Transform Text to Visuals in 3️⃣ Clicks with Napkin AI 🧻 Hurry! Beta is FREE (For Now)

EDITOR’S NOTE

I work with many founders on their personal branding strategies, and one of the common problems they face is finding good images for their posts.

One such founder, let’s call her Radhika, an aspiring LinkedIn influencer, was hitting a wall. Her posts, filled with insightful career advice, were struggling to gain traction. She knew the content was solid, but it lacked something to make it stand out in the endless scroll.

One day, while brainstorming ideas, we came across Napkin.ai. Intrigued, we gave it a try. She typed in a few bullet points about the importance of networking, and within seconds, Napkin transformed her text into a vibrant mind map, complete with colorful branches and connections.

Our eyes lit up!

This was the visual spark her posts needed. With Napkin AI, she could now effortlessly translate her ideas into eye-catching diagrams, flowcharts, and mind maps.

Hello, Nanobiters!
Welcome to another edition of Nanobits Product Spotlight!

Today, we will explore how napkin.ai can help you convert boring texts into engaging visual content.

It empowered Radhika to transform her ideas into engaging visuals, making her content not just easier to understand but impossible to ignore. Her posts began to attract attention, shares, and comments.

Finally, her LinkedIn influence was on the rise.

📣 New Episode Drop of The Third Eye of AI Podcast

The Third Eye of AI podcast is back with Episode 4!

In this episode, Vignesh goes beyond the hype, explaining what AI agents truly are, how they evolved from large language models, and their potential to revolutionize industries.

Discover how agents transform search, automate tasks, and raise important ethical considerations.

Here’s what you can expect:

→ The reality behind the hype: Are autonomous agents truly equipped to change the world?
→ Demystifying AI agents: Understanding their core capabilities and limitations
→ The evolution of LLMs: From simple autocomplete to powerful agents
→ The transformative impact of agents on search and personalization
→ The ethical considerations surrounding AI agents and their growing capabilities
→ The state of investment in Deep Tech in India

WHAT IS NAPKIN AI?

Imagine having a paper napkin on which you can scribble down your thoughts, and they magically transform into digital, eye-catching visuals.

That's Napkin AI in a nutshell.

It's a text-to-visual tool that converts plain text into diagrams, flowcharts, mind maps—you name it.

Napkin AI is part of the exciting wave of AI startups riding the generative AI boom.

It's not about crunching numbers and spitting out charts like a traditional data visualization tool. Think of it more as your creative sidekick/junior graphic designer, helping you visually express ideas and concepts, or just a to-do list.

Whether you're crafting a presentation that needs some pizzazz, sprucing up a blog post, or even tackling design documentation, Napkin AI adds that visual flair that makes your content pop.

HOW CAN YOU USE NAPKIN AI?

Napkin AI isn't just about making things look pretty – although it does that exceptionally well.

It unlocks the power of visual communication across various platforms and purposes.

Napkin AI can create various types of content, including timelines, bar charts, and other visuals, for web pages, newsletters, blog posts, and social media.

Presentations that Wow: Forget boring slides filled with bullet points. Napkin AI transforms your key points into dynamic visuals that captivate your audience and make your message unforgettable.

Blog Posts that Pop: Break up those walls of text with eye-catching diagrams and flowcharts. Napkin AI helps you explain complex topics in a way that's both engaging and easy to digest.

Social Media that Sizzles: Stand out in the crowded social media landscape with striking visuals that stop the scroll. Napkin AI helps you create shareable content that gets noticed.

Documents that Deliver: Whether it's a report, proposal, or educational material, Napkin AI adds clarity and impact. Your documents will look professional and polished, making your ideas shine.

WHO IS NAPKIN AI FOR?

Napkin AI is a game-changing tool for anyone who wants their ideas to be seen, understood, and remembered.

• Content Creators: Bloggers, social media managers, and anyone creating online content can use Napkin AI to elevate their visuals and boost engagement.

• Educators: Teachers and trainers can create visually rich lesson plans and presentations that capture students' attention and enhance learning.

• Business Professionals: From marketing teams to sales reps, Napkin AI helps create compelling presentations, reports, and proposals that leave a lasting impression.

• Students: Say goodbye to dull assignments! Napkin AI helps students organize their thoughts and present information visually appealingly.

In short, if you're someone who communicates ideas - and who isn't? - Napkin AI is your new best friend.

EXPERIMENTS WITH NAPKIN AI

Social Media

I conducted two experiments with social media posts. I provided the text myself in the first, and in the second, I used AI to generate the text. 

With the text I provided

For the initial set of graphics, I drew inspiration from a post by Maja Voje, a recognized expert in GTM (Go-To-Market) strategy. Here are the results:

You might need to browse a bit to find the ideal graphic for your text but trust me; it's worth the effort. As you explore Napkin AI further, you'll discover some truly impressive visuals.

