How to choose an AI content creation tool

Start from your formats, not their features

Feature pages make every product look complete. Your own posting history is a better guide. Open the last month of your accounts and tally what you published: how many single images, short videos, carousels, stories and emails. Then add the formats you meant to make and did not.

The tally gives you two lists. The first is what a tool must do well, because you make it every week. The second is where a tool could add the most, because the format is currently too slow to bother with. Take both lists into every conversation with a vendor.

Decide who will use it

A tool that suits a designer can defeat an owner with ten spare minutes. Write down who will ask for content, who will review it and who will press publish. If those are three people, the tool needs a clear way to pass a draft between them. If they are one person, it needs to get from request to approved post without detours. Then look for each of those people in the product during the demo.

Seven questions for every vendor

Use the same list each time, and insist that the answer is shown on a piece made from your own request.

• Which of my formats do you make, and which do you only help with?
• What do you need from me to get my products, prices and tone right?
• How do I change a draft: by editing it directly, or by asking again?
• What does a finished piece leave as: a download, or a post ready to go out?
• Which platforms can you publish to? Name them.
• Is there any way for content to go out before a person approves it?
• What is the cost, what are the terms, and where does my content go if I leave?

Five warning signs

Each sign below is a reason to slow down and ask one more question.

• Samples only. A gallery of a vendor's finest output says little. Ask for a piece made from your request while you watch.
• No review step. If content can post unseen, a wrong price reaches customers before it reaches you.
• 'Every format' with no list. Ask which formats, and see each one made.
• 'All platforms' with no names. Ask which networks, and assume nothing beyond the answer.
• A file and nothing else. Fine if files are all you need. A gap if the uploading is what eats your week.

A week-long plan

A week of real content will teach you more than this page can. If a vendor offers a demo or a pilot period, use it in five steps.

• Before. Pick one real announcement and decide which three formats it needs.
• Make. Ask for each format. Note how many rounds it takes to reach something you would post.
• Check. Read every piece for facts: price, date, product, the spelling of names.
• Publish. Follow one piece to a live post and count the steps you did by hand.
• After. List what you still made yourself, and decide whether that list is acceptable.

Where our pick lands

Our pick is Link AI by Linkme, and it can be put to the same seven questions. On formats, Linkme's page lists images and videos, a Reel, carousel posts, story posts, drafted posts and email Campaigns. On publishing it gives names: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. On review it gives three words: 'You just approve.'

Several of the seven stay open, among them how a draft is changed and what the product costs. Take those questions, and the five-step week, to Linkme: book a demo to try Link AI on one real announcement.

The criteria we use

Format coverage

List the formats you publish in a normal month and check each against the tool's own description. Ask to see the format made, not a slide about it. On Linkme's page the list for Link AI runs to images, videos, Reels, carousel posts, story posts, drafted posts and email Campaigns.

Usable first draft

Judge a draft by how much you must change before it could go out under your name. Ask for one real piece and count the edits. Link AI drafts and you approve. How close a first draft lands for your brand is something only a demo on your own material can show.

Path to published

A finished file still has to be exported, sized, uploaded and captioned. Count those steps for each option. With Link AI the making and the publishing share one product: an approved post leaves a Publishing Queue for Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Human approval

A generated piece can look finished and still get a price, a date or a product wrong. Check where review happens and whether anything can post without it. Link AI's summary on Linkme's page finishes with the words 'You just approve', and where a team member prepares the draft, it can sit marked 'Needs review'.

Honest limits

Every tool stops somewhere, so ask each vendor what it does not make. Per its published description, Link AI's content is social and email content. This reference does not claim blog posts, long-form video, podcasts, voiceover or website copy for it.

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