Latest news with #Descript

Top 5 free AI video generators to supercharge your content

New Indian Express

18 hours ago

Entertainment
New Indian Express

Top Free AI Tools of 2025

As AI permeates every corner of our digital existence, the rise of genuinely capable yet free tools has become a turning point for professionals, creators, and businesses. What once demanded hefty investment is now within reach of anyone with a connection. A decade ago, free meant basic; today, it signals sophistication—bringing power, polish, and productivity without a price tag. OpenAI's image generator remains a crown jewel in this era. Originally released as DALL‑E 2, it still dominates free toolkits with its ability to produce detailed imagery from simple text prompts. Newer iterations embedded in ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot further enhance those capabilities, allowing users to refine prompts and redraw output in real time—blurring the lines between text‑driven creativity and visual artistry. Praised for realism and intuitive control, this family of tools now offers a seamless experience to craft everything from marketing assets to personal creations. For enthusiasts of photo enhancement, GFP‑GAN shines in revitalizing old or damaged photographs. Its AI‑driven restoration captures clarity and nuance, making it a hidden gem for archivists and hobbyists alike. On the content creation front, Canva's integrated AI Art Generator has become indispensable. It empowers users to whip up designs, social media posts, presentations and more—all guided by AI. Though not as advanced as specialized generators, Canva's blend of ease-of-use and design flexibility makes it perfect for non‑designers. Meanwhile, Copy. ai leads in AI-driven writing. Whether crafting blog content, email drafts, or social captions, its free tier helps overcome writer's block and accelerate content creation—a reliable tool for individuals and small teams alike. ADVERTISEMENT Video content is no longer confined to expensive cameras and editing suites. Lumen5 automates the process by turning text into videos complete with stock footage and voiceover. Its no-frills interface makes video production accessible to anyone, from marketers to family memory keepers. But stepping up to cinematic results are emerging tools like Google's Veo, Runway Gen‑2/3, and OpenAI's Sora. After exhaustive testing, critics recommend platforms like Veo 3 for audio quality and realism, Runway and Kling for motion, and Sora for storytelling—especially for free-tier experimentation. Audio and music enthusiasts find Lalal. ai a standout. Its ability to split vocals from instrumentals via AI makes it perfect for karaoke, remixing, and podcasts. Those seeking generative music need look no further than Udio and Suno, which offer free-tier access to AI‑composed melodies and soundtracks—ideal for multimedia projects, mood tracks, and creative exploration. For creators juggling audio and video, Descript has become essential. By enabling editing through text, removing filler, overdubbing, and cleaning audio, Descript lowers the barrier for amateur podcasters and video streamers—without compromising professional quality. Language and training tools have also reached new heights. Gliglish delivers AI-enhanced language training that helps professionals refine communication and multilingual support. Its free version assists in crafting polished customer service responses and sales pitches. Likewise, DeepL translates with contextual precision—far superior to earlier systems—making it invaluable for global communication. In business settings, several tools shine in free-tier form. Otter. ai delivers real-time transcription and meeting summaries—perfect for journalists, analysts, and busy professionals. Fathom and Reclaim offer AI‑powered meeting assistance and scheduling, smartly identifying priorities and packing calendars to maximize productivity. Taskade transforms project management with collaborative workflows, bots, and visualization—all without a subscription. Browse. ai, meanwhile, is a formidable free option for monitoring competitor websites, tracking prices, and generating market insights. ADVERTISEMENT Newcomers like DeepSeek and Perplexity Assistant have quickly risen to prominence. DeepSeek, launched January 10, 2025, became the top free app on Apple's U. S. store within weeks. Open source and optimized, it's winning users with faster performance and lower latency, though privacy concerns remain. Perplexity's Assistant offers web‑enabled multitasking—search, summarization, multimodal capabilities and even calendar integration—in 15 languages for free. The recently launched Comet browser brings AI brokered research and summary features inside a browsing interface. Underpinning these tools are powerful foundational models. ChatGPT with GPT‑4o remains the most versatile assistant—boosted by multimodal outputs and superior debugging functions. Grok 3 from xAI now challenges that primacy; trained with '10× computing power' and offering reasoning modes it performs well on benchmarks—though occasional controversial missteps raise questions about responsible AI deployment. Google's Gemini 2.5 is another noteworthy rival. Revealed at Google I/O 2025, it brings real-time video analysis, notebook summarization, and a suite of tools like Imagen 4 and Veo 3 into its free mode. Gemini Live allows users to share screens and images for contextual assistance—features previously reserved for premium tiers. Community voice shows the dynamism of customization. Reddit users note that Google's Image FX impresses for realism, while Stable Diffusion models offer control and local freedom. One poster observed: 'chatgpt image results better than anything i can do with flux or comfy'. Still, the distributed nature of free tools means quality varies. Users must refine prompts, manage model limitations, and apply human judgment. Tools like AI detectors continue to struggle, emphasizing that AI-generated content demands critical oversight. What emerges is a landscape rich with free AI options that rival paid suites. Whether you're an investigative journalist seeking transcription, a marketer designing social posts, or a creative building an avatar, no-cost tools offer sophistication once reserved for enterprise budgets. That accessibility changes the game. The overarching trend remains clear: free AI tools now offer professional-grade value across domains—visual art, video, audio, writing, translation, project management, research, and strategic monitoring. Download speeds, model updates, UI polish, and safety nets increasingly match their premium counterparts. Still, responsible use means considering privacy, AI bias, hallucinations, and ethical deployment. As we enter the second half of 2025, this democratisation is only gaining momentum. Foundations like DeepSeek, Perplexity, GPT‑4o, Grok, and Gemini empower developers and users in transparent, collaborative formats. Watching them evolve alongside new innovations will be crucial for shaping how AI augments—rather than replaces—human craft.

