Here’s a look at some of the current ChatGPT alternatives to illustrate how the AI landscape has changed since the chatbot first released.
When ChatGPT launched in late 2022, it was a novelty. It didn’t take long, however, for competition to come along.
Early on, there weren’t many ChatGPT alternatives available that weren’t in-house, research-based options or open source projects on GitHub that required some sort of coding knowledge to set up and operate. But since then, several companies have developed consumer products with free and paid tiers and a plethora of enterprise and developer options. So, if you aren’t satisfied with ChatGPT for whatever reason, these are the eight other options to try out instead.Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft Copilot has come a long way since its first chatbot iteration was released in early 2023. It was one of ChatGPT’s first commercial competitors when the brand introduced Bing AI Chat as an integration into its Bing Search engine and Edge browser. Since then, the company has rebranded its chatbot to Microsoft Copilot in its browser and also integrated its functionality across several services, including the Microsoft 365 productivity suite, Microsoft Designer, and the Windows operating system, among others. Microsoft also offers a paid Copilot Pro option for power users.
Notably, Copilot is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 large language model (LLM) and DALL-E image generation model due to Microsoft’s investment in the company. The brand includes a mix of its own proprietary technology within the chatbot, which differentiates its results from ChatGPT. Some consider its text results to be stronger due to being more directly connected to the internet, but claim that OpenAI produces stronger images natively with its models.Google Gemini
Google Gemini is another chatbot that has seen several versions, rebranding, and tiered options since its initial introduction. Google’s first AI endeavor was a research offering called Bard, which ran on Google’s LaMDA LLM and debuted in March 2023. Not long after, the brand made Google Duet available as an AI-inundated enterprise option for its Workspace apps, including Gmail, Drive, Slides, Docs, and others. By December 2023, Google upgraded the Bard language model to the Gemini LLM. In February, the company merged the Duet and Bard services into a single product, branding all of its AI options under the name Gemini.
Google now supports several LLM options that are available for different tiers of purpose and expertise, including Gemini Nano, Gemini Pro, Gemini Ultra, and Gemini Advanced. Gemini Pro powers the free Google Gemini chatbot that is the brand’s entry-level,web- and app-based AI product. Gemini Advanced powers the paid Google One AI Premium tier. The company recently released a public preview of the Gemini 1.5 Pro LLM that enables “hearing” capabilities when audio files, from which the chatbot can extract the text information, are uploaded to a system.
Gemini is a direct competitor for both ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot.
