Imagine this for a second. You got this amazing
idea, right? For a video, maybe a blog post,
or even a whole social media campaign, not that
long ago. That meant, well, settling in for hours
of research, writing every single word, editing.
Oh, the editing. And then hunting for visuals.
Yeah, the visual hunt. It was a marathon. Totally
exhausting. But now, here we are in 2025, and
AI, I mean, Artificial intelligence just fundamentally
changed that whole game. Oh, absolutely. The
speed, the quality AI brings now. It's not just
handy, it feels like, like creative liberation.
It really is. The whole landscape has shifted
dramatically. Yeah. The real challenge for creators
now isn't really finding an AI tool. I mean,
they're everywhere, right? Right. There's a flood
of them. It's knowing which one's actually. you
know, deliver the goods, how to plug them into
your workflow effectively, figuring out that
strategic unlock for you. And that is precisely
why we're doing the steep dive. Think of this
as your curated shortcut. We've kind of gone
through the weeds, you know, researching, testing
dozens and dozens of these AI tools all across
the content creation process. A lot of testing.
Yeah. And we've boiled it down to, well, a powerful
list of nine, nine tools that aren't just making
promises. They're like proven solutions, really
designed to speed things up and make your content
better. So what this means for you, listening
right now, is that by the end of this, you'll
have kind of complete AI -powered system for
creating content. Right. Imagine saving hours,
literally hours. every single week, whether you're
doing short form stuff, TikTok, Reels, YouTube
shorts, or longer, more in -depth YouTube videos.
We're going to walk you through exactly how to
use each one, when it's best to use them, and
maybe most importantly, how to stack them, how
to combine them for maximum efficiency. Yeah,
the synergy is key. You're about to get equipped
to make stuff that's not just faster, but honestly
more engaging than maybe ever before. OK, let's
dive in then. Tool number one, kicking off our
AI toolkit tour with a real powerhouse. ChatGPT
4 .0. Mm -hmm, the old model. Yeah. Now, you
might think, oh, another chat bot, right. But
what makes this specific model, the 4 .0, such
a breakthrough in AI reasoning? For people listening
who maybe aren't super deep in the AI mechanics,
what does chain of thought actually mean? And
why is that such a big deal for content creators?
That's a great question. Because it really gets
to the heart of why GPT -40 is, well, different.
When we talk about chain of thought, it means
the AI isn't just blurting out an answer. It
actually thinks through the problem step by step.
It outlines its own reasoning process before
it gives you the final output. OK, so it shows
its work. Basically exactly and for creators
that translates into incredibly powerful results,
especially for complex tasks Like think about
when you're dealing with visuals in your content
that sounds super useful and yeah for video creators
I know one of the biggest time sinks just tedious
work is finding b -roll footage Oh, yeah, trying
to match clips to your script manually searching
YouTube. I can just eat up hours How does GPT
-4o help with that? It's honestly transformative
for that specific pain point you can feed it
your entire video script right right with a prompt
something like this okay I'm running a script
for a short form video I need YouTube source
links to help my editor visualize the script
lines by visualize I mean the viewer hears my
words and sees relevant visuals to help them
understand you know give an example like if I
say this woman founded computer science I want
a visual of Ada Lovelace with Babbage's engine
right Specific examples help it. Definitely.
Then you say, can you find me 10 YouTube source
links with b -roll clips for this script? And
then you just paste your script right in. OK.
So you paste the script. And what do you get
back? Is it just a list of random videos, or
is it actually useful for an editor? No, it's
genuinely actionable. What you get back is like
a detailed, structured table. Oh, nice. It includes
10 YouTube links, specific timestamp suggestions
for where the clip might be, Bree's descriptions
of the actual B -roll footage, and crucially,
it maps directly to the lines in your script.
That's amazing. So it's not just saving time,
like 30, 60 minutes per video. Easily. Sometimes
more. But it's more than that. It frees up your
editor to focus on the actual creative stuff,
right? The pacing, the visual storytelling. Yeah,
they stop being a visual scavenger and become
more like a visual architect. Exactly. Lead visual
architect. I like that. It's a profound shift.