Origin star Reece Walsh's $520k windfall from unlikely side hustle

News.com.au

09-07-2025

Entertainment
News.com.au

Origin star Reece Walsh's $520k windfall from unlikely side hustle

As State of Origin star Reece Walsh geared up for the big game, he quietly amassed a staggering $520k from an unexpected source, with the rugby league sensation accelerating his off-field income. The Queenslander who turns 23 on Thursday has the perfect setup for twin success on and off field, leveraging his sports superstar status, appeal to younger fans and digital nous to make a fortune off social media – including his own YouTube channel @officialReeceWalsh where he has already secured 13.7k followers. Though that's not where the $520k rolled in from. His 'lil day in the life' video posted June 28 amassed 77,193 views since it was loaded, and given those in the YouTube partner program make between $5 and $15 for every 1000 views according to Descript, that would be an easy $385 to $1,155 – though it could be halved after YouTube takes their cut. His fan love rose dramatically with many saying they loved 'this kind of content. Showing us the behind the scenes so we know the type of lives these guys live and how the top of the top do things' while another said it was 'inspirational' seeing how amazing the young players were off field. What that 'lil day in the life' video did highlight was the real MVP for Walsh this past year – apart from his game contract – which was his quiet side hustle that brought in a cool $520k, his home. It rewarded him for just holding on to it throughout one year with a massive bump in value. That stunning Ormeau four bedroom house, bought for $1.88m one year and three months ago, is today worth as much as $2.4m according to valuations – a staggering $520,000 rise without him needing to do a thing to the property. It is on a massive 5,433sq m block where a 206sq m house was originally built on the site in 1992 – a decade before he was born. Today there are three distinct homes on the site – the main residence, plus two self-contained apartments in a second dwelling, one of which is a one bedder and the other a two bedder, accessible via two separate driveways. One of those apartments had been put up for $499 a week rent after the pandemic, and the whole property was once listed for tenancy for as much as $900 a week as far back as 2012. ATO's dragnet: Millions of side hustles face shock tax bill Walsh may not be keen on being a landlord just yet though he could leverage his equity to easily buy another rental property elsewhere. The move to the Gold Coast has paid for the young Bronco who still has loads of room to add more side hustles or home-based businesses, zoom room or yoga space on site. Gen Z rugby leagues players have shown much more financial savvy these days with Walsh's June 28 'lil day in the life' video highlighting starstudded support at the launch of a teammate's business venture – Chargrill Charlie's New Farm which is owned by second rower Jack Gosiewski and his partner Avalon McRae. Billy Walters and his baby turned up, as well as Ezra Mam, captain Adam Reynolds and a host of others to uplift the off-field effort.

