Indholdsfortegnelse for December 2025 i AI The Complete Manual

Artificial intelligence (AI) is all over the news lately, but what is it? What does it do? How can it improve your life? That’s what this book is all about. Over this series, we get to the heart of today’s AI platforms, with plain-English guides and fully illustrated tutorials. After a short explanation of how AI works and why it’s nothing to be afraid of, we show you how to use artificial intelligence to improve your writing, create pictures from scratch and get more from your photography and videography. Artificial intelligence can also help you control your smart home and organise your life, keep you fit and healthy and help you organise your finances. Look out too for our guides to AI and social media, how to use AI for…

1 This icon opens a sidebar, which gives access to tools and a history of previous ChatGPT requests. 2 Tap here for a pop-up window that lets you share, rename, archive or delete your current request, or open a details page about it. 3 Unsurprisingly, this icon opens a new ChatGPT page so you can start afresh. 4 Instructions given to ChatGPT are shown on the right, as seen here. 5 ChatGPT’s responses are shown in the main body of the page. Here we asked the AI to rewrite something we’d written. 6 These icons are, from left to right, Copy; Read Aloud; Mark the response with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down; Redo the response. 7 This text field is where you type your questions, requests, instructions and other such things to ChatGPT. If you want to get…

Setting Up 1 In this guide, we show you how to use the Grammarly mobile app. First of all, open your mobile device’s app store. We’re using an iPhone here, but the process is similar on Android phones. Install the Grammarly app. 2 Open the app and follow the on-screen instructions. When you get to the sign-up prompt, sign up for a free account. You can do so using services such as Apple or Google if you wish, alternatively use your email address. 3 Give the Grammarly keyboard full access by accepting this when asked. Make sure Grammarly has full access to keyboards in your Settings app. When you’ve done this, you’re ready to get started. Using Grammarly 1 Open the Grammarly app to see the demo document. To get started, tap the chevron…

1 Image Creator is a feature that’s found within the default Microsoft Paint app. First of all, open Microsoft Paint. If you don’t have this app on your PC, open the Microsoft Store (from the Start button) and download it. After it’s installed, click the Start button and launch it from there or click the app icon itself. 2 Make sure you’re signed into MS Paint with the same account you registered for MS365; click the icon in the top-right corner of MS Paint to sign in and out. Describe the image you want to create in the field in the right-hand sidebar. Be as specific as possible with your description to get the best results. 3 To use Image Creator, you need credits associated with a Microsoft 365 subscription. Click on Image…

1 We’re using a mobile device (an iPad) here, but the principles are the same for phones and computers. Open the Canva app, and create an account or log in. We’re using the free version here, but there is a Pro version too. 2 Tap the Make an Image button. Type what you want into the text field, and then tap the Create button. Canva produces a series of images based on your text. You can then modify the image with further requests if needed. 3 If you tap the Edit button on one of the created AI pictures, it’s opened in an editor that lets you make modifications to the image. You can make adjustments, remove the background, add effects and more. 4 There are three buttons underneath the text field. You can…

The Mobile Editing Process Explained Learn how to customise, edit, and enhance your photography by capitalising on the Photos App’s unique features. 1 Open the Google Photos app on your mobile device. Select the image you will customise from your gallery. When the image has opened in a new screen, tap the Edit link at the bottom of the screen to start the process. You can also search for similar images using the Lens link. 2 Click on the “Edit” icon. This will open up various editing tools, many of which will be familiar to the web app users, although those wishing to use the full editing suite are better catered for using this mobile version. For this guide, we will focus on the AI tools. 3 To start, let’s look at the…

Alexa, Siri and Google Home are AI-powered. They’re all designed to recognise conversational language, understanding a wide variety of accents and dialects, and parse it into instructions and queries. They’re designed to learn from their past conversations too, improving the way they interact with people based on past experience. And they’re growing as artificial intelligences too, with constant improvements and revisions. Google Home Google’s smart home platform is called Google Home, and like Apple and Amazon, the company has a range of smart speakers with which you can control it. The Nest range consists of two models; Nest Audio and the smaller, cheaper, Nest Mini. Nest Audio’s woofer, tweeter, and tuning software bring you crisp vocals and a deep bass. It’s 75% louder than the original Google Home, and has…

