Looking for an AI chatbot that can help lighten your workload, from writing emails to generating code, images, and more? Here are your best options and what they can do for you.
Since the launch of ChatGPT, AI chatbots have been a hot topic because of their ability to do a wide range of tasks that can help you with your personal and work life. AI chatbots can write code, compose emails, draft a report, generate art, write Excel formulas, and much more at your command.
ChatGPT achieved worldwide recognition, motivating competitors to create their own versions. As a result, there are many options on the market with different strengths, use cases, difficulty levels, and other nuances.
This list details everything you need to know before choosing your next AI assistant, including what it’s best for, pros, cons, cost, its large language model (LLM), and more. Whether you are entirely new to AI chatbots or a regular user, this list should help you discover a new option you haven’t tried before.
In May 2024, OpenAI supercharged the free version of ChatGPT, solving its biggest pain points and lapping other AI chatbots on the market. For that reason, ChatGPT moved to the top of the list, making it the best AI chatbot available now. Keep reading to discover why and how it compares to Copilot, You.com, Perplexity, and more.
ChatGPT Best AI chatbot overall
ChatGPT is a hugely successful conversational AI chatbot released in November 2022 by OpenAI. It has advanced capabilities, such as performing writing tasks well, including composing emails, essays, resumes, and lists. It is also highly proficient in STEM tasks like writing and debugging code and solving complex math equations.
Copilot outperformed earlier versions of ChatGPT because it addressed some of ChatGPT’s biggest pain points at the time, including no access to the internet and a knowledge cutoff.
However, in May 2024, OpenAI supercharged its AI chatbot, solving all those problems and giving it some of the most competitive features on the market — primarily its latest LLM GPT-4o, which provides the chatbot with web browsing, vision, data analysis, file uploads, and GPTs.
Many of those features were previously limited to ChatGPT Plus, the chatbot’s subscription tier, making the recent update a huge win for free users.
Getting started with ChatGPT is easier than ever since OpenAI stopped requiring users to log in. Now, you can start chatting with ChatGPT simply by visiting its website. However, if you want to access the advanced features, you must sign in, and creating a free account is easy.
ChatGPT features: Uses OpenAI’s GPT-4o or GPT-4o mini when at capacity | Can generate text, solve math problems, and code | Impressive conversation capabilities | Free to the public
Microsoft Copilot Best ChatGPT alternative
In February 2023, Microsoft unveiled a new AI-improved Bing, now known as Copilot. This tool runs on GPT-4 Turbo, which means that Copilot has the same intelligence as ChatGPT, which runs on GPT-4o.
The only major difference between these two LLMs is the “o” in GPT-4o, which refers to ChatGPT’s advanced multimodal capabilities. These skills allow it to understand text, audio, image, and video inputs, and output text, audio, and images.
Besides those capabilities, Copilot already had most of the features the free version of ChatGPT gained in the latest update, including access to current events, attribution (or linking to the sources it retrieved from), browsing the internet, uploading images and documents, generating images, and more.
Copilot is the best ChatGPT alternative as it has almost all the same benefits. Copilot is free to use, and getting started is as easy as visiting the Copilot standalone website. The tool also has an app and is accessible via Bing.
Copilot features: OpenAI GPT-4 Turbo | Has access to the internet | Works like a search engine with information on current events | Free
Anthrophic’s Claude Best AI chatbot for chatting
Anthropic launched its first AI assistant, Claude, in February 2023. Like the other leading competitors, Anthropic can conversationally answer prompts for anything you need assistance with, including coding, math, writing, research, and more.
Although I have given this chatbot different superlatives in the past, including the best AI chatbot for image interpretation, I would say that at the moment, the biggest advantage of this chatbot is its conversational capabilities.
Chatting with the chatbot seems the most similar to talking with a human or a tutor, with the chatbot asking follow-up questions to ensure it can assist you best, in addition to outputting a strong, meaningful answer.
For example, when asked, “What is the meaning of life?” after outputting its answer, the chatbot asks, “Would you like me to elaborate on any of these perspectives or explore this question further?” When ChatGPT was prompted with the same question, it did not output a follow-up question.
Claude features: Powered by Claude 3 model family | Accepts document uploads | Trained with information up to 2023 | Free
Perplexity.ai Best AI chatbot for search
Perplexity AI is a free AI chatbot connected to the internet that provides sources and has an enjoyable UI. As soon as you visit the site, using the chatbot is straightforward — type your prompt into the “ask anything” box to get started.
A title above the textbox reads, “Where knowledge begins”, and it could not be more fitting.
When you click on the textbox, the tool offers a series of suggested prompts, mostly rooted in news. The chatbot also displays suggested prompts on evergreen topics underneath the box. All you have to do is click on the suggestions to learn more about the topic and chat about it. Additionally, Perplexity provides related topic questions you can click on to keep the conversation going.
These extensive prompts make Perplexity a great chatbot for exploring topics you wouldn’t have thought about before, encouraging discovery and experimentation. I explored random topics, including the history of birthday cakes, and I enjoyed every second.
Perplexity AI features: OpenAI GPT-4 Turbo and Claude 3 Sonnet and Opus for subscribers | Has access to the internet and current events | Provides prompt suggestions to get chats started | Free
Jasper Best AI chatbot for businesses and marketers
With Jasper, you can input a prompt for the text you want written, and it will write it for you, just like ChatGPT would.