20 Game-Changing AI Tools Every Small Business Leader Needs Now

Forbes

23-06-2025

Business
Forbes

20 Game-Changing AI Tools Every Small Business Leader Needs Now

Small businesses represent 90% of global industry and generate nearly half of worldwide GDP, yet ... More many entrepreneurs are missing out on AI tools that could revolutionize their operations. Small businesses aren't really so small; in fact, they make up around 90 percent of industry and generate close to 50 percent of global GDP. This means that while superscale giants like Amazon and Google may make headlines developing and selling AI tools, it's often the global network of innovators, entrepreneurs and dreamers running small businesses that will create real value with these tools. If that's you, then AI can help out with much of the heavy lifting involved in marketing, administration, compliance, customer service and more. So, here's a rundown of some of the best AI tools I've come across. These tools make it easy for any business owner, sole trader, or self-employed tradesperson to join the AI revolution. Five Of The Best Adobe Express Express is like a cut-down version of the full Adobe suite of productivity tools, powered by genAI and Adobe's proprietary Firefly AI engine. It is primarily aimed at helping with the creation of marketing materials and assets, including videos. A key selling point of Adobe's genAI offerings is that they are entirely trained on data that Adobe actually owns, heading off any problems that might appear further down the line with changes to regulations around AI and copyrighted works. Descript Probably the simplest way to start creating and editing video content for business marketing, with the ability to create, cut and rearrange videos simply by editing the transcript. Generative AI is used to power automatic transcriptions, as well as powerful functions like overdubbing with cloned AI voiceovers, virtual green-screen backgrounds and removal of filler words and clumsy-sounding 'uhms' and 'errs' from recorded speech. A fantastic tool that can hugely reduce the cost and need for technical expertise when creating business videos. Freshdesk Freddy AI Copilot AI helpdesk agent that can answer customer questions, escalate them when human intervention is needed, and autonomously take action, such as issuing refunds. Customer service is quickly becoming one of the hot use cases for generative AI, with its ability to provide instant 24/7 help and become more efficient as it learns about your customers' common pain points. Freddy analyses the sentiment of customer communications to draft knowledge-based articles and FAQs. With a new SME-friendly service level and price point, Freshdesk Salesforce Agentforce Assistant Customer data holds all sorts of clues to business success—imagine if you could just talk to it and ask it questions. Well, that's the idea behind Salesforce's genAI CRM assistant, formerly known as Einstein Copilot but now part of the Agentforce agentic AI suite. It can dive into your customer data to answer in-depth questions and identify new business opportunities. With a ton of domain-specific knowledge acquired by Salesforce over many years of operation, Agentforce Assistant can also craft sales emails, intelligently update and track customer records and generate follow-up tasks. Microsoft 365 Copilot What makes this great is that it essentially adds AI assistance to the popular Office tools that have long been the backbone of small business productivity. Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams and more all benefit from the integration of Copilot, meaning that everything from drafting emails and web copy to creating presentations and analyzing data can be automated and managed with natural language prompts. In Excel, for example, Copilot can recommend formulas, create visualizations and spot trends in your business and customer data. In PowerPoint, it designs slide decks, and Teams conversations, collaborative working and meetings can be summarized, automatically generating action points and workflow schedules. More advanced AI users can even use it to build autonomous agents capable of complex workflows with minimal human intervention using Copilot Studio. More Great Small Business Generative AI Tools If none of those tick all the boxes you need, take a look at some of these options: Buffer Buffer is designed to help small businesses build their social audience, with a generous free tier that provides access to its AI assistant features. Canva Magic Studio Creates everything from branded social media graphics to animated marketing videos from simple prompts. Grammarly The great thing about this genAI grammar and writing tool is that it integrates with just about everything from Word to your web browser, meaning advice and content suggestions are available across all your tools. Jasper Copywriting tool optimized for creating business marketing copy and blogs. LiveChat Set up and run automated chatbots to talk to your website visitors and convert them into subscribers or customers. Mailchimp Email marketing is still a great way to get your business noticed and start generating repeat customers, and Mailchimp's generative AI functionality lets you automate the process as well as quickly generate branded, optimized content for your campaigns. Monday Monday is a project management and collaborative working platform, and now you can chat with it in real time to get live insights into your projects and workflows, as well as automated decision-making, such as matching team members to the tasks they are best positioned to complete. Otter Otter is an automated meeting assistant that takes notes, creates summaries and delivers action plans by analyzing the chatter during team or client online meetings. Sage The popular self-service accounting package now lets business owners automate invoicing and payments. It can even answer questions about bookkeeping and provide insights into cash flow using natural language. Shopify Sidekick Millions of businesses use the Shopify platform to simplify their e-commerce operations, and the new built-in Sidekick AI assistant helps out with routine tasks like drafting product descriptions as well as in-depth analytics for business insights. Tableau Pulse Thanks to AI, even smaller organizations can benefit from data analytics and the insights it can surface. Pulse is a simplified, AI-powered version of the popular data analytics platform, tailored for smaller businesses and designed to be accessible to anyone, not just data science experts. Sprout Social Who needs a dedicated social media manager? Sprout Social helps businesses surface trends with automated social listening and insights and then quickly drafts polished, effective posts. Tidio Create and deploy automated sales and customer service agents. Wix AI Website Builder The first step to getting a business off the ground is often a great website, and DIY platform Wix now features an AI assistant bot that will build it for you from simple prompts. Xero Another AI-powered accounting package that has just launched a new low-price plan tailored for small business owners and sole traders who want to get started with AI revolution isn't just for large companies with big budgets. Small business owners who embrace these tools today will find themselves better positioned to compete, scale, and thrive in an increasingly digital marketplace. Whether you're a sole trader looking to automate your first customer service bot or an entrepreneur ready to transform your entire workflow, the future of small business success lies in making AI a valuable team member.

