The highly competitive, multi-billion dollar mobile app market has become a hotbed for artificial intelligence adoption, leading to a proliferation of so-called AI apps.
These days, app users crave personalized experiences, intuitive design and instant gratification. Incorporating AI into those apps makes it easier for companies to satiate them, no matter what industry they’re in. Whether a user wants to edit a photo, learn a new language or transcribe a phone call — there’s usually an AI app for that.
Top AI Apps
- Facetune
- Lensa
- Alexa
- Duolingo
- Socratic
- Cleo
- Google Maps
- Calm
- Youper
- Otter.ai
Top AI Apps
Image Editing and Creation
Facetune
For people wanting to make quick edits on their photos and videos, Facetune is a popular resource. It is commonly used to make skin touch-ups, whiten teeth, add makeup and alter face shape. The app also recently rolled out its own avatar generator, allowing users to level up their selfies with AI-generated costumes, hairstyles, backgrounds and more.
Lensa
When it comes to AI art generation, Lensa is certainly at the forefront. Over the last several months, the app’s Magic Avatar feature has taken social media by storm with its ability to generate artistic edits and iterations of selfies that users provide. Created by Prisma Labs, Lensa uses neural network, computer vision and deep learning techniques to bring mobile photography and video creation “to the next level,” according to the company. The app allows users to make anything from minor edits like background blurring to entirely unique renderings.
StarryAI
StarryAI is an AI art generator that can transform a simple text prompt into an image. To accomplish this, the app relies on two AI models. The first uses a specific class of machine learning models called GANs, or generative adversarial networks, to render the artwork creations. The second uses stable diffusion to create artwork and images. StarryAI is one of many text-to-image generators on the market right now, and allows users to make everything from AI avatars to their own non-fungible tokens.
Virtual Assistant
Alexa
Since its launch in 2014, Amazon’s Alexa has become a household name. The AI voice assistant allows users to make lists, set alarms, order products online and much more. And its sophisticated natural language processing capabilities allow Alexa to not only understand spoken language, but also generate it through fluent conversations with users. The app can also be paired with accompanying smart devices to control things like smart thermostats, wearables, televisions and even cars straight from the user’s phone.
Cortana
Named after the humanoid AI character from the popular video game franchise Halo, Cortana is a virtual assistant created by Microsoft. It is available in most Microsoft devices, including Windows computers, Windows mixed reality devices and Xbox Ones, as well as as an iOS and Android app. Like other virtual assistants, Cortana offers a hands-free way to set reminders, take notes, answer questions and much more. To accomplish this, Cortana specifically uses the Bing search engine and data from other devices to generate more personalized experiences for users. And its API can work with various other Windows and third-party apps.
Google Assistant
Without a doubt, Google is at the forefront of AI innovation and development, and its virtual assistant is considered to be one of the most advanced of its kind on the market. Using natural language processing, Google Assistant supports both voice and text commands, and can handle everything from internet searches to voice-activated control of other devices. Indeed, the app is compatible with an entire suite of smart devices, including refrigerators, lights and cars — providing a truly connected Internet-of-Things experience for users.
Siri
Launched in 2011, Siri is widely considered to be the OG of virtual assistants. By this point, all Apple devices are equipped with it, including iPhones, iPads, watches and even televisions. The app uses voice queries and a natural language user interface to do everything from send text messages to identify a song that’s playing. It can also adapt to a user’s language, searches and preferences over time.
Education
Duolingo
For folks wanting to learn French, Spanish, Mandarin or any other foreign language on the go, Duolingo can be a helpful resource. The app provides listening, reading and speaking exercises in dozens of global languages, all the while providing aspects of gamification to keep users coming back. By applying AI, Duolingo’s lessons are paced and leveled specifically for each student according to their performance. The app also uses data and machine learning to make course improvements, taking into consideration the nuances of various languages.
ELSA Speak
ELSA Speak uses AI to help users perfect their English speaking skills. With speech data and voice recognition technology, the app is able to listen to a user’s accent and applies a color-coded system of red, yellow and green to identify how close the user pronounced certain words, as well as provide tips for how the user can improve. The app also includes language proficiency assessments, personalized curriculum, progress tracking and personalized lessons.
Socratic
Socratic provides homework help to students in middle and high school. All they have to do is take a picture of what they are working on with their phone, and the AI offers visual explanations to help them complete it. Acquired by Google in 2018, the app uses advanced text and speech recognition, and provides assistance in a variety of subjects, including literature, physics, biology, trigonometry and more.