Your Nest, HomePod or Echo can do more than control your smart home. By linking it to your music streaming service of choice, you can also use it to listen to tunes using commands such as ‘Hey Siri, play some Sixties music,’ ‘Alexa, play Motörhead’ or ‘OK Google, play We Can’t Be Friends by Ariana Grande.’ Apple Music www.apple.com £10.99, $10.99, 10,99 € per month With Apple Music you can choose from a huge library of 100 million tracks. It’s fine for Alexa and Google Nest devices as well as HomePods. You get a month free when you subscribe, but there’s no free demo or trial tier. Amazon Music www.amazon.com Free or £11.99, $11.99, 10,99 € per month This one has an ad-supported free tier and a 90-day free trial…

1 DishGen is easy to use. In the text field, type in the ingredients you want to use for your recipe. Then click the Generate button, and let the AI do its work. 2 When DishGen has finished thinking, scroll up and see a recipe that’s been produced for you. You get three demo recipes before you need an account. 3 There are three tiers of account to choose from. Basic is free, Premium is £7.99/$7.99 a month and Pro is £15.99/$15.99 a month. Chose one and click its button to start. 4 We’re creating a free account here, which gives us 15 credits a month for free (creating or modifying a recipe costs one credit). Follow the on-screen instructions to register your unique user account. 5 Now you have an account, if you want…

1 Where do you want to go? How long do you have to travel? How much do you have to spend? These are the sort of factors covered by the Curioso site. 2 Start by choosing a country. You can then choose a round trip, a one-way trip or a trip that takes you to a specific destination. After choosing, click Get Trip. 3 After confirming you’re not a bot, you’re presented with a series of trip plans, of varying lengths and costs. Choose one of these, or add more details and click Get to replan the entire trip again. 4 When you’re ready, click on one of the trips generated by the site’s artificial intelligence. To improve the experience you’re given photographs, points of interest, distance in miles and KM and more. 5 You’re…

Abby https://abby.gg Free Are you stressed or struggling? Do you need to reach out for help? Abby is an online AI-powered therapy chatbot who offers non-judgemental help and advice. It’s available 24/7, and is fully anonymous. It’s available in 26 languages too. Go to https://abby.gg and click the Talk with Abby button. Therapeak https://therapeak.online £69/$89/79 € Per four weeks Therapeak offers ‘traditional therapy using modern tools.’ Open the website in your browser and answer a few questions, and it creates an AI chatbot for you. You get a free ten-minute session, and if you choose to subscribe, you can chat for up to 30 minutes a day with each session generating a detailed report which you can read back and use to track your progress. Replika https://replika.com £7.99/$7.99/6.99 € per…

Shen.AI is ‘AI health monitoring designed for healthcare and insurance leaders.’ As a result, it’s currently very expensive, being tailored for companies rather than individuals. After 30 free days, it costs £750/$750 for the Core service, £1500/$1500 for the Professional tier and prices on arrangement for the top-of-the-range Enterprise level. The service measures over 30 health markers using your smartphone’s or tablet’s in-built camera. It takes around a minute to scan your face, after which it gives an analysis including (depending on the plan) Heart Rate, Heart Rate Variability, Breathing Rate, Stress Index, Parasympathetic Activity, Blood Pressure, Cardiac Workload, BMI and more. Health indices include Wellness Score, Vascular Age, Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease and Cardiovascular Event Risk. For all-round health, it also takes into account your Waist-to-Height Ratio, Body Fat Percentage,…

If you’re able, pick up your phone, activate it, and ask either Siri or the Google Assistant a simple question. Now ask it a more complicated question. You’ve just talked to an AI system designed to listen out for your voice, analyse what’s being asked and respond to it in an appropriate fashion. Significantly, it also learns from what’s being asked. The Google Assistant, Siri, Cortana, Alexa, and whatever else is available now, are all cloud-based natural language intelligent bots that use the complex computing capabilities of the cloud to provide a personalised consumer experience. There are two sides to the AI coin: the intelligence side that, when asked something, knows what to do or can work out what needs to be done, and the learning side, that will actively…

Signing Up for An Account 1 Point your web browser at https://scribehow.com/scribe-ai. It’s best to use Google Chrome, as we need a Chrome extension. Click Get Started or the Try Scribe Free. You’re then taken through the sign-up procedure. Follow the on-screen prompts and fill in your details. 2 Click the Extensions icon (the jigsaw piece in the top right of the Chrome browser). In the pop-up menu, click Manage Extensions, then click the Chrome Web Store link on the left. Now search for ‘Scribe’ to get to the Scribe AI extension page. Click the Add to Chrome button. Using Scribe 1 You’re now ready to start using Scribe AI. This is done by carrying out processes on your screen, and letting the AI follow your actions. Click the Create your first Scribe…

