inventing info.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT

ChatGPT can now process uploaded documents, including PDF files. It provided a generic overview of the prompt, “What is this document about?”

But it was the only tool that answered the second question, “Did the resources originate from organic search results?”

According to the patent document, not all documents are selected solely from organic search results. The selection process involves different categories of search result documents:

Query-Responsive Search Result Documents: These are documents obtained in response to the original query submitted by the user.

Related-Query-Responsive Search Result Documents: These documents are derived from searches performed for queries related to the original query.

Recent-Search-Responsive Search Result Documents: These are documents that responded to recent queries, possibly related to the current query or user’s search history.

ChatGPT made up the names of the categories (in bold)! The patent does not use those terms.

So I prompted, “I don’t see these category names in the original document. Did you make them up?”

ChatGPT’s response:

You are correct, and I apologize for the confusion. The category names I used (“Query-Responsive Search Result Documents,” “Related-Query-Responsive Search Result Documents,” and “Recent-Search-Responsive Search Result Documents”) were indeed my own phrasing to summarize the concepts described in the patent. They are not directly quoted from the document.

The patent actually discusses the process of selecting documents based on their responsiveness to a given query, related queries, and recent searches. These selections can include documents that responded to the original query, as well as those responding to related or recent queries. My intent was to clarify this process, but I should have stated clearly that these category names were my own summarizations, not direct quotations from the document.

Thank you for pointing out this discrepancy.

ChatGPT’s response is an example of hallucinating, a weakness of many gen-AI tools.

Claude

Claude

Claude is an independent generative AI model from Anthropic that does not use ChatGPT, unlike the other tools on this list. In my testing, Claude was the most cautious in responding.

For example, the other three tools answered “Yes” to “Are the documents selected from the organic search results?” Only Claude offered a nuanced response:

The patent does not explicitly state if the documents are selected from organic search results.

However, there are a few contextual clues that suggest they are referring to organic search results:

• • The background describes providing query-based summaries of “search result documents” without specifying if these are organic or paid results. Typically “search results” refers to organic results returned by a search engine.
  • There is no mention of filtering out or handling paid/promoted result documents differently than organic documents when selecting documents to summarize.
  • The goal seems to be summarizing the most relevant documents to the search query to provide an overview for users. Organic search results are generally more optimized for relevancy than promotional or paid results.
  • Related queries are used to expand document selection. Related/expanded queries are typically used with organic document sets, not paid advertising results.

So while not definitively stated, the patent language strongly suggests the query-responsive documents being selected to generate summaries are organic search results rather than paid or promotional results.

PDF Pals

PDF Pals

PDF Pals is a desktop application that offers 30 free questions for testing. It requires a ChatGPT API key for those tests.

Once installed, PDF Pals can process uploaded PDF documents.

The tool helpfully includes page numbers with its responses, making it easier to verify the info. Clicking any page number will take you to that section in the document.

In my testing, PDF Pals didn’t simplify the patent to my level of understanding. Its responses were too technical, despite my prompting it otherwise. Still, the summaries were useful, albeit complicated.

AskYourPDF

AskYourPDF

AskYourPDF is a web app requiring no API key for testing. After scanning a document, AskYourPDF suggests optional follow-up questions. Like PDF Pals, it includes page numbers, although they are not clickable.

AskYourPDF’s responses were easier to understand than PDF Pals’ and, conversely, less comprehensive. And it didn’t extract definitions from the PDF patent, stating incorrectly that none were there.

Thus AskYourPDF in my testing was helpful for higher-level overviews but not detailed. A benefit of that approach, however, is likely fewer hallucinations.

Interestingly, all four tools analyzed the Google PDF patent slightly differently. Each provided unique explanations. The key is verifying the info. All of the tools made mistakes.