Personal Finance
Ally Financial
Ally Financial’s mobile banking app has a machine learning-based chatbot to answer questions, handle any money transfers and payments, as well as provide transaction summaries. The bot is both text and voice-enabled, meaning users can either speak or text their messages Ally and the bot will automatically handle what they need. Ally also uses AI to streamline its loan approval process, extracting data from loan documents and comparing them with multiple databases to confirm applicants’ identity, employment, income and other pertinent information.
Cleo
Cleo is a chatbot that is specifically designed to provide budgeting assistance by linking directly to a user’s bank account. Using artificial intelligence and natural language generation, the app provides general financial advice as well as unique messages according to what the user wants. If a user feels they need some tough love, all they have to do is tell Cleo to “roast” them, and the bot will take inventory of all the wasteful spending they’ve done recently. If they need to be “hyped” up, it will remind the user of all their good recent financial behavior. Cleo also helps users set specific budgets and goals, track their spending and more.
Fyle
Available on both desktop and as a mobile app, Fyle uses AI to simplify employee expense management. Specifically, it can handle expense reporting, real-time data extraction, travel requests and advances, analytics and much more. By directly integrating with any Visa business credit card, Fyle provides employees with automatic notifications about transactions, and allows them to submit their receipts directly through other apps like Gmail, Outlook and Slack.
Health and Wellness
Calm
With more than 50 million downloads on the Google Play Store, Calm is one of the most popular mobile meditation apps on the market today. It offers guided meditation, sleep and stretching services, as well as music and scenes to help users sleep, relax or focus. The app also uses Amazon Personalize, a machine learning-powered tool developed by AWS, to deliver more individualized experiences and recommendations to users based on their data.
FitnessAI
Available exclusively as an iOS app, FitnessAI uses artificial intelligence to generate personalized workouts according to a given user’s experience and goals. With nearly 6 million preset workouts, the AI optimizes sets, reps and weight for each exercise every time a user works out. Users can also track their progress over time on the app.
Woebot Health
Woebot Health’s proprietary technology combines decades of research in psychology with advanced artificial intelligence to assess and respond to users’ symptoms of mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, according to the company. Using natural language processing and generation, the app’s chatbot can converse with a given user about whatever they want. It can also remember what it has been told, and continues to learn the more it is engaged with. Woebot is also very intentional about reminding users that it is a chatbot, not a real person, which establishes trust among users, according to Jade Daniels, the company’s director of content. “They can talk openly about the problems that they’re having and where they’re at,” she told Built In in a 2020 interview. “Whereas if there’s a human on the other side of it, there’s always kind of their feeling of, ‘Am I being judged?’”
Youper
The Youper app features a mental health-focused AI chatbot, which converses with users about their emotional struggles, and offers personalized advice and techniques for how to cope. The app also offers a mood tracker, personality assessments, a selection of mindfulness exercises and more. Like Woebot, Youper claims its technology is based on decades of psychological and evidence-based therapies, including cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and problem-solving therapy.
Maps and Navigation
Google Maps
Google Maps aggregates location data from smartphones, as well as user-reported data on things like construction and car accidents to monitor the ebb and flow of traffic, determine an ETA and provide users with the fastest route to their desired destination. The app also uses advanced machine learning techniques to predict traffic conditions in the near future. It does this by first analyzing historical traffic patterns, then combining it with live traffic conditions to generate predictions based on both sets of data.
Waze
Although it was acquired by Google in 2013, the Waze app remains a separate entity from Google Maps, and a top competitor to both its parent company’s GPS and others. In addition to relying on real-time traffic data shared by its 140 million active monthly users, Waze uses AI and machine learning to provide its users with the fastest available routes to their destinations.
Transcription
Google Recorder
Unlike many other AI transcription services, Google’s Recorder is free — so long as the user has a Pixel smartphone. All they have to do is open the app and press the large red button to record their call, which is automatically transcribed at the same time. Once the transcription is complete, users can search through it (classic Google), edit it and share either in-full or as snippets with others. Users can also easily edit the audio, meaning if they delete or move a section of the transcript, the corresponding audio will move right along with it.
Otter.ai
Available both online and as a mobile app, Otter.ai offers a wide range of services, including the ability to record Zoom and Google video conferences, as well as phone calls. It uses artificial intelligence to automatically transcribe those recordings, breaking them down by speaker. The transcription also includes an automatically generated outline with corresponding time stamps, which highlights the key conversation points in the recording and allows users to jump to them quickly.
Trint
Trint’s AI transcription services have been used by major organizations including Airbnb, the Washington Post and Nike. Its AI-enabled mobile app allows users to easily record, transcribe and publish content instantly, as well as leave notes and make edits to the transcription itself. According to Trint, it can also automatically transcribe in over 30 different languages, and translate completed transcriptions into more than 50 languages.