The Image Playground App 1 Open the Image Playground app. If you don’t have it, download it from the App Store. You see a blank page; it’s time to make a picture. Remember, at the time of writing Image Playground is still in beta, so the results you get as you follow this tutorial might not be exactly what you expected, but it’s improving all the time. 2 First of all, let’s describe a scene and get Image Playground to draw it for you. Tap the field called ‘Describe an image’ and type what it is you want the picture to show. When you’ve typed it, tap the arrow key to the right of the text field and Image Playground makes it for you. Here we asked for an image of a…

1 First of all, in the text field found on the Adobe Firefly website, click the chevron found in the left-hand side. This lets you switch between Image and Video. To start with, let’s create an AI generated image. 2 In the text field, write what it is you want Firefly to create, then click the Generate button. You might have to log in to your Adobe account, and you’ll have to accept terms first time you do this. 3 Firefly generates images based on your request. It’s pretty quick too. Hover over one of the images and click the pencil for a menu that lets you further develop/customise the picture in several ways. 4 The Upscale option increases the images’ resolutions. Download All downloads all of the images to your computer (you can…

1 Sign in or create an account. On the main screen, in the left-hand sidebar, the top option is labelled Model or Character. Click the Switch button to choose someone on which to base your AI pictures. Over 100 are available. 2 The next section of the sidebar is Prompt, the text field where you describe what it is you want in your picture. Below this are options such as changing the aspect ratio, image options such as pose guidance and more. 3 When you’re ready, click the Create button. The pictures are generated – it might take a while. When they’re done, you can click on one of them to open it. Editing options are available; expanding the picture is a useful one. 4 The Edit People option is useful too. Draw over…

1 Go to www.descript.com, click Get Started for Free and choose a few options. You have to choose a free or paid-for tier on the website too. When you’re done, the Descript app download begins. 2 When you first launch the app, you’re asked what it is you want to do. Let’s take a look at the Text to Al video option. Click it to release a new pop-up window inviting you to describe an idea for a video. 3 Type what it is you want the video to contain. You can write a script and have it read in the video, as well as describing images. Choose a style and an aspect ratio from the menus, then click Generate AI Video. 4 If you’re using a script in the video, you can train…

Smart lighting devices are able to communicate with other devices, allowing you to control them remotely. This might be as simple as having a mobile phone app that lets you turn them on and off, but it’s lighting that can be voice-operated using smart home tech like Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit and Google Home we’re interested in here. Tapo Smart Bulb www.tapo.com £23.99, $24.99, 19,90 € Available in bayonet or screw-in fitting, these smart bulbs work with Alexa and Google Home, and let you change the colour and temperature of your lighting. There’s 16,000,000 hues to choose from. Nanoleaf Blocks Combo XL Starter Kit www.nanoleaf.me £179.99, $199.99, 199,99 € Maximise desk space and stay clear of clutter with space-saving Shelves and Light Pegboards all while letting your items shine! Eve…

eufy Omni C20, Robot Vacuum Cleaner with Mop www.eufy.com £599, $699.99, 599 € This clever little robot offers fully automated cleaning, with auto emptying, washing and drying. It has powerful suction for carpets and a handy mop for hard floors. Lefant M210P Robot Vacuum Cleaner www.lefant.com £239.99, $209.99, 179,95 € This self-charging vacuum features Alexa voice control, and is perfect for pet hair. It’s only 28cm in diameter, and it has an anti-collision infra-red sensor. UBPET 22000 Pa Suction Robot Vacuum Cleaner for Pet Hair ubpet.ubtrobot.com £349.99, $499.99, 349,99 € If you have dogs or cats in the house, this is the robot vacuum cleaner for you. It’s perfect for pet hair, and it features intelligent navigation with LiDAR technology. DREAME X50 Ultra Complete Robot Vacuum with Mop global.dreametech.com £1,299,…

1 Motion is accessed through a web browser, but there’s an app for Macs and Windows. During setup, you should connect your Motion account with via your system’s Calendar app. 2 Enter your daily tasks, meetings, to-dos and projects into the Motion app (or web portal, if you prefer) and Motion sorts them into groups, adding events and appointments from your linked calendars. 3 The app uses artificial intelligence to assign content you’ve edited and details taken from your calendar a priority, based on due date and other factors. It’s all done automatically through Motion. 4 Click the New button to start a new Task, Doc, Project or Meeting. If you describe what you’re trying to do in a project, Motion’s AI can break it down into a listing of seperate tasks for you.…