OK, so that's B -roll. Huge. But GPT -4 isn't
just for visuals, right? You also said it's kind
of like having a research analyst for content
ideas. Absolutely. When you pair GPT -4's reasoning
ability with its... Browse feature the advanced
one that lets it access the internet Becomes
this incredible research assistant. Okay, think
about brainstorming new video ideas for your
niche instead of just staring at a blank page
You can give it a really detailed prompt something
like I'm a content creator focused on your niche.
Here's my channel link I need new video ideas
targeting my audience's biggest unmet needs or
pain points and you tell it who your audience
is Yep, describe your audience then say my channel
shows which videos did well Can you deep dive
on my channel and others like it and give me
10 new video ideas for each one? Break down the
core idea a potential title and why you think
it would perform well for my channel that level
of Personalization is key and here's a super
important pro tip this applies to almost any
complex AI prompt really Always, always end your
prompt with something like, feel free to ask
me any clarifying questions before you run the
full process. Oh, yeah, that's crucial. It's
simple, but it lets the AI basically say, hey,
I need a bit more info on this, which just dramatically
boosts the quality of what you get back. Spawn
on. That little addition makes a world of difference.
OK. So you've got your great ideas, maybe even
some B -roll leads from GBT -40. The next step,
turning concepts into scripts. Right? And while
ChatGPT is amazing for research, this is where
a specialized tool like Sandcastles .ai comes
in. It's specifically built for short -form video
scripts. Sandcastles .ai. So how is it different?
The difference is kind of like comparing a Swiss
Army knife to a surgeon's scalpel. Ah, okay.
Good analogy. Both useful, right? But one is
designed with absolute precision for one specific
job. Sandcastles is that scalpel for short -form
scripts. Makes sense. So how do you actually
start making a script in Sandcastles? What are
the options? It gives you three main ways in.
First, there's script polishing. You paste in
a rough draft you've already written, and it
just cleans it up, improves the flow, punches
up the hooks, makes the storytelling tighter.
Nice. Option two? Outline development. You feed
it bullet points, maybe some notes, and it builds
a full script only using the info you gave it.
It won't just go off making stuff up. Okay, that's
good for control. And the third? Single line
expansion. This one's pretty cool for quick ideas.
Give it just one sentence about your video concept,
and Sandcastles actually goes out, does some
research, and generates a whole script from that
single line. Wow, that's pretty versatile. But
what really sets it apart from just trying to
wrestle a script out of ChatGPT? What's its secret
sauce? I'd say it's Advanced Hooks Engine. That's
what really elevates it. Because we all know
the first few seconds of your video, that's everything,
right? Totally. Make or break. It determines
if people stop scrolling or just keep swiping.
Sandcastles gets this. After it generates your
first draft, you can click this hooks module
and it offers you four proven styles. Question
hooks, controversy hooks, story hooks, statistic
hooks. So it gives you tested options right away.
Exactly. powerful tested options. And it's smart
to, you know, generate a couple of different
hook variations and see which one feels right
or performs best. Test them out. And it doesn't
just stop at the hook, right? I heard it helps
with improving the script iteratively too. Yeah,
it has built -in tools for iteration that actually
show you the changes between versions. which
is super helpful. And because it's specifically
trained on thousands of successful short form
videos, the structure it suggests is often much
better, much more effective right out of the
gate than trying to prompt a general AI from
scratch. It's like having a co -writer who already
knows all the viral tricks. Kind of, yeah. A
co -writer who's seen what works. Now, once you've
got these great scripts, The next big challenge
is often figuring out what's actually resonating
in your specific niche right now competitor analysis
exactly and historically that meant oh, man Manually
checking competitor accounts every day scrolling
forever scrolling through hundreds of posts trying
to spot the viral ones by eye Comparing performance.
I remember doing that. It took hours every week
And you still miss stuff. It felt like digital
detective work without any clues. So this is
where SortFeed comes in. Yep. SortFeed basically
solves that manual grind. OK, so it's like finding
the needle in the TikTok haystack, finally. How
do you get started with it? How does it cut through
the noise? It's really simple, actually. It's
a Chrome extension, works for Instagram and TikTok.
You just go to sortfeed .com, install it. Then...
You navigate to any profile you want to check
out, competitor, inspiration, whatever, and click
the little sort feed icon in your browser. And
what does that do? It activates new sorting options
right there on the profile's grid view. Ah, OK.