A.I. Sound Will Not Count for MPSE Golden Reel Awards

Yahoo

12-06-2025

Entertainment
Yahoo

A.I. Sound Will Not Count for MPSE Golden Reel Awards

From search engines to email summaries, A.I. tools are now legion in our everyday lives. In filmmaking disciplines, they are no less endemic. But the Motion Picture Sound Editors have decided that Generative A.I. tools will not have a place in its Golden Reel Awards, which annually celebrate excellence in sound editing in feature films, broadcast, gaming, and interactive media, as well as giving out awards for individual recognition to leaders in the field. Within sound production, A.I. can be used for voice generation, dialogue cleanup, and speech enhancement in applications like Descript and and both Adobe and Avid have pushed AI features for 'boosting creativity' in more industry-level editing workspaces like Audition and Pro Tools. Just to name a few uses, A.I. features pitch or change the quality of human speech, generate wholly AI speakers from a written script, or remove silences between speakers — although, as sound designer Taylor Moore pointed out to IndieWire, working in that algorithmic way can destroy important context for audiences and can actually rob creators of the chance to make artistic choices. More from IndieWire Gold List TV Honors 'Squid Game,' 'Deli Boys,' 'The Studio,' and More Jacinda Ardern Documentary 'Prime Minister' Shows Us How the New Zealand Leader Is the Anti-Trump 'The urge with all the hyper-intelligent machine learning, polishing mix algorithms out there and the ease with which modern technology allows you to pull all the silences out and all the breaks — I mean, I could hit one button on Pro Tools and it'll strip all the silences and shorten the dialogue so there's no gaps. But that destroys it,' Moore told IndieWire. The MPSE's Golden Reel qualification rules are currently in the process of being updated and re-published on the MPSE website, detailing what it will mean in practice to not accept projects for awards consideration where Generative A.I. is used to create elements for the final soundtrack. The organization also said that the MPSE board of directors and its A.I. committee will continue to study the existing and evolving tools on the market and make additional changes to the awards guidelines as appropriate. But the MPSE wants to firmly come down on the side of supporting human artists working in sound and music editorial, sound design, and Foley artistry. 'We support and prize technological advances that assist artists in their creations. However, standards for the legal and ethical use of Generative A.I. have yet to be established and are far from being accepted broadly. What we choose to promote as award-worthy points to how much we value the human endeavor of artistic creation,' the MPSE released in a statement announcing their ban on projects that utilize Generative A.I. David Barber, president of the MPSE, added in the same statement that, 'It is an enormous question to ask: how much of our humanity are we willing to give away to technology, especially in the arts? The time to ponder that question, set up boundaries, and guide how A.I. is assimilated into our workflow and lives was yesterday. The dam of A.I. has broken, and the waters are upon us. Choosing what we embrace as award-worthy filmmaking is a way of diverting those waters while we grapple with this exponential change. As A.I. technology infiltrates and permeates our industry, rules and accepted practices for its use need to emerge that keep artists at the forefront.' Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See

Latest news with #Descript

Top 5 free AI video generators to supercharge your content

Top Free AI Tools of 2025

Origin star Reece Walsh's $520k windfall from unlikely side hustle

20 Game-Changing AI Tools Every Small Business Leader Needs Now

A.I. Sound Will Not Count for MPSE Golden Reel Awards

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