5 essential AI apps for iPhone and Android you need to use in 2024

ChatGPT
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Artificial intelligence was the buzzword of the past 12 months, with companies keen to embed the technology in their apps and services. Sometimes just for the sake of it but other times in a way that is a genuine boost to productivity.

To help you work smarter and not harder on your iPhone or Android device we’ve pulled together a list of the five best AI-powered apps for both platforms.

They are designed to help you take better notes, write more fluently, make your photos look fantastic and organize your life.

Otter.ai

Otter.ai is an AI-powered transcription app. If you’re often attending meetings that you’d like written minutes of or conduct interviews that need to be typed up this app is for you.

Their latest update allows you to take a virtual assistant to your meeting that records audio, writes notes, automatically captures slides, and generates summaries. You can use your phone to record in-person meetings but the app is also compatible with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. 

After your meeting has been transcribed you can search through your notes and focus on what’s most important to you. 

Otter faced some backlash from users when it reduced the number of uploaded audio files they could transcribe. To overcome this hurdle you can play the audio through a speaker and re-record it, but this method is obviously not as convenient.

Otter is available for iPhone and Android.

Grammarly

If you want to write clean text that’s free of typos and conveys the right message, the AI-powered proofreader Grammarly is what you’re looking for.

This tool gives comprehensive feedback on things like your spelling, grammar, and clarity. It works by analyzing your sentences as you type them and it inserts color-coded underlines to the bits that can be improved. You can then reject or apply Grammarly’s suggestion with a simple tap.

Grammarly is available for iPhone and Android.

Lensa

We’re sure your selfies look amazing, but if you want them to look different we recommend Lensa, the AI photo editor.

Its simple interface allows you to apply filters, blur your background, and make other similar adjustments. Things get the most exciting through its Magic Avatars feature that trains on 10-20 photos that you feed it and uses AI to alter them to create different characters in different styles that look just like you!

If you’re on the go and want to turn a quick selfie into a profile picture that stands out, Lensa gets the job done. Lensa is available for iPhone and Android.

ChatGPT

You’re likely to have already heard of Open AI’s ChatGPT chatbot but did you know that it’s also available as an app on your phone?

Through one account you can sync your chat history across all your devices ensuring that you can tackle any issue solvable with a prompt wherever you are. Both the iPhone and Android versions of the app support voice input so you can also speak with ChatGPT and have a back-and-forth conversation.

ChatGPT is available for iPhone and Android.

Notion

Notion is like Wikipedia but for your life. If you want to save manuals about how to execute specific tasks, create a content calendar, and organize your meeting notes you can use Notion to create a personal website that organizes all of these things for easy reference.

Notion also has AI capabilities. They’re not at full-blown virtual assistant level but if you’ve jotted down some notes it can improve them, create a summary, or draft a piece of text from scratch so that you’re not facing the dreaded blank page. After a meeting, the AI can create action points from your notes that you can assign to yourself or delegate to your team.

There’s a bit of a steep learning curve if you want to harness Notion’s full potential, but it’s well worth the effort.

Notion is available for iPhone and Android.

More coming soon

As AI tools become more advanced we’re excited to see what’s next in the productivity space. Many AI entrepreneurs insist their products are there to do the boring parts of our jobs so we don’t have to and based on this list, it seems they’re on the right track.

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Christoph Schwaiger

Christoph Schwaiger is a journalist who mainly covers technology, science, and current affairs. His stories have appeared in Tom's Guide, New Scientist, Live Science, and other established publications. Always up for joining a good discussion, Christoph enjoys speaking at events or to other journalists and has appeared on LBC and Times Radio among other outlets. He believes in giving back to the community and has served on different consultative councils. He was also a National President for Junior Chamber International (JCI), a global organization founded in the USA. You can follow him on Twitter @cschwaigermt.