This is my roundup of the best AI writing tools in 2024. My top pick for the best overall tool is Frase (grab an exclusive 60% discount on your first month using my link).
🏆 Best Overall
90% 🤩
Best for Natural Output
81% 🙂
Best ‘One-Shot’ Writer
68% 😑
Best for Beginners
42% 🙅♂️
I’m a blogger, SEO coach, and academic researcher with over 10 years of experience in writing online, including building two profitable blogs, publishing original research in academic journals, and creating expert articles for numerous clients in the fields of fintech and SaaS.
Plus, my PhD research in computational social science leverages natural language processing (NLP), giving me an invaluable head start on understanding the mechanics of AI tools.
I spent hours researching, using, and evaluating these tools to determine which ones perform best for content writing, on-page SEO, ideation, video editing, and more. I took into account many factors, including accuracy, ease of use, number of integrations, output quality, and value for money.
With its robust SERP analysis features, handy heading structure builder, and on-page optimization functionality, Frase is my top recommendation for most content creators and marketers looking to get started with AI writing and SEO all in one.
Read on for the complete breakdown and links to explore each option yourself. Let me know in the comments if you’ve heard of any other top AI writing tools I should consider testing out this year!
Affiliate disclaimer: I sometimes link to products and services to help cover the costs of running this blog. There’s no extra cost to you – and I only recommend products that I’ve used personally. Thanks for your support!
The 4 Best AI Writing Tools in 2024
- Frase – Best overall AI writing tool with SEO features
- Claude 2 – Best for natural, human-sounding output
- Byword – Best ‘one-shot’ article generator
- Writesonic – Best for beginners
1. Frase
⭐️ Verdict: Best Overall AI Writing Tool
Frase offers an excellent and user-friendly SERP analysis feature, which pulls all the heading structures from your top 10 competitors. You can easily use this to build out your heading structure and add unique elements to your page.
Content output is high quality and natural – making Frase a great choice for those looking to create decent SEO content fast. But if you don’t already have good SEO knowledge, then you might find Frase too advanced for your needs.
Pros
- Robust SERP analyzer lets you easily build a heading structure based on your competitors
- Also offers a content optimization dashboard
- High-quality output that sounds natural and not robotic
Cons
- Requires good SEO background knowledge to get maximum value from the tool
- Good value for money – 38 USD monthly (annual plan) gets you 30 articles per month
Frase is my top overall pick among the best AI writing tools of 2024.
To reach my verdict, I tested Frase by tasking it to create an article targeting the keyword “moving to Portugal from the USA”. I’m already very familiar with this topic so it was a good opportunity to evaluate the tool’s output.
In the new document screen, I selected ‘SEO Workflow’ mode to get Frase to analyze the top 10 search results and help me optimize the content accordingly. There are two other options available, but SEO Workflow mode was the best choice for my needs.
Clicking on SEO Workflow mode took me to a blank document screen where I was asked to enter my target keyword. As you can see on the right-hand part of the screen below, Frase is already pulling in content from the top 10 search results and dividing it up into headings.
I started by clicking the Outline tab and Frase pulled in all top ten ranking articles and arranged them side-by-side in this super easy-to-follow way.
To build my outline, all I had to do was look for the common header ingredients and check the box to include that header in my own.
I went through this process until I’d built out a robust heading structure (and added a couple of my own ideas that were missing from the top 10). Then I went back to the main document page and instructed Frase to start writing for the different headings.
As you can see below, Frase’s content output is quite good quality. It would require only minimal human editing before publishing. I always recommend fact-checking too, as I found several factual errors in this content.
Overall, Frase would be my top recommendation if you’re looking for a fully curated AI writing tool experience (when compared to Claude 2), that also incorporates proven SEO workflows such as SERP analysis.
#2. Claude
⭐️ Verdict: Best For Natural Output
Claude is an AI assistant optimized for efficient high-quality written content creation. It achieves human-like fluency in text while easily adapting to the desired brand style and audience.
Its robust functionality, ease of use, and automation make Claude an ideal writing companion for creating high volumes of optimized written content efficiently.
