B
Behind the CMO

Free Tools

AI tools that actually help you market.

29 curated tools across 7 categories — each with a usage tip from marketers who've actually shipped with them. No affiliate links, no sponsored rankings.

ChatGPT

Copywriting

GPT-5 powered AI assistant with GPT Image 1.5 (best text rendering on the market). The most versatile tool for marketers — from drafting copy to analyzing campaign data to generating on-brand visuals.

Usage Tip

Use the Projects feature to give ChatGPT persistent context about your brand voice, audience, and campaign goals across sessions.

Free / $20 Plus / $200 Pro Visit Tool

Claude

Copywriting

Nuanced AI writing with exceptional instruction following. Known for maintaining consistent brand voice across long documents and complex strategy work with 200K context window.

Usage Tip

Upload your style guide and past content to Projects — Claude excels at following detailed brand guidelines precisely.

Free / $20 Pro / $25 Team Visit Tool

Jasper

Copywriting

Multi-model AI content system purpose-built for marketing teams. Combines GPT-4.1, Claude, and Gemini. Instant Campaigns creates complete multi-channel campaigns from a single brief.

Usage Tip

Train Brand Voice on your best-performing content to get outputs that match your style from the start.

$59 Creator / $79 Pro Visit Tool

Copy.ai

Copywriting

AI-native Go-To-Market platform that goes beyond copywriting into full sales and marketing automation. Specialized agents handle prospecting, lead processing, ABM content, and translation.

Usage Tip

Use the Workflows feature to automate multi-step content pipelines — connect it to your CRM so AI-generated outreach fires automatically.

$49 Pro / $249 Advanced Visit Tool

Gumloop

Automation

AI-native automation platform built from the ground up for the AI era. Connect any LLM to your marketing stack with drag-and-drop — used by Shopify, Instacart, and Webflow teams.

Usage Tip

Start with the Gummie Agent — describe what you want to automate in plain English and it builds the workflow for you.

Free / $37 Solo / $244 Team Visit Tool

n8n

Automation

Open-source AI workflow automation with 70+ dedicated AI nodes and LangChain integration. The most powerful option for complex, customized marketing automations — and you can self-host for free.

Usage Tip

n8n charges per workflow execution, not per task — so complex multi-step marketing automations cost a fraction of Zapier or Make.

Free (self-hosted) / $20 Starter / $50 Pro Visit Tool

Midjourney

Design

The creative benchmark for AI image generation. Unmatched visual mood, composition, and artistic coherence — agencies report 40% faster concept development compared to traditional design.

Usage Tip

Use --sref (style reference) with images from your brand guidelines to maintain visual consistency across generated images.

$10 Basic / $30 Standard / $60 Pro Visit Tool

Ideogram

Design

Best-in-class text rendering in AI images — 90% accuracy vs Midjourney's 30%. The go-to for logos, posters, social graphics, and any marketing asset where text needs to be readable.

Usage Tip

Use Ideogram for any design that includes text — headlines on social graphics, event posters, product labels. No other tool gets text right this consistently.

$7 Basic / $20 Plus / $60 Pro Visit Tool

Flux 2 Pro

Design

The photorealism king of 2026. Excels at product photography, realistic portraits, and commercial visuals with controlled, predictable outputs via API or Replicate.

Usage Tip

Use for product shots and commercial imagery — Flux's strict prompt adherence gives you more control than artistic generators.

Pay per image (~$0.05) Visit Tool

Adobe Firefly

Design

Commercially-safe AI generation trained on licensed content with IP indemnification. Deeply integrated into Photoshop, Illustrator, and Express for existing creative workflows.

Usage Tip

If your legal team worries about AI copyright, Firefly's licensed training data and IP indemnification is the safest choice.

Free / $5.99 Premium / $59.99 CC Visit Tool

Canva AI

Design

All-in-one design platform with Magic Studio — text-to-image, background removal, Magic Write, and auto-resize for every platform. The convenience play for non-designers.

Usage Tip

Use Magic Resize to instantly adapt one design to every social platform — saves hours of manual reformatting.

Free / $15 Pro / $10 Teams Visit Tool

Veo 3.1

Video

Google's best-in-class AI video generation — the all-rounder with the strongest prompt adherence and realism. Combines video and audio generation. Ideal for product demos and commercial content.

Usage Tip

Best for product demonstrations where physical accuracy matters — the physics simulation and audio sync are noticeably better than competitors.

$19.99/mo with Google AI Pro Visit Tool

Runway Gen-4.5

Video

Leading cinematic AI video tool with the most mature editing workflow. Gen-4.5 delivers cinematic quality, realistic physics, and native 4K output — the professional's choice for video production.

Usage Tip

Use Explore Mode on the Unlimited plan for rapid iteration, then switch to precision mode for final renders.

$12 Standard / $28 Pro / $76 Unlimited Visit Tool

Kling 2.0

Video

Highest quality AI video output available in 2026 with superior motion coherence and physics simulation — at a fraction of competitors' costs. The volume play for testing creative at scale.

Usage Tip

Use for A/B testing video creative at scale — the low cost lets you generate 10x more variations than Sora or Veo.

Free / $7.99 Standard / $28.99 Pro Visit Tool

Pika 2.5

Video

Creative short-form video studio with physics-based interactions and auto-generated sound effects. Upgraded lipsync makes it viable for localized character content alongside tools like HeyGen.

