How to use Jasper AI as your writing assistant

Jasper is arguably the biggest name in AI writing tools. In just over three years, what started as a way to create and test ads has become an AI marketing powerhouse. 

I’ve been using Jasper since it was called Conversion.ai, and it’s fascinating for me to see how much it’s developed since then.

I’m not here to talk about the quality of its output, since it’s running on the same models as many of its competitors. Instead, I’ll focus on how it works and the features it has that help make marketers better at their jobs.

With that, here’s a deep dive into Jasper.

How does Jasper AI work?

Jasper is built on top of custom, proprietary AI language models and other third-party models from companies like Google, Cohere, OpenAI, and Anthropic. It then combines the data from these models with your brand information and recent search data to produce the best quality outputs for your use case.

If you’re curious about how those models work, you can check out Zapier’s articles on natural language processing and how ChatGPT works. But for now, let’s keep it to how the app itself functions. Jasper works in two primary ways: you either start with an app (similar to a template) or you start with a blank document.

Jasper templates

Most AI text generators work with templates. You select a specific template (e.g., blog post, Facebook Ad, Amazon product description), provide some information about what you need, and click a button. That’s it. The tool spits out content, and it feels like magic every time. 

With Jasper, these templates are called apps, and they’re specifically designed by Jasper’s in-house team to help generate content for common marketing use cases. Click Discover apps to see the options.

Once you pick an app, it’ll ask you to answer a few questions to get some context before it generates the content. The apps are built to prompt you with the information they need instead of you prompting them, which removes the need to be skilled in prompt engineering. 

Here’s an example: I used the blog post app and asked Jasper to generate an article on this topic. After selecting the template, here’s what I saw.

I filled in all the fields, I hit Generate, and it returned some decent starting-point content outputs.

Jasper documents

If you’re like me and prefer creating content from scratch, select Create a document from your dashboard instead. It’ll open a blank document similar to Google Docs, where you can give Jasper instructions on what to write.

(Note: This blank document mode was formerly called Boss Mode, so you might see it described with that term in some places.) 

This view turns Jasper into a powerful AI assistant that takes instructions, and it also includes tools to make your content creation process easier. These tools include:

• Compose: When you click Jasper’s compose button (command + J on Mac or Ctrl + J on PC), the AI will read any text you’ve written before your cursor to spot patterns, instructions, and clues and then continue writing. 

• Ask Jasper: This gives you a quick and easy way to edit your content. Just select a portion of text, and click the Ask Jasper button that pops up to see a variety of options, including change tone, change length, repurpose content, translate, and create image. You can even specify your own edits in the text box.

  

• Remix: With remix, Jasper can turn your content into anything you want. Just provide the text, upload a document, or input a URL to repurpose existing content into new assets for different campaigns or channels.

  

• Chat: This turns Jasper into an AI chatbot like ChatGPT. But it has extra powers: the chatbot allows you to upload files and company assets to guide it in delivering outputs. This means you can teach the chatbot your tone of voice and style for a more personalized experience. Then, use the Enhance prompt option to refine your prompts and provide context on the output you’re looking for.

  

   

10 Jasper AI features to help you create content

Beyond the basic workflows, Jasper has all sorts of features that enhance the content creation process by speeding things up, personalizing the outputs, and adding even more bells and whistles. Here are my favorite Jasper features.

1. 80+ apps

Jasper has apps for creating content for all kinds of marketing functions, including product marketing, social media marketing, brand marketing, and lifecycle marketing. (I really like the content calendar and multi-channel campaign apps, but they’re reserved for users on the Business plan.) The apps are fine-tuned for the specific marketing role to ensure every output is precisely what you’re looking for.

You can sort the app library by marketing function, content type, funnel stage, and content process. You can even save apps and workflows and rerun them multiple times.

2. Custom apps

Jasper also offers custom apps and workflows developed for specific marketing needs. So, if you require an app not available in Jasper’s app suite, you can request a custom app tailored to your company. Jasper’s team can create dynamic apps for things like demand gen or product launch campaigns—all with your brand requirements, company guidelines, and output examples. 

3. Brand IQ

Thanks to Brand IQ, Jasper can create content that looks and sounds exactly like you. Brand IQ includes: brand voice, visual guidelines, and a style guide that allow you to infuse your brand’s personality into your AI-generated content.

Brand voice

You can train Jasper with your brand voice by giving it some text to imitate—and you can even create multiple “voices,” so it can produce different results depending on the medium you’re writing for. Of course, it’s still AI, so the outputs will still need some human love, but it gets you one step closer to having AI create truly unique content for you.

Visual guidelines

Visual guidelines ensure that every image you generate with Jasper aligns with your brand. The AI will ingest your brand rules, catch any violations, and recommend modifications to ensure consistency across all your content assets.

Style guide

With Jasper’s style guide, you can shorten your content review and compliance process. Set rules for grammar, punctuation, and organization terms, and easily apply them to all your content to ensure consistency even when you’re producing high-volume content.

4. Knowledge base

In addition to the Brand IQ, you can add even more company assets—think: content briefs, whitepapers, product information, audience information, and competitor research data—to Jasper’s knowledge base to teach it how to write about your business. 

This level of customization is a huge asset for advanced marketers: it ensures that every piece of content is unique, accurate, and on brand.

5. Browser extension

Lots of browser extensions for AI writing tools don’t really do much. But the Jasper browser extension actually carries the full power of Jasper with it (including the brand voice features). Once you install the extension on Chrome or Edge, you can generate, repurpose, translate, and edit content on any platform. 

6. SEO mode

You can enable SEO mode to access Jasper’s Surfer SEO integration while you’re generating content in documents. Though it comes at an extra cost, it helps you optimize your content for search ranking while you write—showing the Surfer analysis alongside your document.

(If you don’t want to spring for the Surfer integration, Jasper offers some SEO apps for creating optimized titles and meta descriptions, but Surfer will help you ensure you’re creating fully optimized content.)

6. AI image suite

Jasper offers a text-to-image generator that allows you to easily create striking, on-brand visuals. Once you describe your ideas, the AI art generator will take your prompt and turn it into a unique, royalty-free image. Impressively, the outputs are high-resolution, so they work well for different platforms, even print.

You can also import images from Unsplash or upload your picture to Jasper’s AI image suite and edit, reimagine, and transform them with AI editing tools. If you’re a retail brand or B2C company, Jasper’s image suite can help you produce product images at scale without needing a photographer.

8. Zapier integration

When you connect Jasper with Zapier, you can streamline your content production workflows, sending information between the apps you use to run your business. For example, automatically create blog posts or product descriptions, run commands, or summarize content in Jasper—all based on the actions you take in other apps.

Learn more about how to automate Jasper, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows—you can connect Jasper to thousands of other apps with Zapier.