So once it's active, how do you use it to analyze
someone's performance? So you pick your competitor,
right? Then you select your analysis time frame,
maybe last 100 posts or last three months, something
like that. Then you choose how you want to sort
their content. by views, likes, comments, or
even engagement rate, which is super useful.
You pick your metric, click activate, and bam,
the profile grid just magically reorders itself,
showing you their absolute top performing content
right at the top. Instant viral hits revealed.
Okay, my mind immediately goes to great, I see
what worked for them. How do I use that for my
stuff? Where do you look for patterns? That's
the key next step, right? Content planning. Once
you have that sorted list, open up, say, the
top 10 or 15 videos and really look for common
threads. Like what specifically? Think about
their hook styles, those opening lines. Are they
asking questions, making bold claims, telling
mini stories? Then look at the visuals, editing
style, fast cuts, color grading, graphics. What
angles are they taking on topics? Even their
calls to action. You start to see patterns emerge.
That pattern recognition is gold. And here's
a pro tip for salt feed. Don't just look at one
competitor. Do this for maybe three to five key
players in your niche. Then step back. Look for
the patterns that show up across multiple successful
accounts. Those are usually the really proven
formats and strategies worth adapting. Absolutely.
Solid advice. Okay, so now you've got winning
ideas, winning styles. The next hurdle is bringing
those visuals to life, especially if you need
custom stuff. Right. The visual creation part.
Exactly. And that's where a tool like Create
.ai comes in. It tackles what's probably been
the biggest headache in AI visuals lately. Tool
fragmentation. Ah, yeah. That's been annoying.
Leading one tool for this image model, another
for that video model, copping around. Total pain.
Korea tries to solve this by giving you access
to, well, almost every major AI model, daily
three mid -journey stable diffusion for images,
cling, runway Pica for video. all through one
clean, streamlined interface. Whoa, okay. So
Cria isn't just another generator. It's more
like a central command center for AI visuals.
That model variety sounds like a massive plus.
It's definitely Cria's key advantage. When you're
crafting a prompt, you can just instantly test
it across different models right there. See which
one nails the look you're going for, all without
juggling multiple tabs or subscriptions. Okay,
that's efficient. So what's the most, like, powerful
workflow you've seen people use in Cria? especially
for making custom b -roll. The text -to -image
-to -video workflow is incredibly powerful for
that. Super effective for creating b -roll that
perfectly matches your script's needs. Text -to
-image -to -video, how does that break down?
Okay, phase one, image generation. You write
a really detailed prompt like a glowing futuristic
sneaker floating in a cyberpunk city at night,
neon reflections, commercial photo style, something
specific. Magic. Select your aspect ratio. probably
16 .9 for video. Test the prompt across maybe
two or three image models in CREA. See which
style fits best. Generate maybe four to six variations
of the image. OK, so you dial in the perfect
still image first. Then you animate it. Exactly.
Phase two, video animation. You pick the best
still image you generated. Click over to CREA's
video tab. Choose your video model. Cling tends
to be great for quality. Runway is often faster.
And then you add motion prompts. You can tell
it how you want the image to move. Gentle floating
motion with subtle rotation. Or maybe dramatic
zoom in with particle effects. Or smooth pan
across the frame. Generate a few versions with
different motions. That's fantastic for creating
really unique bespoke visual elements that you
just can't find anywhere else. Totally. It's
a huge step up for custom visuals. And speaking
of big leaps in video, let's talk about Google
Veo. Ah! Ah, yes, Veo. What makes that one so
revolutionary in the AI video world? Veo feels
like a major leap forward, yeah. Not just in
generating the video itself, but in, like, the
narrative potential. Unlike a lot of other AI
video tools that just give you silent clips.
Right, which you then have to add sound to. Veo
automatically generates synchronized audio. We're
talking dialogue, sound effects, even background
music, all baked in. Whoa, okay, that's big.
It is. But honestly, what really makes it stand
out is how it handles consistency, across different
clips. Consistency, yes. That's been the Achilles
heel of AI video, right? Making sure your character
or your setting looks the same from shot to shot.
How does Vio fix that? It uses something called
ingredient mode. And this is like a genuine breakthrough
feature that directly tackles that continuity
problem. Ingredient mode. OK, how does that work?
So imagine you generate your first video clip.
Prompt might be an explorer in a khaki jacket,
exploring an ancient temple in the jungle. Okay.
