AI-powered graphic tools for a non-designer: practical advice from startup makers
At What the Money? as a boutique consultancy bureau, we keep a close watch on developing trends in the modern technology sector. Our interests include foundational industries such as FinTech, eCommerce, cryptocurrency, and payment methods, as well as auxiliary technologies and tools that allow our products to be realized: graphic editors, AI tools, and customer behavior research.
It is very important to note that our team lacks technicians, back-enders, and designers. We explore all the technologies and tools ourselves with far from a pure tech background.
However, we have succeeded in producing a variety of products, mostly based on research and business intelligence. Slightly with the help of up-to-date online design and data management tools. Never stop improving the tactics and technics.
That’s why we came to AI as a prospective solution to accelerate the ‘graphic design part’ of our daily routine.
AI-task: products to be designed
1. Mini reports, or country reviews. Their main aim is to provide a basic understanding of the key financial and technological aspects of a country — for example, check the UK or South Africa and many more on the WTM website:
While formatting these reports, we actively utilize and explore new AI tools. For instance, we are currently training an AI tool in Notion, with the aim of transforming it into a WTM team helper that assists us with formatting mini reports, which we publish on the Notion platform as well. Thanks to the assistance of AI, our mini reports are turning out well, and Notion inherently provides the necessary and intuitively understandable functionality for customizing pages to meet any requirements. The size of these reports does not request the use of any additional external tools.
Mini reports are a pleasant prelude to transitioning to WTM extended, or full reports.
2. Extended/full reports. It is a form of a full and comprehensive report that covers FinTech landscapes of various countries. Extended reports are approximately 50–70 pages in length and require more attention to formatting, as they involve a greater volume of information and none of us are professional designers.
Here we are looking for AI infographic, text, and image tools, and it is better to be in one app. Of course, one could simply release them as regular documents, dry and monotonous documentation, but who would read that? Frankly, I wouldn’t even glance at such a document, despite the valuable information and treasures it contains. This led us to the following question: can we use AI tools to format reports, where the work would be largely in the hands of AI?
3. And WTM news channel in Telegram. Here we post news that has caught our eyes and we want to share them with FinTech enthusiasts. Sometimes we collect certain posts from various news sources, and the question arises of how to gather all the important information while considering the post’s limit, as we want to describe each case in great detail. This is where basic AI tools come to the rescue, for example, СhatGPT or Jasper does a great job with the summary task.
Our request for AI power
Given: a completed text document formatted according to all the principles of readable material.
Needed: an AI application or applications where we can upload the entire document as a whole (not in fragments, this is important) and, as a result, get a designed report. The AI provides its vision for fonts, color schemes, possible decorative elements, build-up infographics, and paragraph formatting while preserving all the links embedded in the document. Essentially, we need a ready-made template with variable pages and basic settings (fonts, colors, decorations) into which we can simply upload the document with a single click and obtain a finished product as output.
And now, let’s delve into the search for the AI tool we need. In addition to personal experience, it will be something like a brief overview of the AI apps market.
Testing AI tools: a step-by-step guide
Step 1: Taking the straightforward approach
Before this research, my exposure to AI was limited to AI-based applications for creating images, ranging from generating images based on text to transforming photographs into something new and trendy, like anime filters on TikTok. Then, I remembered that in our work chat, there was an image featuring a selection of the most popular AI applications categorized by type. I decided to start with these.
I reviewed and tested all the applications in the “Text” category, and the category name didn’t deceive me — they work with texts but in different directions. Some allow you to create a collaborative workspace with colleagues, others help build email newsletters, and some generate texts of various types. However, none of them came close to addressing my specific task. The main drawback, for me, was the inability to work with my existing document. I didn’t need to simplify, rewrite, or add to it. Therefore, let’s move on to the next step.
Okay, no success with text, but I also need to add images to any formats of our work to make products more understandable and attractive, and of course, I want my visual elements to be unique. For this purpose, I found Fotor, an AI tool that creates images out of text and has different image styles to make exactly what you want. It was helpful for me because when I was writing an article about Green eCommerce I desired to fulfil it with something non-trivial, and it came out with something peculiar. Also, I tried to make an illustration out of the title of this article, and here is the result:
Step 2: Basic browser search
Here, I tried different combinations of words to search for the specific application I needed. It started with “AI that works with existing text,” “can design text into a report,” “can transform text into a document,” “find design solutions,” “work with fonts and highlights,” and so on. I came across various interesting AI applications, but once again, none of them were suitable for my needs. The issue persisted: AI was eager to write the text for me, but not format it appropriately.
I found one useful tool that helps in building up an infographic. It is called Visme, consists of templates, and is similar to Canva. I watched a tutorial on how to use it, and its interface is very user-friendly and intuitively understandable; there are a big collection of different elements so that it can be suitable for any kind of business or personal use. I worked here to create the infographic for our Green eCommerce article, and it took me a little time to create exactly what I wanted.
Step 3: Changing tactics — presentation format comes into play
I recalled encountering reports formatted as presentations rather than A4 format, and the market for AI applications for presentations would surely not disappoint. There are indeed numerous options available, catering to various preferences. Some even function as plugins in Figma. However, the major obstacle I faced was that only some applications I found could seamlessly insert the entire document text into the slides while evenly distributing the information. They would truncate the text or suggest again, “Just provide the idea, and I will handle everything for you.” No, thank you. Automation is necessary; I need to prepare to painstakingly insert the text into predefined cells myself, as it would be a time-consuming task.
Later we decided that the presentation format was different from how we wanted to see our full reports. However, this type of presenting information can find a place in our other tasks, so I suppose that SlidesAI is a tool that desires attention. It is a plugin that works in Google Workspace, and it creates slides out of your text and fulfills it with design and pictures by installing an AI machine. I downloaded the first part of its article to see its power. SlidesAI transformed my text into a minimalistic presentation where I could work with design:
Step 4: AI for AI — not a tautology but a necessary solution
I came across a resource that gathered various AI tools and categorized them. The user had to enter keywords to search for the desired AI tool, and it displayed subscription costs and brief descriptions. Desperation and inflated expectations played a significant role here. I tried numerous combinations and spent hours searching, but my AI grail remained elusive.
Step 5: Acceptance
By then, the most suitable tool (not AI) for us is Canva. Yes, it has some AI tools, but they are simple and less powerful than a self-sufficient application. However, it has a big potential, like Google Docs, but in addition to text, it has different decorative elements. Now we are developing the design of our extended reports, monthly digests, and social media posts here, and its page with Brand Templates is really helpful. Its main disadvantage is that it takes time to upload all text by dividing it into pieces for each page and adding space.
The search is not over; we hope to find the perfect solution for our task. After all, new AI solutions are emerging right before our eyes. Of course, I may have missed out on a particular application or failed to recognize the potential of a certain tool.
Wanted: AI solution for our request.
Reward: infinite gratitude and Part II of this story with a mention.
‘What the Money?’ is a fintech consultancy bureau that advises on doing business across the globe and talks about digital innovations, payment landscapes, and e-commerce. WTM releases monthly digests, regular reports, and articles on hot topics in these industries.
Find out available reports on the website, or follow WTM socials to learn more fintech insights and news: official blog, LinkedIn community, and Telegram-channel.