1 Point your browser at www.amio.io. Amio is a chatbot designed for use on e-commerce sites, to interact with your customers and boost product discoverability. 2 To get an idea what a chatbot can do, click the button with the two speech bubbles in the bottom-right corner. A window appears, in which you can ask questions. 3 Ask Amio questions about its services and features, and the chatbot answers them. It doesn’t take long, and the answers are curated with the bot’s artificial intelligence. 4 You can ask follow-up questions too, just as if the chatbot was a human being and is very well intergrated. Here we asked if you could use Amio with Wordpress, and followed with ‘What about Etsy?’. 5 If you’re interested in taking things further, click the Book a Demo button…

Setting Up 1 You can use monday.com from your computer’s web browser, or using a dedicated smartphone app. We’re using the iPhone app here, but it’s available on Android as well. Open the app, and create a new account. Here we’re using the free payment tier; you can upgrade later if you wish. 2 Follow the on-screen instructions as you’re taken through the setup process. You’re asked questions about how you intend to use Monday.com. You can skip this if you wish, and get straight to using the app, but answering the questions might help you to get started. 3 You’re then asked to name your first board. The boards are where your content is managed, so name it for the project you’re currently working on. When you’re done, tap Next and you…

What is DxGPT? 1 DxGPT is an experimal AI-powered medical diagnostic support system. It’s the work of Foundation 29, a non-profit organisation ‘committed to improving the lives of people living with rare and chronic diseases.’ Read about it at www.foundation29.org. 2 You can use DxGPT for free at https://dxgpt.app. The main advantage of this online diagnostic tool is that as it’s based on a huge database of medical conditions, including 10,000 rare diseases of which your doctor might not be familiar. 3 DxGPT is completely automated – you can’t use it to talk to a human doctor. Even so, its accuracy is very good, and, as a huge bonus, all information typed into the chatbot is strictly confidential, with sensitive information anonymised before being saved. 4 No AI chatbot should be used in a…

1 As you might expect, the first thing you should do is describe your symptoms in the text field. Be as clear as possible, and make sure you tell Dougall GPT how long these symptoms have been with you. After typing, press the red Send button to continue. 2 Your enquiry should take the form of a question. If you don’t get what you need, you can click on the pencil in the right-hand side of your sent message to have it returned to the input field, where you can edit your information and then resend it. 3 Dougall GPT offers supplementary questions listed as Related Prompts at the foot of the screen. If one of them interests you, click on it and the platform offers even more information related to your symptoms…

Using Writing Tools 1 Writing Tools can be used almost anywhere in macOS where you can write. Here we’re using it in the Mail app, but you can also use them in Pages, Notes and more. First of all, you need to write something. Writing Tools cannot (yet) generate original text for you, but it can revise text you’ve previously written. 2 When you’ve finished your first draft of whatever it is you’re writing (here, it’s an email), tap the Writing Tools icon which is found in the toolbar at the top of the email window. This brings up the Writing Tools window, from where you can choose how to manipulate, rewrite or simply AI proofread your piece of text. 3 First of all, we’ll take you through the uses of the Proofread…

1 Open the website https://myninja.ai. You can sign in for an account if you want. As is usual for AI assistants, there’s a free tier and paid-for programmes that offer more features and facilities. If you want to upgrade, you can choose Business or Individual plans. 2 Give Ninja AI a task to do. Here, we’re asking it to write a letter thanking relatives for attending a wedding. After a little thought, it delivers on your request. At the top of the response is a guide to its thought processes, and how it came up with what it’s offering. 3 As you can see, in this case, several different letters were produced, each with its own character and contents. You can choose between a formal letter, something more personal, specific thanks for helping…

1 Creating a picture with ChatGPT is easy. All you have to do is ask. At its simplest, just type ‘Draw a picture of [subject] and ChatGPT will do it for you. It might take a while to create it, though. 2 After the picture has been created, you can modify it with further instructions if you wish. Treat ChatGPT as a person. Whatever it is you want, just ask, and the AI will recalculate and redraw. 3 You can get ChatGPT to use a variety of art styles for your pictures. After your instruction – or as a followup – ask for a pencil sketch, watercolour, oil painting or whatever it is you prefer. 4 If you tap the plus icon in the bottom left corner of the screen, you can upload an…