Vio is smart enough to identify the separate
ingredients in that scene. The explorer, the
specific khaki jacket, the temple, the jungle
environment. It breaks it down into components.
Exactly. Then, for your next clip, you can lock
certain ingredients you could prompt. Same explorer,
same jacket, now looking at an old map inside
the temple. Or maybe same temple, different angle,
but... Now it's daytime. Oh, wow. So you're basically
carrying over the key elements. That allows for
actual scene continuity. building proper multi
-shot sequences, not just random clips. Precisely.
That was nearly impossible before. It enables
true scene continuity, which lets creators build
actual narratives, not just montages. It's a
fundamental shift for telling stories with AI
visuals. That really opens up possibilities,
democratizes complex visual storytelling in a
way. OK, so CREA and Vio are amazing for video
generation and convenience, but... When it comes
to just pure jaw -dropping image aesthetics,
Mid Journey still seems to have the edge, doesn't
it? Yeah, I think that's fair to say. When you're
talking pure visual quality, that artistic flair,
Mid Journey is often still seen as like... the
gold standard. Especially for social media, where
that initial visual pop is so crucial. What is
it about Mid Journey? Why does it still lead
in just making beautiful pictures? Well, its
whole philosophy right from the beginning was
focused primarily on aesthetics. It wasn't trying
to do everything. It was obsessed with artistic
output. And their latest version, V7, even has
this unique personalization feature. You actually
rate pairs of images it shows you. And over time,
it learns your specific taste, your preferred
color palettes, composition, styles, lighting.
Whoa. your personal aesthetic, like having your
own AI art director trained by you. Kind of,
yeah. It's pretty cool. It tunes itself to your
preferences. OK, so that's fascinating. But if
Mid -Journey is king of stills but not video,
how do you make that work in a practical workflow?
How do you get the best of everything? The optimal
workflow for many people right now is to play
to each tool's strength, create your stunning
base images in Mid -Journey where aesthetics
are top -notch, then export those high -quality
images and bring them into a tool like Crea or
Veo, specifically for the animation part. Ah,
so you've combined them. Mid -Journey for the
beauty, Crea or Veo for the motion. Exactly.
Best of both worlds. You get that mid -Journey
look, but with dynamic movement. Got it. And
a quick practical tip I've found. Mid -Journey
really, really struggles with rendering text
accurately. Oh, yeah. Text is tough for it. So
if you need something like a poster, an infographic,
anything where clear text is important, you're
usually better off using a model like Dele3,
which conveniently you can access right inside
CREA. That's a great point. Use the right tool
for the job, especially with text. Okay, so we've
covered a lot on visuals, idea generation, script
refinement, but what about longer form writing?
More nuanced creative stuff. Right. We know chat
GPT is great for research, but there's another
model. Claude 3 .5 Sonnet that's really making
a name for itself in a slightly different area.
Yes, Claude. I keep hearing it excels specifically
at creative writing tasks. What gives it that
edge, especially for things like maintaining
a consistent voice or tone? Claude's latest models
just seem to be. Well, significantly better tuned
for creative writing, for storytelling, and maybe
most importantly, for creators building a brand,
maintaining that consistent voice and tone across
longer content pieces. And this is where its
projects feature is really powerful. It lets
you set up these ongoing projects where you define
custom instructions upfront, your brand voice,
your target audience details, preferred format,
stuff like that. It creates a dedicated, personalized
writing space. So it's not just a blank slate
every time. It remembers your preferences for
that specific project. And where does that personalization
really make a difference in the workflow? It
really pays off during the editing and revision
process, the iterative improvement. Here's how
it works. You generate an initial script draft
with Claude within your project. Then you go
in and make your own edits, add your unique insights.
Tweet the phrasing like you normally would. OK,
the human touch. Right. Then you ask Claude to
actually analyze the differences between the
version you just edited and the original one
it generated. Whoa, it compares them. Yeah. And
then you give it the final instruction. Update
your system instructions for this project to
incorporate these preferences moving forward.
