AI Tools of the Week:This week’s AI picks focus on a familiar professional frustration: great ideas slowed down by execution bottlenecks. From translating abstract campaign themes into clear visual directions, to eliminating days of document formatting, to accessing real-time research without leaving WhatsApp, these tools show how AI is increasingly removing friction from everyday work.
Google Mixboard
What problem does Google Mixboard solve?
Product marketers frequently struggle to convert abstract campaign ideas into concrete visuals. Leadership shares a powerful theme, “Festival of Flavours,” “Heritage Meets Modern,” or “Minimalist Luxury,” but translating that into a shared visual direction takes days. Teams search stock sites, assemble mood boards, and circulate decks that often miss the mark. Feedback like “not quite the vibe” sends everyone back to square one.
This vague-to-visual gap delays launches, frustrates teams, and dilutes creative intent.
Google Mixboard eliminates this problem by turning natural-language campaign ideas into living, editable visual boards no design expertise required.
How to access
Visit mixboard.google.com/projects and log in using a Google account.
What Google Mixboard Helps You Do
- Accelerate execution: Convert a one-line campaign brief into a full visual direction within minutes.
- Align stakeholders: Get marketing, design, and leadership aligned on look, feel, and mood early.
- Avoid stock imagery: Create branded lifestyle scenes, mockups, and colour stories without stock photo libraries.
Sample Prompts:
A CMO wants a sustainable water bottle launch to feel “traditional yet contemporary. Himalayan adventure meets urban India hydration.”
Step 1: Open Mixboard → New Project → Prompt: “Himalayan trekking campaign for sustainable water bottle, earthy saffron and turquoise tones, diverse Indian adventurers aged 25–40, candid photography style.”
Step 2: Upload product images.
Step 3: Add refinement prompt: “Place the bottle naturally in each scene, matte texture, golden-hour lighting, subtle motivational text in English and Hindi.”
Step 4: Remove images that don’t fit the theme.
Step 5: Click Transform → Prompt: “Create a 12-minute presentation exploring the emotional and psychological appeal of high-altitude trekking, including spirituality, solitude, and achievement.”
In under 30 minutes, a vague brief becomes a cohesive visual narrative.
What makes Google Mixboard stand out?
- Custom prompts + Nano Banana editing: Full board-wide control using natural language.
- Real-time collaboration: Share one link and export directly to Google Slides.
- Free in Labs: Available at no cost during its experimental phase.
Claude’s File Creation Capability
What problem does Claude’s file creation solve?
Business leaders lose significant time creating and formatting Excel dashboards, Word documents, and PowerPoint presentations, often before real analysis even begins.
Product managers manually stitch together customer tickets, NPS data, and feature requests for reviews. Finance leaders spend hours preparing compliance reports, dashboards, and board decks, especially after regulatory changes like India’s evolving GST rules.
Claude now removes this overhead by generatingready-to-use Excel files, Word documents, PowerPoint decks, and PDFs, complete with formulas, formatting, and professional design from simple instructions and uploaded data.
How to access
- Visit claude.ai
- Go to Settings → Capabilities → Experimental
- Enable Code execution and file creation
What Claude Helps You Do
- Turn raw data into insights: Upload messy files and receive structured Excel dashboards with charts and formulas.
- Build executive-ready presentations: Generate PowerPoint decks with clear narratives and visualised insights.
- Create professional documents: Produce structured Word reports with tables, references, and summaries.
Sample Prompt:
A CPO uploads six months of support tickets (CSV), NPS data (Excel), and feature logs (Excel), then prompts:
“Identify the top three product pain points. Create (1) an Excel dashboard with sentiment analysis and NPS correlation, (2) a Word PRD for the top fix with user stories, and (3) a PowerPoint outlining the business case and ROI.”
Claude delivers three fully formatted, interconnected files ready for leadership review, complete with formulas, visuals, and brand styling.
What makes Claude’s file creation special?
- Multi-file intelligence: Analyses several uploads at once.
- Analysis + creation together: Insights and outputs generated in one flow.
- Enterprise-grade results: Compatible with Microsoft Office and Google Workspace.
Perplexity on WhatsApp
What problem does Perplexity on WhatsApp solve?
Professionals often need fast, credible information while on the move during meetings, between appointments, or while monitoring breaking news. Switching apps to research disrupts focus and slows decision-making.
Perplexity on WhatsApp brings AI-powered research directly into the messaging app professionals already use daily.
How to access
- Open WhatsApp
- Save +1 (833) 436-3285
- Start a chat and send a message
What Perplexity on WhatsApp Helps You Do
- Instant fact-checking: Verify claims, statistics, or headlines mid-conversation.
- On-the-go research: Get sourced insights without opening a browser.
- Competitive intelligence: Quickly analyse markets, competitors, and trends.
Sample Prompts:
“Compare Tesla, Ford, and GM’s latest quarterly earnings with EV sales and market share changes.”
“Fact-check this claim: ‘Remote work has reduced productivity by 15% since 2020.’ Provide recent studies.”
What makes Perplexity on WhatsApp stand out?
- No app switching: Research inside WhatsApp itself.
- Source-backed responses: Citations included for verification.
- Always accessible: Works wherever WhatsApp does.
NOTE: Perplexity provides informed, well-sourced analysis but should not replace critical verification for high-stakes decisions.
(Bindra & Magazine are the co-founders of AI&Beyond)
Disclaimer: The tools and analysis featured in this section demonstrated clear value based on our internal testing. Our recommendations are entirely independent and not influenced by the tool creators.
