How to Create a Thumbnail Using AI: Tool Comparison

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your perspective, Artificial Intelligence (AI) apps and engines are becoming increasingly skilled in basic graphic design. It is fortunate for people who are not very creative, talented, or skilled in this area and/or do not have a go-to designer to call upon. However, it is unfortunate for the millions of professional graphic designers who have fewer opportunities to generate revenue and earn a living.

One common, almost everyday task that digital marketers need to do on a regular basis is to create eye-catching thumbnail images to accompany their blog and social media posts. So, I thought I would experiment with different AI engines to compare the results.

Grok vs ChatGPT vs Claud vs Gemini

I gave the exact same instructions across these four AI tools:

Create a thumbnail image dimensions 436x338. Include the agileana logo in top left corner but ensure that this logo only takes up no more than 1/8th of the entire thumbnail. The subject of the thumbnail is "How to create a thumbnail with AI" and it will live on the insights page of the agileana.com website. Use your creativity and imagination to create an eye-catching thumbnail.

And, I uploaded this logo (below)

Here are the results

Grok

Grok didn't use the properly branded AGILEANA LOGO that I had uploaded. But, I do think the new logo it proposed is actually kind of cool. (Previously, if I wanted a new logo, I would go to something like 99designs and hold a logo competition. This normally would cost about $1,000-$1,500 USD depending on my incentives and the quality of designers. And, it is usually 2-3 days of intensive feedback across dozens of designers. While it is a fun process, it also sucks up a lot of my time.) Anyway, this was Grok's thumbnail. I also noticed when I crop the image to the exact dimension I requested, some critical portions are cut off.

ChatGPT

Moving onto ChatGPT. Chat did use my logo, so I appreciate it following my instructions. And, it was a bit more creative in how it put together icons, images, and symbols to convey the message. It is quite a bit more illustrative in its meaning than what came out of Grok. The image fits perfectly within the dimensions I requested without losing any important information.

Gemini (Nano Banana)

The thing about Gemini, which bugs me a bit is that it always drops a watermark of its abstract logo mark in the bottom right corner. It's a dead give-away that this was created not only by AI but also by Gemini. From a Google perspective, I guess this is good branding. But for me, I'm not sure if I want to co-brand with Google. Also, Gemini ignored my branding guidelines and came up with its own AGILEANA logo, and not a very impressive one. Gemini also wasn't very creative in conveying the meaning behind the message of, "How to create a thumbnail with AI." When I put it into the specified dimensions, the graphic seems to have shrunk a bit. Nothing was lost, but there is excess padding.

Claude

Finally, we have Claude's design. Claude complied with my branding guidelines to the T. It included what comes across as a hashtag or category, "AI-POWERED DESIGN." And, it provided a URL to my insights page, albeit incorrectly. The correct URL is agileana.com/blog. Other than that, Claude's version was not very illustrative in leveraging the concept that, "a photo is worth 1,000 words." I suppose if I was just looking for something to catch my eye without distractions, and perhaps something that doesn't scream: THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED USING AI, then Claude succeeded in giving me something that is eye-catching and subtle at the same time. I also noticed when I crop the image to the exact dimension I requested, some portions are obviously cut off, although nothing critical.

What do you think? Which is your favorite? And, what do you have to say about AI potentially displacing thousands of creative, talented, and skilled UI/UI and graphic designers? Also, if you see an article with an image that was obviously generated by AI, how often do you ignore that entire article? Do you immediately move on because you think the rest of the article was generated by AI? Or, do you not really think about things like this and just consume articles of interest? I would be curious to know your thoughts.

And if you need help with your AI transformation, give us a call; we have made a lot of headway in this area.