Ah, so it's actively learning from your specific
edits on a deeper level. Not just the current
request, but updating its core understanding
of your style for that project. Exactly. You
repeat this process over time, and your claw
project gets increasingly personalized. It absorbs
your style, your tone, even your favorite ways
of phrasing things. Its foot drafts just get
better and better, closer to what you actually
want, saving you tons of editing time down the
road. That's a continuous learning loop tailored
just for you. Really powerful. Okay, fascinating
stuff on writing. Finally, let's touch on something
that feels very cutting edge, something leading
creators are already using for serious scale.
automated avatar creation. Ah, yes, the avatar
workflow. Using that potent combo of Hagen and
11 Labs, this feels like the next frontier for
creators who need to pump out high -volume content
without, you know, physically being on camera
for every single video. It absolutely is pushing
the boundaries. The technology pairing here is
pretty sophisticated. First, you've got 11 Labs
for the voice. Right, the voice cloning. Incredibly
realistic voice cloning. You usually need to
provide, say, 30 minutes to maybe three hours
of cloning. audio recordings of your voice, and
it creates a digital clone that captures your
speech patterns, your inflections, even your
emotional delivery. It's uncanny. And then Hayden
handles the visual part. Exactly. Hayden creates
the video avatar, it matches your appearance,
it synchronizes the lip movements perfectly to
the audio generated by 11 Labs, and it can even
handle some basic gestures and facial expressions
naturally. Okay, so you set up your voice clone,
you set up your visual avatar. What's the actual
production workflow look like if you're using
this to scale up content? Generally, it goes
something like this. Step one, script development.
You could use Sandcastles or Claude, like we
talked about, to get that perfect script. Step
two, avatar generation. You take that final script,
feed it into Hagen, connect your 11 Labs voice
clone, and it generates the core avatar video,
basically, you're talking. OK, but that's just
the avatar talking head, right? You need more.
Right. Step three is crucial, post -production.
This is where the human creativity comes back
in strongly. You take that avatar footage and
you layer in all the other elements, B -roll
you generated with CREA or VO, graphics, text
overlays, transitions, and you strategically
cut between the avatar and those illustrative
visuals to keep the viewer engaged so it doesn't
just feel like a static talking head. That editing
part sounds key to making it feel dynamic and
not... Well, robotic. Are creators actually having
success with this, or does it still feel a bit
weird to audiences, that uncanny valley thing?
It's definitely improving fast. Many top creators
are already using this successfully, producing
like thousands of videos at scale. Wow. And their
content really shows that if you set it up right,
And you're thoughtful about the editing, cutting
to visuals, keeping the pace up these AI avatars
can be almost indistinguishable from traditional
recordings for certain types of content. That's
incredible. And quick bonus on 11 Labs, don't
sleep on their sound effects generator. It's
super powerful, but often overlooked. You just
go to 11 Labs, select Sound Effects, type in
literally any sound you can imagine. Keyboard
typing in a quiet office, rain on a car windshield,
busy coffee shop ambiance. It generates like
four variations. You download the best one and
boom, custom SFX for your videos. That's a fantastic
extra tool in the arsenal for production value.
Wow. OK, that's a truly comprehensive toolkit
we've just walked through. Yeah, quite a lineup.
And it's crystal clear from all this that These
AI tools, they're really meant to be amplifiers,
right? To enhance your creativity, your expertise,
not to replace you. Exactly. The most successful
creators going forward are absolutely going to
be the ones who master that blend, combining
the efficiency of AI with their unique human
insight, their storytelling skills, and that
deep connection with their audience. Couldn't
agree more. The future of content creation. It's
not coming. It's here now. And honestly, it's
more accessible than it's ever been. It really
is democratizing things. So our call to action
for you listening is pretty simple. Just take
action today. Pick one, maybe two tools from
this deep dive that really jumped out at you
that fit a need in your workflow. Don't try to
boil the ocean. Exactly. Start small. Set them
up properly, learn them, and start integrating
them. Your future self, the ones saving hours
and making better stuff, they'll thank you. And
your audience will, too, for investing and learning
these game -changing technologies. Well said.
And maybe, as a final thought to leave you with,
something to ponder as you explore these tools.
If AI can now create content, as we've seen,
that's getting really close to human -made work,
sometimes nearly indistinguishable. How does
that reshape what's uniquely valuable about the
human creator? Just in question. Does our role
maybe shift from just making the content to becoming
more like master curators, ethical guides, visionary
storytellers who deliberately infuse that human
soul, the unique perspective, into the machine's
output, ensuring that whatever we create still
carries that unmistakable human spark?