The best AI productivity tools by category
The best AI productivity tools by category
Chatbots (ChatGPT, Claude, Bing AI, Zapier Central)
Grammar checkers and rewording tools (Grammarly, Wordtune, ProWritingAid)
Video creation and editing (Descript, Wondershare Filmora, Runway)
Image generation (DALL·E 3, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion)
Voice and music generation (Murf, Splash Pro, AIVA)
Knowledge management and AI grounding (Mem, Notion AI Q&A, Personal AI)
Transcription and meeting assistants (Fireflies, Airgram, Krisp)
Email inbox management (SaneBox, Mailbutler, EmailTree)
Slide decks and presentations (Decktopus, Beautiful.ai, Slidesgo)
Automation (Zapier)
Zapier Chatbots lets you create custom AI chatbots and take action with built-in automation—no coding required. Try the to-do list bot template, so you can start breaking down goals into actionable tasks.
How I selected the best AI productivity app in each category
My AI app database is at 270 entries right now. I'm absolutely sure there are way more out there, with many new apps being launched every week.
Full transparency: I've had a chance to take a look at most of them, but I haven't tested them all (yet). The list you're about to see contains a collection of great AI productivity tools tested by Zapier's app review team, myself included. If there's a particular category you like, check out the best apps lists we've put together for them—or if we're still in the process of writing that list, run a quick Google search to find more options.
While all these apps are getting better every day, they're far from perfect: be sure to always check AI's work with your human brain. With that being said, please keep all hands and legs inside the vehicle—it's time to explore.
1. AI chatbots
The best place to start is the category that brought AI to the mainstream. AI chatbots allow you to chat with an AI large language model, letting you ask questions and get answers in a conversational style. The best chatbots use advanced reasoning and logic, write code, and make mathematical calculations.
Take a look at the full list of chatbots in our article on the best AI chatbots.
ChatGPT
ChatGPT is the current industry leader, and the first chatbot that set the scene on fire. It's powered by OpenAI's GPT-3 and GPT-4 models, and it's surprisingly flexible and very easy to use. Learn how to use ChatGPT, understand how it works, and discover how to use it to write marketing copy, do market research, or write sales emails.
When you connect ChatGPT to Zapier, you can automate ChatGPT, so you can access the power of the AI chatbot from within any of your favorite apps.
Claude
Anthropic's safe and creative chatbot, Claude has impressive memory: it can remember up to 150,000 words in each conversation. This makes it useful to have long, step-by-step discussions of a problem or to upload a PDF and ask questions.
You can connect Claude to thousands of other apps using Zapier too. Learn more about how to automate Claude, or get started with one of these pre-make workflows.
Wondershare Filmora
Wondershare Filmora has been around for a long time. Now, it also brings to the table a set of AI features that let you remove backgrounds, denoise low-quality clips, and improve sound quality. All this with the classic video editing user experience, so you'll never feel lost.
Runway
Runway is a video magic wand. It has a set of interesting features that helps you generate video with AI, train your own AI models, and paint parts of frames using text prompts. The learning curve is very rewarding, and the app is growing at a great pace. Be sure to check it out.
5. AI apps for image generation
An image is worth a thousand words, but you don't need so many to generate a beautiful one with AI. These image generators take a text prompt and deliver the results—and this can be anywhere between mind-blowing to nightmare-inducing. They're both hugely entertaining and highly useful.