One thing I would've loved was the ability to customize my graphics with different colors, but it was all right for now.

With AI-generated text?

I didn’t prompt-engineer a lot and provided a very basic prompt: Write a LinkedIn post in 300 words explaining the concept of Prompt Engineering.

The text generated was quite unimpressive. But the visual was very apt.

This was another image that I generated:

EXPERIMENTS WITH NAPKIN AI

Blog Posts

I used the AI generator to write a blog on ‘Picking the Right Data Platform for Your Data Team’.

As usual, the text generated was not impressive. Surprisingly, the graphic choices were also quite limited in this case. The graphics shown in the above image were the only ones that were presented.

Nanobits Newsletter

In most of my "AI Alphabet" newsletters, I trace the history of the AI concept, from its origins and development to its current applications.

More often than not, I struggle to represent it visually. So, I thought of trying out Napkin AI to help me with the necessary graphics.

Since the edition on Neuralink was such a hit with our readers, I will use the section on “A Brief History of BCIs“ to generate graphics on Napkin AI.

Normally, creating something like this in Canva would take me 20-30 minutes, but Napkin did it in seconds, and the results were impressive 😃

EXPERIMENTS WITH NAPKIN AI

Presentations

I pulled an old presentation that I made using tome.ai for an old client of mine.

As you can see, my original slide was structured but wordy.

I transferred the text on the slide to Napkin AI and generated the following graphics:

I wished I didn’t have to copy-paste blocks of text from the presentation to the Napkin. It was a tedious task! A better input alternative would have been a screenshot of the slide or a Napkin AI plug-in in Google Slides.

Nevertheless, I recreated the slide with the new graphics to compare, and it's way easier to digest now, rather than having people's eyes glaze over with a big block of text.

EXPERIMENTS WITH NAPKIN AI

Data and Graphs

Imagine you're creating a marketing report in a Word Document or Google Slides and want to focus on specific key performance metrics.

The best part is these graphs are editable. You can edit the percentages right from the image.

PRICING

The tool is currently in beta and offers the Pro Plan for free. You can make as many graphics as possible on a desktop browser.

More premium features may come later.

ALTERNATIVES

The landscape of graphic design and visual creation software is vast, with established players like Adobe and Canva holding significant market share.

Both companies are actively exploring AI-powered tools, including image generators like Firefly and Magic Media, with mixed results.

Having personally tested and reviewed numerous AI creative services, I believe Napkin AI has the potential to carve out its niche in this competitive arena.

Napkin saves time compared to Canva. But it wouldn't be surprising if Canva developed a similar feature, as it seems like a logical extension of their offerings.

Another interesting alternative is ChatGPT’s Data Analyst Custom GPT, which lets you upload a data set and provides preliminary analysis and visuals.

NANOBITS VERDICT

• Ease of use - 8/10

• Features - 6/10

• Price - 10/10

• Speed - 7/10

Things that worked well:

1. Clean, intuitive, and simple UI that requires no prior graphic design skills.

2. Creates visuals for various platforms and purposes, from YouTube videos to presentations.

3. Saves time by automating the graphic design process.

4. Tailor-generated graphics to your specific needs and preferences.

5. During the beta phase, you can access the powerful Pro Plan features completely free.

6. You don’t usually have to write any prompts; it automatically creates visuals based on your provided text.

Things that can be improved:

1. More customization options, especially custom colors and fonts.

2. Integrations (plug-ins) with other text-process software, like Google Suite.

3. The took doesn’t understand the formatting style of the text provided, like bullets, return keys, new paragraphs, etc. It always generates graphics for a small section of the text provided.

4. While Napkin AI's suggestions are generally helpful, there were instances where the generated visuals didn't quite align with the concept I was trying to convey. Some visuals were also overly simplistic, offering limited visual value.

5. At present, editing or creating graphics on mobile devices isn't possible.

6. Napkin AI is still evolving. The in-app resources and guidance are somewhat limited compared to more established tools.

AI-powered creative tools, including Napkin AI, repeatedly remind us of the indispensable role of human judgment and strategy.

Generating hundreds of graphics is meaningless without a deep understanding of your audience and the message you want to convey. Napkin AI is a powerful tool, but its true potential is unlocked by a thoughtful human hand.

With its promise and exciting roadmap for future features, Napkin AI has the potential to transform how we communicate visually.

I'm eager to witness its continued growth and the innovative ways content creators will leverage this technology to bring their ideas to life.

I highly recommend Napkin AI for content creators and will use it personally.

Since they are in the Beta phase, their Pro Plan is free. You should use this opportunity and check out napkin.ai and see how it can help you achieve your goals.