Usage Tip

Pika auto-generates matching sound effects — a car crash gets the "crunch" automatically. Great for social content that needs audio without licensing headaches.

Free / $8 Standard / $28 Pro Visit Tool

Sora 2

Video

OpenAI's creative AI video model. Strongest for storytelling, emotional depth, and dialogue-driven scenes — best for narrative brand campaigns. Included with ChatGPT Plus and Pro.

Usage Tip

Use Storyboard Mode to plan multi-shot sequences before generating — it dramatically improves narrative coherence.

Included with ChatGPT Plus ($20) or Pro ($200) Visit Tool

Synthesia

Video

Leader in AI avatar videos with 240+ avatars in 160+ languages. Perfect for training, product demos, and personalized outreach. Edit videos by editing text — no reshoots needed.

Usage Tip

Create a custom avatar of yourself for consistent spokesperson videos — update content by editing text, no reshoots needed.

$29 Starter / $89 Creator Visit Tool

HeyGen

Video

AI avatar videos with advanced voice cloning. Create a digital twin, translate videos in your voice, and scale personalized outreach. Strong CRM integrations for sales teams.

Usage Tip

Use Video Translate to repurpose your best English content into other languages while keeping your actual voice.

Free / $29 Creator / $89 Business Visit Tool

Surfer SEO

SEO

AI-powered content optimization with real-time SEO scoring. Analyzes top-ranking content and provides suggestions as you write. Now includes GEO optimization for AI search citations.

Usage Tip

Use the GEO optimization features to ensure your content gets cited by AI search engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

$69 Essential / $149 Advanced Visit Tool

Semrush

SEO

All-in-one marketing suite combining SEO, content, social, and competitive research with AI. ContentShake AI generates full SEO-optimized articles. Now includes AI search visibility tracking.

Usage Tip

Use ContentShake AI for first drafts, then refine with your brand voice — it handles SEO structure so you can focus on insights.

$139.95 Pro / $249.95 Guru Visit Tool

Otterly AI

AI Search

AI search monitoring that tracks your brand visibility across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot. See how often you're cited, what sentiment, and which links get referenced.

Usage Tip

Start with 15 prompts on the Lite plan to benchmark your brand vs competitors — you'll quickly see where you're invisible in AI answers.

$29 Lite / $189 Standard / $489 Premium Visit Tool

Profound

AI Search

Enterprise AI search analytics platform that monitors brand presence across all major LLMs. Tracks citation frequency, competitor positioning, and provides optimization recommendations.

Usage Tip

Use the competitor comparison to see exactly which brands get cited for your key topics — then reverse-engineer what their content does differently.

$99 Starter / $399 Growth Visit Tool

Surfer SEO (GEO)

AI Search

Surfer's GEO module optimizes content for AI search citations with a dual SEO + GEO score. Evaluates content across Authority, Readability, and Structure dimensions for LLM discoverability.

Usage Tip

Focus on structuring content with clear, citable claims and statistics — AI models prefer content with authoritative data points.

$149 Advanced (includes GEO) Visit Tool

Adobe LLM Optimizer

AI Search

Adobe's enterprise solution for AI search optimization. Provides automated insights, recommendations, and optimizations for how your content is cited across major LLMs.

Usage Tip

If you're already in the Adobe ecosystem, this plugs directly into your content workflows — it identifies which assets need optimization for LLM visibility.

Enterprise (contact sales) Visit Tool

Claude Code

AI Agents

Anthropic's agentic coding tool that lives in your terminal. Powered by Claude Opus 4.6 with up to 1M token context. Edits files, runs commands, searches codebases, and manages git workflows autonomously.

Usage Tip

Use Claude Code to rapidly build marketing landing pages, automate data pipelines, or scaffold entire campaign microsites — it handles the full dev loop from planning to commit.

Included with Claude Pro ($20/mo) Visit Tool

OpenAI Codex

AI Agents

Cloud-based multi-agent coding platform from OpenAI. Spins up multiple agents in parallel — each in its own sandboxed environment — to work on features, fix bugs, and open PRs simultaneously.

Usage Tip

Assign Codex multiple independent tasks at once — it runs them in parallel, so you can fix five bugs or scaffold five landing pages in the time it takes to do one.

Included with ChatGPT Plus ($20/mo) Visit Tool

OpenClaw

AI Agents

Open-source personal AI assistant that works across WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Signal, and iMessage. Manages your inbox, calendar, emails, and travel — with a heartbeat system for proactive task execution.

Usage Tip

Connect OpenClaw to your messaging platforms and let it handle scheduling, email triage, and travel booking — it runs tasks proactively even when you're not prompting it.

Free (self-hosted) / $39 Cloud Visit Tool

Viktor

AI Agents

Slack-based AI coworker with its own cloud computer. Runs marketing audits, manages ad campaigns, researches leads, and delivers daily reports — all from Slack threads. 3,000+ tool integrations.

Usage Tip

Start with a marketing audit — ask Viktor in Slack to review your campaigns, and it'll deliver a detailed report with actionable recommendations without you leaving the chat.

Free tier ($100 credits) / ~$99 Team Visit Tool

Devin

AI Agents

Autonomous AI software engineer from Cognition with its own IDE, browser, and terminal. Can plan, code, debug, and deploy entire features independently. Assign tasks via Slack or the web interface.

Usage Tip

Use Devin for self-contained projects — building internal tools, data dashboards, or API integrations where you can describe the end state and let it execute the full build.

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