1 Log in through Facebook and your Facebook avatar appears here. 2 The cog icon here opens the Settings pop-up window. Use it to access the Settings panel, Al demos, Al Studio and to Log out of your Facebook account. 3 Open and close the left-hand sidebar here. You might want to close it if you’re using a small screen, and need the extra space for your AI work. 4 Click here – or press CMD-K – to open a new input window and start a new conversation with Meta AI. 5 The Home button takes you back to the page you see here. 6 Would you like to see what Meta AI can do, including answering questions and creating art? Click Discover to see some examples. 8 Your history with Meta AI for the last seven…

Remove Unwanted Features 1 In the Photos app, find and open the picture you want to edit and then tap the Edit button, found in the top-right corner. On the next screen, tap the new option, Clean Up, found in the toolbar at the top. 2 After a few seconds, items you might want to remove are identified. Click one you do indeed want gone. Apple Intelligence removes it and fills in the background behind it, so it looks like it was never there. 3 If there are any features Apple Intelligence hasn’t identified as something you might want to remove, click and drag over that particular feature to remove it manually instead. 4 Get it basically right, and Apple Intelligence will know what you mean. A feature identified in this way is removed,…

1 You can try out Invideo without paying for an account. Click the Try Invideo AI button, and then sign in with Apple or Google, or create an account. When done, type what it is you want the video to contain. 2 When you’re ready, click Generate a Video. After a while, you’re offered some options. You can choose how the video looks (realistic, cartoony or anime), how long it is, what platform it’s for and so on. 3 Continue when ready. The video generates. On a paid for tier, it can be 100% AI generated, but if you’re using the free service, stock footage is incorporated. There are watermarks if you used the free tier. 4 You can download the video to your computer, but on the free tier there are limits. As…

Google Nest Doorbell, 2nd Gen store.google.com £168.60, $179.99, 197,43 € Doorbells with video cameras are nothing new, but this one uses artificial intelligence to distinguish between humans at your door and other movement. Ultion Nuki www.ultion-lock.co.uk £255, 269 € A smart door lock with Wi-Fi and Matter for remote access. You can assign up to 200 individual access authorisations, each with their own rules. Eve Motion Wireless Motion Sensor www.evehome.com £44.95, $48.54, 49,95 € With IPX3 water resistance, you can use this Matter-enabled motion detector indoors or out. Integrate it into your smart home and you can have it turn the lights on as soon as you arrive home too. Eve Door & Window www.evehome.com £34.95, $67.91, 37,30 € Use Alexa or an app to check at a glance whether…

1 Otter.ai takes automated meeting notes which have been generated by apps such as Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and more. It records audio and transcribes it to text. 2 Meeting notes are summarised, so you can get the gist of what was said. If you want to listen to a part of it, you can search the text rather than having to scrub through the whole audio file. 3 You can have Otter.ai summarise a meeting in an email, and send it out to the people who were in the meeting. It’s much easier than doing it by hand. 4 Not only are meetings transcribed for later reading, but Otter.ai also produces a list of Action Items, that is, tasks that must be undertaken, as identified in the meeting. 5 If you need a…

1 Roam Around is easy to use. Open the app, and enter a destination, the number of days you want to spend and some personalisation ideas for the trip. 2 Tap the Plan a Trip button. As this is the first time you used the app, you have to log in. Follow the on-screen instructions to make and set up a new account. 3 You’re given an itinerary, offering a schedule created by the Plan a Trip artificial intelligence. Things to see and do are offered for every day of your trip. 4 Scroll down for some points of interest in your intended locale, based on the choices you made regarding your destination and customising factors. 5 Each point of interest includes a score out of five, and where possible, links to a website, telephone…

CuboAi Smart Baby Monitor 3 https://uk.getcubo.com £279/$329/289 € Who needs sleep more than a baby? This AI-powered baby camera and app can analyse your child’s sleep patterns as well as basic monitoring features. It also offers growth tracking and continuous body temperature alerts. OURA Ring 4 https://ouraring.com From £349/$342/399 € This handy wearable gives in-depth sleep analysis, including blood oxygen levels. It’s available in seven finishes and a range of sizes. There’s a membership subscription for the entire range of analytics, but the sleep tracker is included in the free tier. WHOOP www.whoop.com From £169/$199/199 € a year As well as being a great sleep monitor, WHOOP gives you an all-round picture of your health. A screen-free device worn on the wrist, it analyses millions of data points all day…