AI Tools Roundup: June 2023
What caught our attention this month.
1. Claude (Anthropic)
Anthropic’s ChatGPT competitor is now publicly available. First impressions: the writing quality is noticeably better.
Standout feature: 100K context window. That’s ~75,000 words in a single conversation.
Our take: Serious ChatGPT competition. Worth trying.
2. Midjourney v5.1
The latest Midjourney update brings better default aesthetics and improved hands (finally).
Standout feature: More photorealistic outputs without complex prompting.
Our take: If you tried Midjourney before and left, try again. It’s significantly better.
3. Notion AI
Notion added AI features directly into the workspace. Summarize pages, brainstorm, write drafts.
Standout feature: Context-aware assistance that knows your existing notes.
Our take: If you use Notion, enable AI. It’s $10/month but integrates seamlessly.
4. Runway Gen-2
Text-to-video is here. Describe a scene, get a video clip.
Standout feature: Actually usable video generation (short clips, but impressive).
Our take: Early days, but the future of video creation is visible.
5. Perplexity AI
An AI search engine that cites its sources. Think ChatGPT meets Google.
Standout feature: Follow-up questions maintain context.
Our take: Our new go-to for research questions. Better than ChatGPT for facts.
Trend of the Month
Context windows are expanding rapidly. Claude’s 100K, GPT-4’s 32K. This changes what’s possible—analyzing entire documents, maintaining long conversations, understanding complex projects.
The bottleneck is shifting from “AI can’t remember” to “AI can remember everything.”
What We’re Excited About
- Google Bard improvements — Finally getting competitive
- Open source models — LLaMA derivatives getting better
- Local AI — Running models on your own hardware
What We’re Skeptical About
- AI detection tools — Still unreliable
- Auto-GPT hype — Autonomous agents aren’t ready
- Enterprise AI solutions — Often repackaged ChatGPT
Another month, another wave of tools. We’ll keep testing so you don’t have to.