Pros
Natural, human-sounding text output
Upload up to 5 input documents
Good value for money
Powerful reasoning and analysis functionality
Cons
No direct web access
Heavy users will hit message limits
Some level of hallucination remains
Need prompting expertise to get best results
Claude is an extremely versatile AI writing tool, similar to ChatGPT (but more powerful). It has a simple interface without many advanced features.
But, once you get used to prompting the tool properly, you can produce highly sophisticated outputs that are largely indistinguishable from human writing.
Claude also has advanced reasoning and creativity levels, allowing it to understand and action complex promotes and create long-form content with ease. In that area, it’s one of the best AI writing tools I’ve used so far this year.
Typically, I use Claude to build out content one section at a time. It doesn’t work as well if you try to use it as a one-shot generator. Maintaining a level of human control and tweaking the outputs as you go along is one of the core AI prompting techniques for achieving high-quality results.
To start writing with Claude, simply open a new chat and type in whatever prompt you want.
Claude is a powerful AI writing tool and one of my favorites. But the high level of freedom and flexibility it provides might not be suitable for beginners, or those who want a more guided and curated content writing workflow.
I recommend Claude for advanced AI users, those with existing skills in prompting, and those who want to take their AI writing to the next level.
#3. Byword AI
⭐️ Verdict: Best ‘One Shot’ Article Writer
Byword is an AI content creation platform that fully automates written content marketing and SEO. It connects to your website to publish optimized articles, ads, and social media posts without any manual work needed.
Byword sets itself apart by using advanced techniques to avoid detection by Google’s AI filters. For under $5 per article, it’s an affordable way to scale high-quality, original content.
Pros
- Fully automated content creation, publishing, and optimization
- Clean, simple interface that’s easy to get started with
- Produces unique articles with images
- Integrates seamlessly with WordPress, Webflow and other sites
Cons
- Requires subscription fees, though the cost per article is low
- More tailored for SEO content than complex emotive writing
- Output still requires human edits to achieve high-quality standards
I like the Byword AI interface a lot – it’s super clean, simple, and straightforward to get started with. When you open the Single Articles mode, this is what you see.
I tested the tool out with the keyword “Moving to Spain from the US”. For Generation Mode, I selected “Keyword”, and then pasted the keyword in the ‘Keyword’ box. I hit ‘Generate’ and nipped off to grab a cup of coffee while Byword created my article.
Here’s a snapshot of the resulting article, complete with an original image (which I like). Overall, the writing style of the text is clean and simple – although it still feels a bit robotic and unoriginal to me.
In short, if you’re looking for a simple tool to generate large quantities of ‘one-shot’ blog content, then you should consider Byword. Bear in mind though, that it works best for simple niches. Achieving high-quality results in complex topics still requires some level of human editing.
#4. Writesonic
⭐️ Verdict: Best for Beginners
Writesonic is an AI-powered writing assistant that can generate high-quality content like articles, ads, social media posts, and landing pages with just a few clicks. I found it to be easy to use, time-saving, and able to produce surprisingly human-like writing.
While not perfect, Writesonic does about 85% of the content creation work. Overall, it’s a worthwhile AI writing tool for early-stage content creators or marketers looking to scale content production.
Pros
- Easy to use, even for beginners
- Saves you significant time by automating content creation
- Generates well-structured output
- Covers a variety of content types beyond just articles
- Helps optimize content for SEO
Cons
- Uses the OpenAI language model (ChatGPT) hence the style can sound fluffy & robotic at times
- The credit system includes both input AND output words, which uses up your credits fast
- Lacks a real human touch, and still requires review and refinement
The Writesonic dashboard is clearly laid out and easy to get started with. I selected the Article & Blog Writer feature and put Writesonic to work straight away on creating a test blog post entitled “How to Move to Portugal From the USA”.
I selected the “Article Writer 5” option to have the tool pull in structural information from top-ranking competitors. Making sure your article has all the necessary headings is an important factor in SEO, although it’s important not to copy competing articles.
The tool gives you the option to add either URLs or files as reference information to help it create the article. I chose to add three competitor URLs sourced from the top 10 results for my main target keyword.
But I soon ran into a problem, because Writesonic includes the word count of each of these three articles in the total word count for this task (in addition to the word count of the output itself). That means you soon hit your word count limit – which can rack up costs fast.
Overall, Writesonic is a competent AI writing tool with an easy-to-use layout well suited for beginners.
