BB Digest: Free ChatGPT alternative

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Hey folks, we’re trying a new format of 101 guides with a mix of theory, practical examples and data. Here’s our first: AI for sales: How to win more deals with AI. Let us know what you think!

ps: We're hiring tutorial writers. If you know smart folks who can write clearly about using AI at work, send them our way. (details here)

TLDR; inside today’s newsletter

• Mistral's big reveal, ChatGPT’s Mac updates and billing for AI agents

• ICYMI: course for educators, tutorials and a new workshop

• snack n skill - quick lesson on scaling content creation with Jasper

• 7 new AI tools including Anthropic's prompt improver

• 6 posts with mindset shifts needed for AI at work (and some OpenAI drama)

• to-do's

Alright, let’s get to it!

 🔎 Trends & news

• Mistral just copied ChatGPT's homework and made it free. Their chat app now has multiple things that ChatGPT Plus offers—web search, image generation, agents (like GPTs) and even a Canvas feature for co-editing with AI. Thanks to their new 124B model Pixtral Large, it also understands documents (with images and charts too). You can try it at chat.mistral.ai (plus there’s API and weights access to the model for devs and researchers).

• ChatGPT's macOS app can now work with apps to provide better answers. Well, only coding tools for now like VS Code, Xcode, and Terminal. Currently in beta for Plus and Team users, this feature lets ChatGPT see your code, terminal outputs, and editor content to give more contextual responses. The race for native AI tooling is ON.

• If you hate designing slides and dread that feeling of staring at a blank slide, Gamma is here to help. Gamma has become one of the fastest growing AI web products in the world, adding 25 million new users this past year, and is setting its sights on becoming the modern alternative to Powerpoint.*

• Stripe launched an agent toolkit. It will allow AI agents to handle payments, billing, and financial tasks. The toolkit also integrates with major AI agent frameworks making it easier for developers to build AI apps that can charge users based on metered usage, process refunds, and handle billing.
  *sponsored

👀 ICYMI: New stuff we’ve launched

Course:

• AI for educators - Learn to use AI tools in your classroom. Everything from lesson planning to grading automation. Create presentations, quizzes, and even your own AI teaching assistant to transform how you teach.

Tutorial:

• Summarize Google Alerts - A tutorial to help you manage information overload.

Blog:

• Building voice agents - Create AI voice agents without coding using Synthflow.

• Customer feedback mastery - 4 powerful ChatGPT techniques for feedback analysis.

plus a new workshop for tomorrow - How AI is changing the way SaaS admins work.

🍽️ Snack ‘n’ skill

Learn how to scale content creation with AI and your brand voice

Manually rewriting your content for different channels is a waste of time. With Jasper's knowledge base, you can teach AI your product details and brand voice, then let it create consistent content across platforms.

Step 1. Build your AI's knowledge

Upload your website pages, blog posts, PDFs and other marketing materials to Jasper. The AI reads and indexes this content to understand your product descriptions, key features, and writing style.

Step 2. Create content at scale

• Turn any knowledge base piece into fresh content with one click using "Remix"

• Generate social posts that stay on-brand by referencing multiple source materials

• Write blog posts and emails faster while maintaining accuracy

• Use built-in prompts for different channels (Twitter, LinkedIn, email etc.)

• Customize tone and style for different audience segments

Tip: Create knowledge base items specifically for your brand voice and style guidelines. This helps Jasper maintain consistency even when creating totally new content.

This walkthrough is a condensed version of this tutorial. Check it out to learn the full workflow for scaling your content creation with AI while staying on-brand.

⚙️ Top new tools

• CentML Platform - Best-in-class deployment platform, 5x faster than Bedrock. Now, with $10 free credit for all new users!*

• Prompt Improver by Anthropic - A new tool for developers to get Claude’s help to write prompts for complex tasks.

• Zepic - WhatsApp & email campaigns with personalized messaging.

• Sharbo - Effortless competitor product insights.

• Windsurf by Codeium - New code editor on the block, giving Cursor some competition.

• SRE.ai – AI agents to simplify and automate Salesforce DevOps.

• Momen - Build custom web apps with ease and complete control.

More tools here →
*sponsored

 📜 Interesting posts

• The AI mindset shift: how I use AI every day from Buffer’s Head of Comms and Content.

• A student's guide to writing with ChatGPT.

• TikTok’s ad generation tool is now available to everyone (with Getty Images integration).

• Manipulating AI to write good things about you.

• Pushing the boundaries of AI interfaces - Hidden States Unconference on December 3rd 2024.

• And some drama: a compilation of emails released in the Musk vs Altman court case.

📌 To-dos

1. If you’re in SF, register for the 'Evening of Embodied AI' by OpenMind.

2. Let us know if you have any tutorials or courses you want us to create—we’re always open to ideas.

That wraps things up for today! See you again on Thursday. 👋

Ben