Top 10 AI Tools You Need to Know in 2024 – #4 Will Shock You 😱!!

If you want a shortlist of the best AI tools 2024 that actually move the needle for creators, marketers, and small business owners, this is the one I'd hand to a friend. I'm Sawan Kumar, a Dubai-based AI consultant who has trained over 79,000 students across 74+ courses, and these are the ten platforms I keep returning to in real client work.

Direct Answer: The best AI tools in 2024 for creators and professionals are Virbo (AI avatar video), Suno.ai (music generation), Leonardo.AI (image generation), ChatGPT (writing and reasoning), Claude (long-form analysis), Midjourney (cinematic visuals), ElevenLabs (voice cloning), Runway ML (video editing), Descript (podcast editing), and Pictory (long-to-short repurposing). Together they cover text, image, audio, and video — the four pillars every modern creator needs to operate at scale without a full production team.

Why This Specific Top 10 (And Not the Other 200)

I evaluated tools against four criteria I use with my consulting clients: time saved per week, output quality vs. a human freelancer, learning curve under two hours, and total monthly cost under $50. The list below survived all four. If a tool only wins on novelty — looking at you, every "AI girlfriend" app — it didn't make the cut.

1. Virbo — AI Avatar Videos in Under 10 Minutes

Virbo by Wondershare turns a script into a presenter-led video using a photorealistic avatar. Drop in 200 words, pick a voice, render in five minutes. I use it for course intros and LinkedIn explainers when I don't want to set up the camera. Pricing starts around $14.99/month, and the ROI is obvious the first time you skip a two-hour shoot.

2. Suno.ai — Full Songs From a Text Prompt

Suno generates a complete song — vocals, instruments, lyrics — from a one-line prompt. I've used it to create custom intro music for client videos in under 90 seconds. The free tier gives you 10 songs/day; the $8/month plan unlocks commercial use. For background tracks, podcast jingles, and ad music, it has replaced three royalty-free libraries in my workflow.

3. Leonardo.AI — The Quiet Midjourney Killer

Leonardo.AI generates high-quality images with finer control over style, composition, and consistency than most competitors. Why #4 on most lists shocks people: it offers 150 free credits/day, supports custom model training on your own brand, and produces commercial-safe outputs. For e-commerce product mockups and Canva thumbnail backgrounds, it's my default.

4. The Writing And Reasoning Layer: ChatGPT + Claude

I use both, not one. ChatGPT (GPT-4o) wins for quick ideation, code, and tool use. Claude wins for long documents — book chapters, legal review, 50-page report summarisation — because of its larger context window and tighter writing style. As a Chartered Accountant I rely on Claude for spreadsheet logic and Excel formula generation; for client emails and ad copy, ChatGPT is faster.

How to split them in practice

• Use ChatGPT for: brainstorming, code, image generation via DALL-E, custom GPTs, web browsing tasks
• Use Claude for: long-form writing, document analysis, careful reasoning, anything over 10,000 words
• Free vs paid: the $20/month tier on either pays for itself in week one if you're a working professional

5. Midjourney, ElevenLabs, And The Audio-Visual Stack

Midjourney v6 still produces the most cinematic, brand-friendly images for ads and book covers — $10/month for the basic plan. ElevenLabs clones your voice from a 60-second sample and generates audio in 29 languages; I use it to dub my Udemy course intros into Spanish and Hindi without re-recording. The Starter plan is $5/month, the Creator tier at $22/month unlocks commercial voice cloning.

6. Video Editing On Autopilot: Runway, Descript, Pictory

Runway ML handles AI video generation and green-screen-free background removal. Descript edits video by editing the transcript — delete a sentence in the text, the video cuts itself. Pictory takes a 60-minute webinar and produces 10 short-form clips for Reels, Shorts, and TikTok with captions auto-generated. Together these three replace what used to be a $2,000/month video editor for most solopreneurs.

How To Roll Out These Tools Without Burning $300/Month

Most creators waste money subscribing to all ten at once. Here's the sequence I give my coaching clients:

• Week 1: ChatGPT Plus ($20) — covers writing, ideation, and image gen via DALL-E
• Week 2: Add Leonardo.AI free tier — for image-heavy workflows
• Week 3: Add ElevenLabs Starter ($5) — for voiceovers and dubbing
• Week 4: Add Descript or Pictory ($15-30) — depending on whether you edit long-form or short-form
• Month 2 onwards: Layer Suno, Virbo, Runway based on the actual content you produce

Total stack cost in month one: under $30. Total time saved in my own business: roughly 12 hours per week.

The One Thing Most "Top 10" Lists Get Wrong

Direct Answer: No AI tool replaces a clear point of view, an offer people want, or a consistent publishing rhythm. The tools amplify what you already do well — they don't manufacture demand. I've watched students 10x their output with these stacks, and I've watched others spend $200/month on subscriptions while publishing nothing. The differentiator is the operator, not the software.

Pick three tools from this list, master them in 30 days, then add the fourth. That's the entire playbook. Your next step: open ChatGPT and Leonardo.AI in two browser tabs today and produce one piece of content end-to-end before adding anything else.

Keep Learning

If this was useful, these are worth reading next:

• The Future of Business: Turn Your SOPs into AI Agents (Automate Everything)
• Create 40 social media posts using ChatGPT and Canva in less than 2 minutes
• Or go further with the AI Mastery Course — used by 79,000+ students across 150+ countries.