Here are some helpful tips from the Pitch Avatar team to simplify and improve the process of selecting artificial intelligence-based products.
It is obvious to everyone that tools, applications, and services that are based on or that utilize artificial intelligence are significantly different from their “non-intelligent” competitors and predecessors. Nevertheless, in most cases, users approach their choice of an AI tool the old-fashioned way. In other words, guided by descriptions, reviews on the Internet and recommendations from acquaintances.
The problem with this approach is that it will likely lead to mistakes. Owing to artificial intelligence’s complexity, simply studying descriptions, reviews, and recommendations, as a rule, misses a lot of facts, nuances, and subtleties. Additionally, with AI products the principle of “What works for one user may not be suitable for another” often comes into play.
We hope that the criteria and evaluation methods that we propose will help you to more effectively choose an AI-based tool.
Try, and experiment
We consider this recommendation to be the most important pearl of wisdom. Since, as already mentioned, neither descriptions nor reviews can tell you about every feature of each tool, take the time to try out AI products that you think might be suitable for the tasks you encounter in real-life conditions. Of course, this may involve some expense. However, as a rule of thumb, most AI-based products are offered with either a free version or a trial period. As far as the inevitable time investment is concerned, there will be a price to be paid. In the long run, the right AI tool will save you far more time than you’ll spend choosing it.
Decide what tasks you need an AI product for
As obvious as this advice may seem, don’t be in a hurry to ignore it. In our Pitch Avatar team’s experience, many users start looking for tools without deciding what they’re going to do with them. Take AI image generators/editors as an example. Some are better at creating images based on text queries, while others are better at creating variations on a theme of images offered as a sample.Some are better “sharpened” for generating images for social networks and mobile content, others – for creating large, heavy and complex pictures in high resolution. Some are designed primarily for express production, others – for thoughtful and complex work. Some are more suited for editing, others less so. So before embarking on a search for an AI image generator/editor, it’s worth taking the time to ask yourself: “What purposes do I need images for? “Where am I going to place them?”, “How complex do I want them to be? “What size do I need them to be?”, “How many do I need them?”, and “How much time will I have to create each image?” Only by determining the answers to these and similar questions (and preferably writing them down) can you begin a truly effective search. Of course, a similar approach works for selecting other types of tools.
Assess what AI capabilities and skills you possess
Let’s start, again, with something that should be obvious. Specifically, with you and your colleague’s capabilities. First of all, we are talking about time and money. Decide right away how much of both you can spend. Let’s assume that you are the owner of a company. How many hours a week are you willing to devote to working with an AI tool? Who will be its primary operator? Will it be you? Or, perhaps some of your existing employees whose efficiency you want to improve? Or, will you hire a dedicated specialist? It all comes down to the second piece of our advice: You must figure out the skillset of the person who will be using the AI tool. Let’s say they have been trained in programming. Then you can consider products that require working with code to customize and adapt. Depending on the skills of the person who will be working with the AI product, the requirements for the tool change.
Determine what data the AI will work with
Obviously, data is the foundation for any AI-based tool. You need to be clear about exactly what kind of data the one you choose will interact with. It’s one thing if it will only interact with user queries. It’s quite another if you need to load or provide it with access to your company/organization/business’s data in order for it to work effectively in the area you have targeted. Different AI products have different demands for the amount and variety of data they need in order to accomplish their tasks. Without understanding what these demands are for your situation, you may well find yourself in a situation where you purchase a tool that requires data that you cannot provide, or, on the contrary, the tool cannot cope with the volume of data it’s provided. For our part, we advise you to choose tools with a “reserve of possibilities” and a flexible customization system.
Good luck, success, and high income!