What to Look For When Choosing AI Writing Tools
I’ve been using AI writing tools for over a year now. With that experience under my belt, I’ve noticed several key factors that go into choosing the best AI writing tool for your needs.
First, it’s important to know your writing goals. Are you writing blog posts for SEO? Or are you writing more long-form text for other marketing purposes (e.g. an ebook or whitepaper)?
Are your content topics simple everyday ones? Or are you writing about more complicated and sophisticated topics that require specialist knowledge, such as B2B SaaS? Thinking through these questions will help you pick the best AI writing tool for you.
Here’s a quick overview of the main metrics I used when evaluating the AI writing tools in this article. As befits a PhD level researcher and journalist, I aimed to stay as objective as possible in this roundup review.
Metric #1: Output Quality
Quality of the final text output is one of the most important factors for me when choosing an AI writing tool. The rapid rise of AI content has led to a lot of junk being published.
That’s a result of lazy AI use, e.g. when people just throw a simple prompt into the free version of ChatGPT and expect it to write a whole blog post (it will do it, but the quality will be average at best).
For this reason, I’m not the biggest fan of “one-shot” blog writing tools. Byword AI is my favorite so far out of these, but I still recommend doing at least one round of human edits before auto-uploading the post onto your WordPress or Webflow site.
For the best quality output, you’ll want to keep a human hand on the reins at all times, e.g. via a more granular tool like Claude that allows full control.
But that might not be suitable for beginners as it gives the writer almost total freedom, which can be overwhelming when you’re first getting started with AI writing tools.
Metric #2: Accuracy
This metric refers to the level of accuracy in the AI writing output. While no AI tool is foolproof, I’ve found that some hallucinate more often than others.
By “hallucinate” I mean that the tool makes up false information and confidently presents it as facts. That’s another reason why you should always fact-check any claims and statistics in your AI-written content.
Ideally, you’ll find reliable sources to back up these claims (which is a task best suited to a human editor)
Metric #3: Creativity
Many AI tools produce generic and fluffy content that sounds robot-generated. Ideally, you should look for tools that can produce more unique and creative-sounding content.
Much of this can be achieved through skilled prompting, but some tools have better innate capabilities than others. Some of that depends on the language model they were trained on.
Whether or not creativity is an important factor for you also depends on your goals with AI writing tools. If you have a simple niche and just want to produce basic SEO content, then creativity doesn’t necessarily need to be high on your list.
But for more complex topics and higher levels of quality, you should look for AI writing tools that score highly in creativity.
Metric #4: Customizability
This metric refers to the level of customizability available in the tool. For example, customization might allow you to change the voice, tone, or style of the output, add in additional headings, or draw on different information sources to build the content.
Some AI writing tools, like Byword, are designed with limited customization because their goal is speed and convenience.
At the other end of the spectrum, tools like Claude AI rely on advanced prompting for the best results. That means you can customize the tool as much as you want – it just depends on your prompting skills.
Metric #5: User Friendliness
This metric refers to the ease of use of the tool. Does the platform help you find exactly where you need to get started? Is it easy to navigate through the various steps and arrive at the result? Does the tool have clear and simple instructions?
Metric #6: Value For Money
The final metric is value for money, which refers to the price <> quality ratio of the tool. In the rapidly growing world of AI writing tools, it’s not always easy to find good quality for a reasonable price. That’s why I’ve assessed the value for money of each of these tools, based on the feature set and quantity of content you can create with them.
Actionable Next Steps
I hope this article has given you a helpful overview of the best AI writing tools available in 2024.
As an experienced blogger and content writer, I’ve made it my mission to test out each of these tools against various metrics that matter, so you can easily identify the best fit for your needs.
Claude has become an important part of my everyday toolkit for creative writing, ideation, advanced prompting, and logical reasoning.
For those of you who are still AI beginners, a more guided experience will serve you well. Plus, Claude’s inability to perform SERP analysis makes it a less-than-ideal fit for creating SEO content with ease.
That’s why, at present, Frase is my top overall pick for an AI writing tool that produces high-quality content based on SERP analysis – making it perfect for SEO writing and blogging use cases.
You can grab 60% off your first month of Frase using my exclusive link below:
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